The worrying thing is Sven does not act quick enough. We are realising things a lot sooner than him.
Firstly, poor old Nugent, he did work hard but was given **** all to work with. His finishing isn't the best anyway though and I'm struggling to see him worthy of a starting place in a automatic promotion chasing team.
Why the hell have we started the season without a quality goalscorer, something Sven himself knows we need. We have had all summer to sort this out. So much for spending money, we were tight-arses when it came to Maynard and as I predicted it's looking a big mistake. 2 League games or 20 league games, it's clear we don't have the pace, quality or finishing needed to be a top 2 side.
Also as I said last week, we needed to play a positive attacking system. But no, Sven persisted with 2 defensive minded midfielders, and even Danns was far more effective at chasing and tackling than he was at anything creative. I'm really starting to get fed up with Abe, I can't see his worth to the team at all. Yes he chases (though he looked knackered today) but we have Fernandes for that - and he's twice as good at that as well as tackling. He's surplus to requirements in that area. Why did we not start with King? Yes I know he played **** when he came on, but if we had started someone who scored 15 goals last season from midfield and he played ****, then we could hold our hands up and just say he played ****. And where was Danns playing? I'm convinced he started in the front 3 but was too deep and central. Why is that? Because he's being played out of position. That is very easy to see.
Players we looking up for options today and seeing no movement or passes whatsoever. Pantsil and Konchesky did their best to get forward but even when they got to the box, there was no ****er in the box! Even Nugent wasn't in there at times.
We did not spend all this money to play this negatively and bore the fans. We want to see good passing, movement, shots, pace, creativity. There was none of that today, and it's not really about gelling, it's about having the wrong players on the pitch. Square pegs in round holes, defensive players swamping the midfield.
On the positive side, apart from the 2 goals I thought we defended tremendously well. They were always going to be dangerous on the break but I thought we dealt with it well. That's why it was so disapponting to see us concede such a **** goal - anyone now who was supposed to be marking Hunt?
Our ball winning in the middle of the park is exactly what we were missing last season - they never looked like running through us. This is mainly down to Fernandes, he chased up and down all day and got some great tackles in. And once he won it, he picked a good pass. He looks a brilliant player.
Again, annoyingly, there weren't many terrible individual performances. Schmeichel, Bamba and Fernandes were excellent. Wellens and Konchesky were decent, but had no options ahead of them. Pantsil was hit and miss but OK. Schlupp looked dangerous when he had the ball (the roar when he picked it up was unbelievable) but sadly I think the nerves got to him. I'm confident he will be good in time though, at least he can skin a player, how many of the others can do that? Abe and Mills were the only 2 who were pretty shocking, and King when he came on.
We now know that Mills cannot pass to save his life, but in fairness he didn't do much wrong defensively. Having said that him giving the ball away non-stop was a massive hinderence, Sven needs to get him to play it short unless he's under pressure, because it's doing us no good at all.
The subs didn't do much but at least they were playing further forward and giving the people on the ball options. Had Gally and King played from the start I think things would have been different.
But the bottom line is we are not playing the right way, you only have to look at Reading today to see what we're desperately lacking, look at their wingers, Kebe and McAnuff, they can beat a man and create something. We need a striker and a winger very soon, if Sven hasn't brought these 2 ingredients in before the Forest game I will be very concerned. We must play a lot better football if we want to be a top 2 side.
