For what it's worth here's my assessment..... Lloris 5 Trippier 6 Sanchez 4 (oh dear....) Verts 7 Davies 5 (and lucky to be on ....) Dier 4 (dreadful) Dembele 5 (poor first 30 minutes and invisible last 20) Lamela 4 (added nothing for 70 minutes) Eriksen 6 (5 w/o the goal) Dele 6 (drifted in and out) Kane 4 (was he playing)?) Son 6 Moura 8 Sissoko 6 But apart from that I thought we were excellent
Losing no, I agree. Citeh are where they are for a reason. But the manner of the defeat was disappointing...... Let's see what happens on Tuesday
But the two spineless performances this season have been against them. As I said, worse because their previous three games showed exactly how to deal with them.
I thought that we would catch City with their pants down and win 4-1 or City catch us the same way and beat us 1-4. OH DEAR!!!!!
JV was head and shoulders our best player, the full backs were gash and Dier, Son, Dele, Lloris and Kane well below par. It might have been a different dynamic in the game had we gone in at HT 1-1, but Moss decided to give $ity a second goal. Overall £ity deserved it though, we failed to turn up first half and could have lost by more.
Hurts to say it but I agree. Poch himself still has a lot to learn. His post-match comments were also unusually honest and self-appraising. It is clear that in his mind we are still a leap away from the very top level. Unfortunately nothing but money will close that gap. Not necessarily the kind of money you and City are able to throw about but significantly more than the likes of Everton and West Ham, which is a more accurate yardstick for our current levels of spending. Our whole has always been greater than the sum of our parts. It was like this under BMJ, Redknapp and even more so under a manager who works with the holistic picture in mind. But at the same time, too many of our regular players are simply not good enough for me to picture holding aloft a PL or CL trophy and probably never will be. We lack the funds to replace or upgrade on them all at once but can do so gradually as long as we remain successful enough to keep the core of the squad together. Rose, Trippier, Dier, Lamela, Sissoko (obviously) are all players who are extremely unlikely to improve further. We've seen what all of them can do and it simply isn't good enough.
If we had played our game of the previous two seasons against them, rather than of 2013-14, then how anyone else played against them would be irrelevant.
This is the difference between you lot and the scousers. You both have a very valid point that it's hard to compete against teams that can just throw money at the problem but, the scousers then go on to say how that money is wasted on **** players
We lost the PL last season by two wins and one draw. That is not a leap away. We lost today because unlike the past two seasons, we showed the same fear the rest of the PL have all season (and made the Citeh title a stroll) .
Pool blow us out of the water in terms of wage bill but not so much in the net spend department. Bit like Arsenal. They have also made some really good signings recently and have benefited from an excellent crop of youngsters coming through the academy at just the right time. The fact that, if anything, they have improved since losing their 'best player' is testament to this. With Keita joining in the summer, they will add energy and power to the midfield and will be harder to overrun on bad days. We need a really, really sensible transfer window or I can see them shifting up a gear and leaving us in their slipstream. With Toby, Rose, GKN, Llorente, Vorm all definitely leaving and potentially Sissoko and Dier too there will be plenty of cash to work with. We have to be brutally honest and admit that since a superb transfer window ahead of 15/16, we have gone on to sign 10 senior players. 1 is an investment for the future (Foyth), 2 have actually improved the team (Wanyama and Dave), 3 are a work in progress (Aurier, Gazzanigga and Moura) and the other 4 are plain **** (Llorente, Sissoko, Janssen and Nkoudou). The fact that these 4 combined cost almost £70m is embarrassing. There are certain positions that we continually cock up (cover for Dembele and Kane top of this list) and the harsh reality is that we are running out of chances to get it right.
Two seasons running from day 1 and everyone had their pants down about a Citeh PL procession on their form. Then they played Spurs. Both times they got spanked, and the emperor had no champions clothes.
We haven't been as good this season. Simple as. We have taken a step backwards on both flanks with the demise of Rose and departure of Walker, and have suffered due to the (hopefully reversible) poor form of players like Alli, Lloris and Dier. City have also raised the bar even higher than Chelsea last season. So yes, it is beginning to resemble a 'leap'. Poch's words, not mine.
