Dear All, thank you for your insights, very much appreciated. Being stuck out here on a slightly different time zone - never mind different working days, which mean I miss Sunday kickoffs and late midweek matches never helps.
1 - He most certainly isn't a lone striker but I don't think he helps himself at times and I'm not sure he has the desire to force his way in the team. Long would have offered more last night imo. 2 - Yeah that surprised me too, still didn't massively do anything to change my opinion and although the game changed that was more down to... 3 - Redmond. Needs to start every game going forward. 4 - Agreed, been a brilliant player for us and will always love him but Rangers is calling. 5 - First time I've seen him and wasn't overly impressed, though I'm not sure why he was playing wide. He kind of looks like in a couple of years time he'll be as good as Davis was 4/5 years ago. 6 - If Maya doesn't start Saturday I will be genuinely concerned. Thought Beddy did alright too. 7- Agreed. I would add that I thought Mo looked bright in what I thought was an unbelievably dire game.
I haven't seen the game and stoked that Austin got the goal. However I really hope Hughes comments post game mean that he has got Ings and Gabbi working together on the training field. Ings and Gabbi have the quickest brains and best movement up front for me. In Ings I hope we have a player who can anticipate his movement, he sure looks quick witted when I've seen him. It doesn't sound like the formation was set up to help Gabbi score goals from the start. On paper we have Austin, Gallagher, Mo, Redmond, Armstrong, Ings and Gabbiadini to work with. There has to be a combo there to get goals.
I seem to remember Redmond doing well when being used as an impact sub before. Then calls for him to start and he was ineffective. He is best coming off the bench and playing against tiring legs
I believe that the true Redmond is much closer to the Puel version in his first season here than the frustrating, ineffectual player that he was under much of Pellegrino's management. He has showed signs that he is getting back to form and that is very good news for us because he is the most direct forward that we have and that can scare the **** out of oppo defences. Pep rates him, that can't be a bad thing!
http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11938/11484351/how-to-watch-carabao-cup-draw Did you go to Brighton on the supporters bus TLL? How did that work out?
I did mate yeah and not too bad actually. Left at 4 and got there at half 6 and was back at St Marys by half 11. Still hate coaches though, need to buy a new car soon.
One little thing from the highlights: there's been a fair bit of talk about intelligent movement from strikers over the past year or two. I'm not always a huge fan of Austin's off-ball decisions, but he makes the smallest of feints toward the near post right before the ball is crossed, and it causes his marker (Ben Barclay, the kid making his senior debut) to separate, as he's anticipating that Austin will continue on and moves to mark the area where he expects him to be. By the time he realizes that Austin didn't, it's too late to affect the winning header. Poor by Bernando to fail to spot the danger and contest, but a clever job nonetheless of creating space without moving more than two feet. On the other side, there are some passages of play in there where 'switched off' doesn't even begin to describe Stephens. The switch is off, the wiring has been removed, the house is gone, and an electromagnetic pulse has ended electricity as we know it.
That thing you say about Austin simply can’t be true. Apparently we have only one player who makes such runs, and the rest of our **** team consistently fail to find him. On a fair note, I would like to see Gabbiadini and Ings/Sam play, but not convinced that will happen Saturday. Edit- Austin bit should be in blue before anyone gets upset.
I'm not Gabbiadini's biggest fan, but you can't really compare movement when attempting to get onto a cross like Austin does all the time, with movement when our uncreative midfield have the ball. Austin is a statue when the midfield have it, Gabbiadini is usually looking to run in behind and stretch the defence. We should've sold Gabbiadini though as it is clear that we are not going to play to his strengths so there is no point in him being here.
I agree about selling Gabbi, but goals is goals, don’t matter how you score them, and the way we play Austin scores more. Now, is the real Q about changing how we play? I keep calling for more of a target man but get accused of wanted long balls lumped up top. I don’t think Spurs get labelled with that, and Kane is a bit of a target man.
Although I will add, you absolutely can compare movement in the box. It’s part of a strikers job and Austin seems to do that box movement better than Gabbi.
