The Gaffer said today that the only player definitely not available is Joe Bryan. However, he did have a little warning flag out on Cairney, saying "He's started working with us and needs a little bit of time to reach his best level.". Bournemouth are now an experienced Premiership side and Eddie Howe has them not only well organised but prepared to play hard for the full 90 minutes. Among their squad they've a raft of 'unsung' individuals; players like Cook, Fraser and King. Gonna be tough !! For us there are issues and problems all over the pitch. So a whole wodge of questions. Is it stick or bust with Bettinelli? Is it buenas noches for Chambers? Do we actually have a left back available? Is it practical to keep the £20m plus Anguissa on the bench? Can we afford Seri, Vietto AND Sessegnon up front? That's without even touching on our Centre Backs who, according to the local West London reporter, have made individual mistakes directly leading to 20 of the 25 goals that we've conceded. The team selection would be a tad easier if the Gaffer was one hundred percent sure that Cairney was okay, physically and mentally. I suspect he's not convinced. So ... ...............................Bettinelli................ ..Fosu-Mensah...Mawson...Ream....Odoi.... ......................McDonald...Anguissa... .........Vietto............Seri............Sessegnon.... ...........................Mitrovic..... One more question. Why sign a Champions League goalie like Rico and not play him, especially since Bettinelli has been been really poor of late? Well, for some upended loyalty I believe the Gaffer will give Marcus one more chance.
Wonder if we would be better off playing 5 at the back till Bryan is back. Still so many positions where no one has made the position their own. Mawson/Ream/Le Marchand at CB ? McDonald/Angussia. If Fosu-Mensah is still not 100% the why not try Steven Sessegnon can't do any worse then Chambers/Christie? I'm hoping Jokanovic is playing his normal mind games and Cairney is ready. ...............................Bettinelli................ ..Fosu-Mensah...Odoi.....Mawson...Ream......Sessegnon.... ..........................McDonald........ .........Schurrle.....Vietto........ Ayite ...........................Mitrovic..... Bettinelli has signed an extension to his contract today, will this be the time Slav will drop him ?
Knew the Bettinelli thing was on the cards and now it's done, pretty much makes him a 'shoe in', as you suggest SuperBri. Rico and Fabri may be a tad unhappy though ... watch this space in January? Kind of like you're selection and to be honest, I meant Schurrle instead of Sessegnon in my pick. Still question why we paid £20m, £25m or whatever for Anguissa and nobody including the Gaffer plays him !! Dropping Seri (another £25m man) will cause a bit of a stir but, guessing your logic, he hasn't contributed much in the last three games. So may be what's needed.
...............................Bettinelli................ ..Fosu-Mensah...Odoi.....Mawson...Ream......Sessegnon.... .................Anguissa.........McDonald........ ........Seri..................... .......Schurrle.. ...........................Mitrovic..... I go for the above, although a concern is, does Schurrle link well with Mitovic? I haven't seen much evidence of that so far. We need to defend better and protect them better. We have the players to score, just stop letting then in so stupidly.
The man tomorrow is Andre Marriner. The bad news is that he's an Aston Villa supporter. We saw the Brummy Whistler last in the 3-0 win against Millwall at the Den, which took our unbeaten run to 22 last season. Sort of good news is that on 15 minutes, with the score at 0-0, Millwall put the ball in the net and Marriner ruled it out for what he deemed a foul by them in the lead up. Arguably a controversial decision in our favour. He booked 5 that day; Tim Ream for us. His record so far in the Premiership this season is, 26 yellow in 9 matches. If your superstitious there's more bad news. Before the Millwall game we hadn't see Marriner since the horrible season that was 2013/14. He managed 4 of our matches then and we won not a one !!
Do believe that's the first time we've played Bournemouth in the Premiership/Top Flight and boy did we make it easy for them. The midfield - whomever they were and they were various - were devoid of winning the ball or making meaningful tackles when it mattered. We had a brief period when Cairney came on where we looked more like our old selves and balanced as a team. However, yet another individual error led to there second goal and game over !! Marriner didn't have a great game but we equally made life easy for him. Fosu-Mensah didn't need to make the challenge which led to the penalty; trips from behind when we couldn't match them for pace leading to bookings and the sending off; Kamara lucky to stay on the pitch. Thought Kamara would get hiked after his final warning or Schurrle when McDonald went but no, it was Seri and our midfield was bereft from then on. Not good at all.
I think today Jokanovic tried to play in a more controlled defensive manner but again after the penalty it was an up hill task. I didn't understand the choice of Kamara. Again it reeks of experimentation again and not playing players in their favoured positions. Bournemouth are a good team but I expected us to put up a better fight than we did. Our midfield never got to grips with theirs and neither helped our defence or feed our forwards. As C58 says the balance wasn't right except for a 15 minute spell when Cairney was on. But going down to 10 men we were never getting back into the game.
I had one of my rare visits to the Cottage today, and I was more positive than Cottager and SuperBri (not entirely positive, but more positive). Before the penalty I thought we were marginally on top - they 'won' the first five minutes, but then we had the upper hand. The second goal came after another spell where we were looking good, and it came after they won possession back around their penalty box and made an excellent rapid counter-attack - not bad defending, just excellent transition play from Bournemouth. Then once K Mac went, it was all over. We were guilty of being too cautious with our passing, turning back too often rather than seizing the moment, but there were also some nice combinations that were let down by a poor final ball. I agree that Cairney's arrival improved things, but I liked Seri today. While he had his backwards moments, he was generally looking to move us forwards and doing so while protecting the ball. Fosu-Mensah's rash moment for the penalty aside, I thought the defenders looked a lot better than I was expecting after recent comments on here. I liked the look of Rico, who made a cracking save in the second half. Unless Bryan is fit by next weekend, I'd go for the same back 4. Where we did struggle was that we just couldn't get our shots away. Schurrle looked dangerous in the first half, but never managed to turn that danger into shooting opportunites; Mitro worked hard but had precious little to show from it; Sess looked good, but was disappointing with his final ball on occasions and AK, well, AK was everything we've come to expect, good and bad - excellent effort and running down lost causes, but going from the sublime to the ridiculous, often in the same run. We lost, and deserved to lose, but it could easily have gone the other way if we'd made our key moments count the way Bournemouth did. Maybe I'm just being typically over-optimistic, but I think this was a disappointing performance that wasn't far from being what we're all hoping for. Perhaps, just perhaps, the big break through is just around the corner. As Mickey Adams always said, keep the faith.
Yeah, I saw those positives as well Captain. However, they were far outweighed by the negatives. There was no energy in our midfield; half hearted tackles; nobody busting a gut to get into their box and support Mitro. Bournemouth committed 3 fouls in the whole 90 odd minutes, none in their own half of the field. That's astonishing. And it wasn't bad refereeing. We did absolutely nothing that would have caused a foul. We had some discipline when defending with two banks of 4. But it was like Table Football. They shuffled back and forward across the field, didn't attack the ball or make a tackle or mark one of the opposition. And as for the gap between the two .... !! Their No 20 (Brooks) sat in there and had a field day. Wasn't going to pick on one individual but don't see how we can "keep the same back four" - Le Marchand was awful at LB. His distribution was iffy to say the least and he spent most of his time trotting diligently across the pitch in the path of Ream. Leaving Brooks unmarked and their No 15 (Smith) with acres of space on the outside. And might as well say it, whatever marks Kamara gets for effort I don't want a cheat in my side. It's not the first time he's been booked for diving either.
All fair points, Cottager. Who would you play at left back if Bryan is still injured? I don't fancy Sessegnon there - I want him further forward - and I'm not sure what other realistic options we've got other than Le Marchand.
Ah, the difficult question. Could well be the very same Le Marchand. My earlier criticism was his performance at LB. Hopefully though Mawson can get over his injury problems, get a run of games and be the 'steady eddie' at the back. That still leaves a problem however with him, Le Marchand and Ream preferring left side CB. If Odoi does cover LB for now, Chambers is the only recognised right sided CB ... ! If push comes to shove, Mawson and Ream.
I agree that we want Mawson to step up and become the cornerstone at the back, but the left-sided thing does worry me (as does Chambers' recent awful form, when I was expecting him to much, much better). Until there's grounds for thinking that Mawson can switch to the right side, I think for the time being Odoi holds his place in the centre on merit, which forces us to go with Le Marchard or Sess (not my preferred option) at left back until Bryan is fit again. That said, it was Odoi's sloppy pass that led directly to McDonald's second yellow. I just want us to find a settled back four and get a bit of consistency in that part of the pitch. Well, we've got consistency now, but it's consistent changes and consistent mistakes!
