We've slipped back into limited use of Lucas, just like last season. I think this is a mistake. He'd have given Alonso a proper running around tonight whereas Lamela's one paced and hasn't hada decent game in a long time. Without Dele we need a game changer. Let's play Son----Kane-----Lucas on Saturday and get into the ****ers, as their left backs aren't all that.
Kane marked by two frees someone up....yet most game we always look a man short. Poch isn’t boxing clever enough with his tactics...I agree with what you’re saying. Then again Poch can only do so much with the players available. That brings us back to our transfer issue but I don’t want it to come to that every time we lose. Collectively we don’t have the right attitude..that’s the bit that is frustrating me. The players get angry a lot more it seems. To me that suggests that they are frustrated..that usually occurs when you just dont have it in you to perform like you want to. Son was free..now he’s shackled...hows that happened?
NO NO NO Did Kane let the ball through his legs for the first goal, or did he fail to tackle Pedro? Did he score the own goal? He wasn't great tonight, but match fitness can only be recovered in matches and he was no worse than anyone else IMO. Sanchez was our best player tonight and that tells you how poor we were and that's not a dig at Big Dave but when a CB is your best player in a 2-0 defeat where they barely threatened then the rest were not good enough.
I find Moura very sloppy with possession...not sure we can afford to lose the ball that much in a 90minute period. Agree with you that we need to try something else.
A front four of Kane, Dele, Son and Eriksen is awesome. Janssen, Llorente, Lamela and Moura are pretty good players but all substantially inferior though. Not sure how dropping any of the first four is going to help. I know Dele and Eriksen are quite variable in performance but if they played at their top level all the time we would have lost them years ago.
I think Lamela is the closest we have to Dele but not as good, similarly with Moura and Son. But it’s Kane and Eriksen where the back ups are really not close to the same class.
I do think that in matches like this we need Dier & Alli, they are big match players. Dier gives us strength, and his ability to move between defensive Mid and CB makes us a much more fluid team. Dele is a maverick and a game changer and in big matches he is often the spark that was missing tonight.
Thing is though he is the only one who I can see thinking on the pitch, if you get what I mean. The rest are head down attack wise Sissoko does what Sissoko does best...just leave him to it.
It's criminal how underrated Dier is, not just by neutral/ rival fans but even our own. Easily one of our most key and crucial players, in our top five, arguably top three in terms of value to this squad's style/ formation/ tactics.
The point about Winks is that he is almost always available to pass to which helps all the other players and always does something sensible when he gets it. But I think Dier’s extra strength is important in games like tonight’s.
Sissoko's tiring. I think 90% of us predicted this in previous posts earlier in the season. His style is too "full on" to be able to maintain over a whole season without adequate rest. Yet again showing why a new CM signing was so pivotal. But instead we're told to "believe in this squad"... I don't think they believe in themselves so how are we meant too?
Who would Dier replace? I think Sissoko does the graft better...Dier is more skilful but we have Winks for the creativity. What I’d like is to see Dier in the middle of a back 3. Our days with Toby are numbered.
Lucas is a player that benefits from a few starting games. Poch just hasn't trusted him since September for some reason. Coming on for the odd few minutes is setting him up to fail. A waste....
