If he changed a winning side we would still have more than likely lost and people would say it was his fault for not picking the team that beat Burnley and Huddersfield
Squad goes deeper than ours - got to agree with CC, if he'd changed it and lost, he would've been criticised - but there were some tired legs (and minds) out there yesterday. Onwards to Everton...
It's misleading, quite a few of those changes were due to illness/injury. Lanzini starting was a surprise, as he'd only had 2 sub appearances since rupturing his achilles in May. Cresswell had a broken toe, so we had a kid making his debut at LB v City as Masuaku wasn't 100%, Antonio got hurt v City. I think the only strategical change for rest was for Noble and Chich. We've been plugging holes all season due to injures, I tink we had 8-10 on the sick list from September onwards, only starting to get them back now
Yeah it does but we still could have made 2 or 3 changes to freshen it up. No-one would have blamed him (except the twitter ******s) I would have considered playing Muto instead of Perez, Ki and Diame in midifield. More fresh and certainly no weaker.
We got outfought, outplayed, and tactically bested on Saturday. Sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say the better side won. We weren't at the races, and struggled to get a foothold in the game. West Ham/Pellegrini were smart tactically, Rafa had no answers and to be honest in the end, you were left wondering what he was trying to achieve with his subs. An off day for the manager and players. As for Rice, I think he is a big talent. He is talented young player with a big future and lots of potential. Still very raw but there is a lot to work with. Of course the hullabaloo about him is way over the top as usual. That is England though, and we heard it the last few weeks with Longstaff. Both are good young players who would compliment each other well playing together funnily enough. Longstaff is better on the ball, and has a better range of passing. I'd say Rice reads danger a lot better and is better defensively. Rice is a genuine defensive midfielder. Longstaff though is more forward thinking. Longstaff looks like he could play any number of roles given his all round game. You could play him as a holding midfielder, box to box, attacking midfielder - any of the above. I thought Rice got the better of their battle on Saturday obviously but I must I admit I wouldn't swap him for Longstaff. All in all I think we just move on from that one. The better team won. Lanzini makes such a big difference to their side. He has a high level of ability. Clearly they have more depth than us. I don't think it was entirely freshness that won them the game either though we were a bit lethargic. We just didn't seem to have the same zip about us. Whether that was tiredness or perhaps a feeling of "job well done" from the previous couple. Maybe we stepped off the gas.
They basically did to us on Saturday what we did to Burnley earlier in the week. Not overly upset, although a hat-trick of winning matchday threads would've been nice but alas it was not to be. I don't think we have anything to fear in any of our remaining games, we'll get 10 points at least from them although Newcastle being Newcastle you could never easily predict against which teams they'll come. We could quite easily beat Liverpool and then lose to Fulham!
