I thought our new signing looked a bit lost at times, but hopefully he will get up to speed soon enough.
I've probably asked this before Doc. How will this move improve and advance his career(a part from learning from Bielsa) if he is going to play second fiddle to our young French keeper.
Pparently he is being brought in to push Meslier and expects to play a lot himself. Keepers are a funny breed when you think how many keepers spend years just being No2 or even 3rd choice. Argentina International Romero starts for his country nearly 100 times but has played around 5 cup games per season for years at Man Utd. Now going elsewhere to be No2. Knaves has been PSG keeper for years and now accepts being No2 because they just brought in Donarummer.
The concensus from last night was that the defence and DM all scored 7 as well as Raphinha, but Rodrigo 6 Harrison 5 Klich 5 and Costa 5 told a tale. My own view was that we were ring rusty, we had players out of position and we tried too many long range passes from Struijk, Llorente and Koch. We didnt do our usual fast triangles from the back into the opposition area enough. Bad passes etc. Rodrigo was running everywhere but never got a pass, Harrison was linking fairly well with Junior but not enough as most of Harrisons passes went backwards. Ring rusty, lots to be worked on and a fairly decent workout, but thats what pre season is for
I didn't see the game but I'd have assumed we'd be behind Blackburn in terms of sharpness as they'd already played Everton. By all neutral accounts I've read we were still by far the better side.
We were much fitter yes and they were snapping into tackles in the first half, but we gradually wore them down. We were worth a couple of goals in the first half alone, but final pass syndrome. No it was a decent workout, just some things to work on