I only hope Eriksen is still really sick. If he gets on the pitch with more than 30 mins to go he’s gonna have a field day with how easily our midfield are being sliced through so far, made worse by the fact our three CBs have forgotten how to defend too.
Bentancur and Hojbjerg look knackered and it is totally understandable. Conte has chronically mis-managed this squad in a year where we are playing in 4 competitions and have a wc in the middle of the season. It's pretty unforgiveable.
Conte has made so many mistakes this season. Still a top manager but I see why the Mourinho comparisons are made
0-0 HT Hugo motm so far by a country mile. Serious questions need to be asked about our manager. I feel that someone else could get a hell of a lot more from the same group of players. We play within ourselves. Unfortunately, that "someone else" now manages the chavs.
I thought we had some good passages of play the first 15 mins or so with some nice football in there. As the half has gone on it’s clear that Højbjerg and Bentancur, the latter in particular, are running on fumes a bit. United came more into the game. Anthony looks like he’d have Perisic on toast but luckily they haven’t managed to isolate him that much. We can hurt them but we need to sharpen that cutting edge at half time. They’ll always create chances due to the individual quality they have so the tired midfielders are a worry as it’ll hinder them closing down outside the box.
The whole team and manager needs to be thanking Hugo that we’re somehow still in this - it’ll be Sod’s Law he concedes a soft one now though after all the saves he’s made. Kane and Doherty the only outfield two who’ve not been terrible. Can’t believe how bad our back and midfield 3 have been. But as has been mentioned by CK, in Hojbjerg and Bentancur’s case especially, they‘ve been ran into the ground and we’re seeing the results of that. Romero and Dier equally as shocking.
Balanced half-time punditry from Amazon. A dirty Goon, a Man Utd player and an ex-Wigan player who manages Belgium.
Our single biggest issue is that we have zero pace in the team, yet we are set up to play a low block and a full-pitch counter attack. Son is the only player out there who can move. Both WBs are painfully slow, all three midfielders have good engines but aren't rapid, and Kane is we know is not the fastest. This game needs Lucas if only for his pace, but can we throw him in the midst of such an abject performance after so long out injured?
The midfield three don't seem to know what they're supposed to be doing. Bissouma's in the middle, but seems to be highest up the pitch. He should be sitting. We've got no width either, as Son's central and getting high balls played to him, which he won't win.
We might be pushing him higher in the press because we know the other two are a bit tired. But it’s messing up the pressing patterns. Begs the question why not start Skipp.
Yeah, it’s all backwards. High balls should be going to Kane as he’s up against Martinez and if we had some width from the WBs to make crosses you’d fancy us finding Kane too if Martinez is the one man marking him.
