We’d have one if Conte didn’t balls up in the summer with Reguilon. Miles better than Sessegnon. He’s probably the best FB/ WB at the club, certainly the most all round anyway, baffling decision.
Zaniolo’s been left out of the Roma squad as he’s now officially on the market and his agent has been talking to us, albeit there are others interested. 23 years old and this is his injury record so far… https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/nicolo-zaniolo/verletzungen/spieler/392085 It’s gonna be Lamela 2.0 if we sign him but this time we actually know beforehand we’re signing an injury prone player.
I appreciate there’s a lack of creativity in our squad, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that is actually the least of our worries! Our defence is alarmingly bad. Where’s all the rumours about CB’s? There’s been hardly any.
It's not obvious that the centre backs are the problem. Of the six goals Arsenal and City scored, three came from mistakes by Perisic, one from a wicked deflection off Sessegnon, and one from our midfield press being bypassed giving Odegaard a free run at goal. The only real CB mistake was Lenglet's.
I’m not referring to two individual games against city and Arsenal, PS. A general observation would indicate that the likes of Davies, Dier and Sanchez are squad players at best. Of which the latter two have been prone to plenty of mistakes themselves. You can probably add Hugo to that list as well now.
I still think Hojbjerg makes more mistakes than any other player. But absence of mistakes is not a good measure of quality. Lloris is a good example of this. He probably lets in 3-5 goals a season that anyone else would save. But I reckon he stops at least 10 shots that few other goalkeepers would so I think that makes him pretty good.
Those same players were fine in the run-in at the end of last season, though. Why has our entire squad suddenly become unable to defend? It's not even the same players half of the time. We conceded 5 goals in the last 11 games of last season. We nearly matched that last night.
But Hojberg making a mistake in the middle 3rd of the pitch is likely to be less costly than players who are directly protecting the goal. It’s a bit like if a striker doesn’t score you goals and makes “mistakes” by missing the target… you probably have to look at getting a new one.
Could be a combination of factors. Form? Age? Mentality? A mix of all of that could lead to poor performances, or mistakes. Or all of it it could just be the Emerson’s fault. I don’t think it’s necessarily one thing. But the reality is that we’ve conceded a **** load so…
Anyway....this shows a few worse mistakes than we have made. https://www.planetfootball.com/vide...-of-truly-ugly-goals-from-the-2019-20-season/
I think it's tactics. We've become too defensive and it's causing too much pressure. The switch up front basically disabling Son hasn't helped, either. When Kulusevski was out the opposition simply didn't fear our breaks.
yep, quite possibly. So basically the players aren’t good enough to play the tactics, or the manager should be adjusting the tactics to suit the players. Problem being that the manager plays a certain way, and the hierarchy bought in a manager knowing exactly what they’d be getting. And we’re back to the conte/levy discussion again.
You can probably break down our squad as so: Amongst the best in the division - Romero, Bentancur, Kulusevski, Son*, Kane Good calibre players - Lloris**, Lenglet, Perisic, Bissouma, Hojbjerg Squad calibre players - Forster, Davies, Dier, Richarlison*** Young players that should have more game time - Spence, Sarr, Skipp, Gil Below par players that should be sold - Sanchez, Tanganga****, Lucas Awful players that should definitely be sold - Sessegnon, Emerson, Doherty *Needs to buck his ideas up **Just scrapes but far too error prone this season and needs replacing in the summer ***Monumental waste of money but in general he's a squad player ****Would've been a decent squad player with more games behind him, needs to leave for his own good The first two tiers then give us an XI of: Lloris Romero, CB, Lenglet RWB, Bentancur, Bissouma/ Hojbjerg, Perisic Kulusevski, Kane, Son So if we signed just a CB and RWB this window we'd leave the window with a very decent team, problem is the tactics are ruining some and the depth in some areas isn't great, as well as knowing that some of these also need to replaced in the summer for differing reasons.
