I have been one of Dan Neils' biggest critics, but I must admit today he impressed me. If he becomes more consistant with less mistakes, then I think this lad will do well in the top tier. Re Bellingham, I wasn't too sure about the signing, but last week I saw glimpses of his potential, and today he stepped up again. Looking forward to seeing him develop as the season progresses
I wasnt concerned as when he dropped deeper Neil pushed higher to support Jobe. Jobe was lost in as no10 and only became effective when he played up front, he might end up being a better CM than neil n ekwah in the future but not at the minute. Neil got forward loads yesterday so not sure if you are more judging him on previous games than yesterdays. If you watch neil n ekwah they always look to take it on the front foot n play forward, sometimes as cms you need to play the sideways backwards pass to draw opponents out. I agreed i dont want dack dropping so deep but it worked today as we still had 4 forward players high up the pitch All about opinions but for me neil was motm, jobe will rightfully get the credit for his goals but neil put in a top cm performance
I agree with this. Was a strange game for some of our players , playing in random positions. Neil was very good though.
What a signing Jobe Bellingham's going to be! Sunderland have a fantastic scouting system, and it's paying dividends. We (Leeds) had Jack Clarke, but we sold him to Spurs for £10m, when he wasn't ready to make the step up, now he's got his confidence back, and looking strong.
Cheers for this. We’ve got a good bunch of footballers who just look like they enjoy playing together. ‘Two goals for the young striker’. He didn’t look out of place at all from those highlights. Big enough to win flick ons, intelligent hold up play and (importantly!) scores goals. £1.5 million? Genius.
Glad you think Neil was MoM when getting more freedom further up pitch. If Neil is always sitting CDM and Ekwah doing box to box like end of last season then really not developing all of Neil’s game or defensive side of Ekwah for that matter. Looks like they’re starting to make it work between them. TM was getting questioned for having Ekwah sit back and do screening but there’s always a transitional period while adjust our play. This means if Neil gets injured then Ekwah isn’t totally alien to putting the graft in defensively and I very much suspect means we will not see cover for Evans in CDM signed. Wage budget only goes so far and there may be options available in January window that are seen as more important to squad.
Personally thought Ekwah had a very good game yesterday, I accept he lost his runner for their goal and got caught over playing once in the second half but overall his control of the ball and distribution was simple but effective, especially in the second half when he was dropping deep to take the ball drawing their midfield out then finding someone with a simple telling pass
I thought we looked unbalanced until TM swapped Dack n Jobe around. Improved massively then. Still need a striker although Hemir was unlucky with that effort just after coming on. Once we get a striker who does TM leave out. Clarke n Roberts are gauranteed so its likely he will need to rotate from Jobe, Neil, Ekwah and Dack. Hard decision and whoever is left out can feel aggrieved. Felt sorry for Ba yesterday. He was good last time he came on as a sub.
We really aren't a million miles away from it all clicking, felt yesterday that we were trying to slowly build and draw them out before increasing the speed of attacks to exploit space. I'd say we are moving to a more fluid attacking team with more "interaction (not right word, but i know what I mean) between the midfield and the forwards
I think once the new players settle in and start understanding each others movements we will be a class one touch attacking football team. Madrid will be asking for our training videos .
I had no idea Jobe could play upfront I thought he was a CM, but seeing as he can it's hardly surprising that we were better with him ahead of Dack it's the natural way. I don't know why we started with the little guy ahead of the big guy if we knew Jobe could play up top. Anyway it's good to know he has that in his locker.
I never said O’nien didn’t have a good game yesterday? I said as much as I think he’s crap, which I still do, I was embarrassed that people started chanting for Danny Bathh when they scored. I can have my opinion on him as a footballer but regardless of what I think he’s in the Xl and I’d not start chanting for the lad to be subbed after 20 minutes, that’s not going to help us whatsoever. O’nien was decent yesterday I’ll agree with that and just pretend I didn’t read the last sentence
Mowbray must spend hours shuffling players in his mind. I keep wondering how Dack and Pritchard could fit into the same team, they both think and move the ball so quickly. How would it work if we bring in a striker, what do we do with Bellingham/Clarke/Roberts. Where does O’Nien play if one of the new centre backs comes in. Can Evans play his usual role or could we use his replacement. We have so many good players we need to start fifteen players to get them all in
