People criticised Ange for putting Skipp on in favour of, say Bryan, but I think he saw how aggressive Forest were and felt (rightly IMO) that we needed a more robust midfielder. Hojberg would have slowed the game down too much at that point whereas Skipp would be less involved in the forward play. One of our least enjoyable games thanks mainly to Yates the bastard, the biased commentator, and the ref. who only saw Spurs fouls. Forest's disappeared into the woods. Did I mention Yates being a complete bastard?
I would have gone for Gil though not either of Skipp or Hojbjerg and kept to the same game plan as it was working
Yeah agree. I don’t think the sub helped us at all until we went down to 10, which is where Skipp’s combativeness is very handy. It negatively affects the system and style Ange wants to play so I don’t get why he makes the sub so frequently as it notably lowers ours display. That midfield three just couldn’t get a proper grip of the game, it’s not something I’d like to see more often.
On another note, it’s nice to have played our weekend game, and won it before everyone else has kicked a ball Over to the rivals now, knowing we’ve got 3 points on the board.
Yeah true , although they had a lot of chances that a better team may have converted. But we won, so I’m not going to criticise Ange too much! Great start to the weekend, nice to be able to relax and enjoy the other games!
An interesting comment for once on the BBC match report. whats all the fuss about 22:13 15 Dec Not a fan of either club but the Forest captain Yates deserved to be on the losing side. Throwing himself into dangerous tackles, demanding a yellow card for Udogie for a coming together (no idea why he wasn’t booked himself for that), then writhing around from a minimal touch to get Bissouma a red. People blame the refs and VAR but the league is full of cheats. Reply 391 for 42 against
Watched most of the match till i had to go out. But as many have mentioned we seem to be yellow carded at the softest of incidents (Davies, Son and Udogie's was a bit soft) Yet the officials allow our opponents much more leeway to dive into tackles (Yeats on Skippy) and attempt to maim our players with absolute immunity from sanction. Seems to have been this way since the Liverpool game, coincidence ? Or perhaps no one likes us and can't bear to see a successful Tottenham. Don't care what they think COYS !
I have noticed in a few games leading up to the vermin FC game, the opposition were committing a lot of fouls in the first 30 mins while Spurs were committing far fewer to none. Obviously this is not objective (high possibility of "observer bias" ) . A quick look around and I found that the PL website has its own match commentary in a form suitable for ETL to do data analytics. I will see if I can automate a "web scrape" (don't want to have to cut/paste manually ) , but either way we should know about the whats and whens.
I think Gil is not suited to the Prem , too lightweight, we have had others not physically built but the had other strengths, Modic, Ardiles come to mind but Gil gets knocked off the ball to easy and does not look up for Ange ball , he is definitely one of the squad we can sell and needs an upgrade
As an example, in this game in the first 35 mins the foul count was Forest/Spurs = 6/3, with two Forest players committing two fouls each.
Samuel Iling Jr looks like an easy choice for me, given he's got the crossing that we've lacked since Perisic went down which would help both Richy and Veliz while also playing into Ange's backup tactics, plus if we sign him in January he'll qualify as HG next season which will help the squad for European fixtures going forward
He did not commit another. So at least one of : he learned his lesson or the ref was incorrectly punishing him. Yates committed 4 fouls throughout the game and incurred no cards.
Positives? An away win, a clean sheet and Richarlison scored again. Negatives? Stupid red card, Udogie was (incorrectly) booked and picked up a ban. I think that there was plenty to be happy about and another win is the main one. We played some excellent football at times, despite a very aggressive opposition. I think that Postecoglou's probably regretting his comments about officials, though. His countryman did him no favours.
Surely 3 fouls in 5 minutes on the same player and no sanction probably means it's planned and he's achieved what he wanted. In this instance Son is going to be waiting for the next one and likely less effective in the game. Also, wasn't it Williams who fouled Skippy late on?
Yates had 4 fouls called against him but he was involved in a lot that didn't get a second glance one in particular that left Davis on the floor needing treatment, the ref waved play on but did not go back to it when the move broke down , he plays a lot like Matt Cash but the Sky " pundits " don't have them on their radar
I don't have the stats, but I suspect that the probability of a player having committed 4 fouls in a PL game and not at least got a yellow card, is very low.
Did anyone get the feeling that we were up against a Pulis-era Stoke? Very physical, lots of moaning, emphasis on set-pieces and two minutes per throw-in. The tracksuited Welshman would've been proud.
