I've bet on us to lose the last like 8/9 games. Gonna be homeless by the end of the season at this rate.
Real Madrid first half. Real mess second half. Very strange substitution bringing Stephens on for THB, but main problem is playing keep ball at the back when we've clearly run out of steam and the other team is pressing. A ten minute period of playing it long would relieve pressure. Bazunu bailed us out of an embarrassment today. Anyway, second in the league! First half performance was incredible.
I think Rothwell for Stu had far more of an impact than Mara for Che. The key deficit was Stephens for THB though. When Jack has the ball you can see him thinking of the instruction “bring a player on to you then pass into the space they’ve left”. Genuinely you can see him thinking. The trouble is, he’s not good enough to release the ball effectively at that point, and allows the offensive player to get that touch too close, then panics into a bad ball.
Yep, for all the Che haters, it is certainly noticeable sometimes when he's not on the pitch. Not blaming Mara, but they are very different players. Mara more of a luxury 'home' player, Che is a grafter. He played excellent today, not just his usual link-up play, but getting back and helping out.
Agreed that Rothwell for Smallbone also had a negative impact. But Che was so good, and losing his presence I think had an even greater negative impact. But yes, Stephens had the biggest negative impact. Really bad from him. He couldn't even stay in line with his own teammates.
Mara seems to do better playing off the wing like Adam Armstrong tbh, Adams is really the only forward we have who works best in the middle. Even then he is far better with someone alongside / in front of him.
Luxury definitely. Bring him on when winning 3-0 or 4-0, absolutely no problem. But not when a game is still live, especially away from home. If Che is still here in February, we really can't afford him to revert back to how anonymous he was during the Autumn. The Che of recent matches we need right through to May. He's been excellent. If we get that, I'll give him a virtual thank you and pat on the back, and wish him well for the future.
Great exhibition of pass and movement in the first half. Second half dour. Lucky not to let Swansea back in the game which would have been a travesty! I hope Bednarek and Harwood-Bellis remain fit as Stephens looked completely out of synchronisation with the rest of the defence and kept ruining the line but stopping to play offside!
Stephens hasn’t played for a long time, especially at CB. He was never going to come on and do as well as THB or bednarek.
Jack can play the full 90 in the cup next week. I'm not blaming him particularly; rather it's Russ' insistence on playing around with it at the back, even when under pressure. After we got away with it the first time, no f*cking way we should be making the same mistake a few minutes later. And yet we did. I love Russ of course, but the cocky stuff is so unnecessary. You have to be on the front foot, and with high energy levels to do it. If even just one player is flat-footed or fatigued, the whole thing goes to sh*t.
