I didn’t get to see the game yesterday, but I’ve felt we’ve been lucky in recent games. We’ve been quite one dimensional for a few matches at least, and your point here nails it for me. We need these alternative options in our squad to not only add quality, but make us less predictable and more dynamic. We’ve all been really impressed with our “First XI” this season, but there’s only so much 11 or so players can do for the cause when football is a squad game. To add to your examples, IMO Davies has now evolved to be a CB option only, rather than a left back. - which makes us even more sparse in that area having let reguilon go out on loan, and Sessegnon being Sessegnon. The summer is going to take a lot of work, but we really need to take advantage of it. However, if januarys efforts are anything to go by, we should feel confident that we can make an impact.
TBH the biggest weakness in our first team right now is our No6, as that role is critical for our transition from defence to attack yet all our options at the moment have issues Bissouma - nowhere near his early season form, occasional lapses in concentration Bentancur - short of match conditioning and it shows Skipp - too defence-minded, lacks press resistance Hojbjerg - passing and movement too conservative, legs clearly going The fact the players in that role can be neatly filed into players who are press resistant (Bissouma and Bentancur) and those who aren't does demonstrate the issue, though Bissouma's performance yesterday where he was easily pressured underlines his particular issue of not being the force he was in the early season
The more I see, the closer I get to agreeing with @PowerSpurs re the manager. At this level, I don't think it makes that much difference who sits in the dugout. As long as a club is careful not to hire someone who will be out of their depth (Nuno), or the antithesis of the club's traditions (Graham, Santini, Jose, Conte), it really is much of a muchness. Far, far more important is to get the structure surrounding the manager right. We lacked this more than anything else for a long time. If the structure is broken, even the best managers will eventually struggle to keep turning water into wine and will give the impression of being totally clueless. This is how it ended for Poch. Perhaps more important than Ange were the appointments of Munn, Paratici and Lange. Our recruitment strategy and style of play are now aligned and well defined. The benefits upstream at academy level are visible. Arsenal are a good example of this. Emery looked absolutely useless there but is flying at Villa. Why? Is he a less gifted manager than Arteta? Highly doubtful. On paper, his CV pisses all over Captain Scarlett's. The difference is when Arsenal hired Ebening, they were a total mess off the pitch with a broken recruitment model and a squad full of useless players. Emery was doomed to fail and it was his failure more than anything that made them get their act together and implement a structure to surround Arteta. The results are obvious. And as much as we moan about other teams being able to spend more money than us, two of those teams are City and Liverpool and the primary reason for their success is not money, it is structure and the fact that they have had a consistent team in the dugout and behind the scenes. Chelsea and United have outspent everyone in the league and have nothing to show for it, because they have no structure and no one overseeing a long term vision.
Another issue from yesterday was how there were moments where a ball over the top would've done so much to change things, but we never tried it We certainly have players who can do that, be it Bentancur in the middle or Dragusin from the back, and it has to be said that when our passing and movement is getting ponderous as it was yesterday chipping the ball 20-30 yards is going to get things under way in much the same way
It might work, if we have quick players on the pitch. But there was zero pace in the team until 70mins when Werner and Johnson came on. I've said it before, I don't think it's sensible to start Son and Kulu in the same team, especially if our FBs are out.
Lucky bastard! Agree with the rest of your post though, pretty much what I’ve been saying for a while, first XI is/ can be very good but squad is borderline abysmal. Emerson, Davies, Sessegnon, Skipp, Hojbjerg, Gil, Lo Celso, Werner all need binning yesterday and any decent offer for Richarlison needs to be snapped up, we’ll make a considerable loss but that was always gonna happen after the amount we spent. A few on this list aren’t necessarily bad players but they’re just not fits for the system one bit.
Couldn’t let it slide after he said I haven’t paid close attention to Emerson… it’s paying close attention to the guy that’s caused me to want him out the club for the best part of 18 months .
I was waiting for you to call me out on it. Tbh I am a bit baffled. Can anyone make sense of the fact that we actually played better football with 9 key players out injured and Davies/Royal at CB? We're conceding the same number of goals and creating fewer clear chances despite basically being at "full strength". If our system really is that reliant on Porro and Udogie, the problem runs far deeper than we imagined. Davies and Royal weren't the problem yesterday. Neither put in a great performance but they were far from being our worst players. If the front 6 played better than a pub team, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Arsenal and Liverpool have both had extensive runs this season with both their FBs out injured. City don't even have a proper LB ffs. If ours are genuinely the be all and end all of the system, my conclusion is either that other regular starters aren't good enough and need to be replaced, or the manager needs to find a less fragile system.
Calm down. It was an opinion. It seems I was wrong in my opinion. I can't figure out why I was wrong. If we played better with Royal and Davies at CB and all our creative players out missing, it is a real conundrum watching what we're currently seeing.
Emerson was certainly partly responsible for the second goal. Bissouma shoulders most of the blame but Emerson’s closing down of Neto was embarrassing and when he did finally close him down Neto basically ignored the Brazilian’s existence (something I wish we as a fanbase could). Arsenal and Liverpool, albeit the latter is somewhat entering a 2.0 phase, along with City (obviously) are far further into their plans and projects than we are, so they’re much more likely to be able to deal with an injury than we can. We used to be able to deal with an injury or two under Poch, especially at FB as Trippier could come in for Walker and Davies was a very sound option in place of Rose, we even went spells without Kane and picked up some decent results. Now though we’re only just over half a season into Ange’s reign and beyond our first XI we are quite frankly relying on a number of players who very much define the term “scraping the barrel”. Until we improve our squad, we will forever suffer at any minor injuries to a first XI player. So that’s why our system is heavily reliant on Porro and Udogie, just as it is on Vicario, van de Ven, Son and so on because any injury to a first XI player and the quality levels significantly drop.
Key components of the (current) system is the pivot trap, and fast/roaming FBs. This game we did not have the latter, and the opposition did not dare to press enough to suffer the trap. So that means you need any of the following : 1. a CM who can bring the ball to the final third even when under pressure in the MF melee 2. fast/accurate forward passing On #1, there is nobody akin to Dembele. On #2, this is a long-term joke in the PL (the inability for so-called pros who earn obscene money to be able to consistently perform what in industry would be deemed a "core competence" ) .
He's actually a boyhood Liverpool fan, but he's openly stated that he 'admires' Arsenal and would suit our team. In any case, I've just said on our board that one of our reliable insiders for Arsenal news has made public we're not looking to sign Toney anymore. I'm assuming/hoping this means: a) we have a better quality target that we are making progress with. b) if we can't get our #1 target (presume to be Osimhen), then other targets have become available (Sesko, Gyokeres, Vlahovic etc). c) changes in priority regarding how we distribute our Summer budget. What I'm hoping it's not is this recent hot-streak we've been on deceiving the club hierarchy into thinking we don't need to spend on reinforcing our attack ahead of next season - because we absolutely do. But, assuming this news from TN&T is correct, I reckon Toney could end up at Spurs, Chelsea or (depending on how they end the season) West Ham.
The last two games have not been pleasurable. I thought we stole the points from Brighton getting out of jail a bit with that one. Yesterday, Wolves got what they deserved in my opinion and if not for a couple of good saves from Vicario and their wayward finishing it could have been a lot worse! From where I sit up on high you can see the midfield in particular running into blind alleys all the time, and the build-up play has been so slow and laboured of late. Even Vic normally quick to release but waiting and letting the opposition re-set. You also have a big lump in the middle but no runs from the wingers and crossing into the box for him to attack? Just my opinion but I thought yesterday in particular that the midfield was poor, Bissouma and Maddison especially, with the former at fault for the second goal in my mind. The least said about the marking on the first the better and it’s even more painful when you see the highlights back… The forward line was anonymous at times. Kulosveski is so one footed the opposition have sussed him out a bit, although he did take his goal well yesterday. I used to defend Richarlison a fair bit amongst the others who sit around us, and you can't fault his work rate, but boy has he dropped off a cliff. Do we have the only two Brazilian footballers on the planet who can’t control a football? Sorry for the depression, I am normally the most optimistic of people but another 3-hour journey back in the p****** rain through endless roadworks, seriously knocked my enthusiasm yesterday!! However, I will finish on a plus side, the style of play is light years ahead of the past few seasons and is so much better to watch than the stuff under the previous 2. I also have my wing man back from his far east travels for the Palace game so hopefully things will pick up and a thumping victory!! COYS
Yeah Emerson’s awful. I’d agree that he’s improved but he’s still miles off the required standard and like others have said he doesn’t suit the manager’s style.
I know, I was just messing. I actually agree with some of what you said that the team should have been a bit more solid defensively with Emerson and Davies but unfortunately it didn’t work out that way.
I don't disagree with this, but it doesn't address (and I am still at a loss to explain) why we played better (even if the results weren't going our way) with most of the team out injured? We were poor last time out against Wolves but even worse this time. How is that possible? We were brilliant against Villa and West Ham but got hit by two sucker punches in those games. We were unbelievable against City. Then players started returning after the Newcastle game and we've gone backwards at a rate of knots.
