Our record this season D prem W prem L prem L prem W c cup W prem W el W prem W el L prem W prem W el L prem W c cup W prem L el Played 16 Won 10 drew 1 lost 5 We have won 9 out of our last 12. Our away form is poor but not as bad as we think. We have played 7 away games Won 3 drew 1 Lost 3 I think we were awful in the second half v Brighton, woeful throughout the Palace match and comical for the first 55 mins today. Only poor finishing stopped us beating Leicester and toon. This is my long winded way of saying we are in an ok place...particularly with the injury list over the past 3 or 4 weeks. We need to beat Ipswich and we'll have 2 weeks to get some players back and up to speed
You missed our pathetic performance against Coventry in the cup, which we somehow won. That was ****ing awful. I agree with you about how we've played for the most part this season, though. Not perfect, by any means, but generally pretty well. The squad definitely needs some work. The manager's doing ok. Some encouraging signs overall.
I agree re Coventry. It was like all what we deserved v Toon and Leicester came back to kick Coventry in the bollocks
Need to turn some of those defeats into draws and things will feel a lot better. Spurs seem far too easy to beat for me and you can’t get proper success like that.
The main thing our squad lacks is any potential Plan B Last season we had a few options who offered that, be it Perisic for his crossing and set pieces (briefly, anyway...) or Hojbjerg for being a battler who'd run until he was on bloodied stumps, and we certainly need a couple of players who offer noticeably different things to the starting xi
I think we looked better at this stage last season than we do now but things aren't terrible either, especially as we have to handle European football this time around. We've had a real mixed bag of some greats results and performances along with some utterly dismal ones too. I felt as though we had a poor summer as we neglected to properly strengthen enough areas and in some cases it's already showed, who to blame for that is anybody's guess whether it be the manager for not being demanding enough or the DoF/ Chairman for not being ambitious enough. How we go from here til January and then January til the end of the season is something I really can't predict, which is intriguing and concerning in equal measure. I think we'll need a good winter window for starters but I think we also need to tweak certain methods too. We seem to be picking up a lot of injuries again which to me implies the intense style of play can be counter productive to player's fitness and long term effectiveness, I also don't think we've improved our defensive tactics either, too often the goals we concede seem "easy". Conceding is part and parcel of football of course but I want the opposition to have to work for their goals, not be gifted them.
As always we need strength as evidenced today when in the first half and part of the second we were bullied. Once Bentancur, Kulusevski and Solanki came on the difference was clear. Grey was tremendous and so young. We will get stronger as our young squad matures but we need a Hojberg type player. I think we miss his strength.
And we need a leader on the pitch. Hojbjerg wasn't that as he was too much of a winger, although he had some of the attributes.
It was an absolute pleasure watching Akgun's goal. Yes, perhaps Lankshear and Forster should have done more to prevent the goal, but it was a superb strike hit with power, accuracy and brilliant technique. Which brings me on to my main point. The reason I enjoyed seeing that goal so much, is that it was one of the only goals we've conceded ever under Ange that wasn't a product of our own doing. Far too many are simply gifts to the opposition, as demonstrated again with goals 2 and 3. Some of it is definitely down to the rather chaotic and fluid tactics, but the sheer volume of laughable mistakes out there tonight - misplaced simple passes, awful first touches, dribbling into blind alleys - cannot be pinned on the manager. Unfortunately, I find that it is too often the so called 'senior' players who are the most guilty of this.
Bergvall, Lankshear, Gray and Dragusin all got invaluable experience. Solanke got European experience which will benefit him along with Sarr and Bissouma. All of those players apart from Solanke are 24 or under. It was a very poor first 60 mins but we need to keep things in perspective. They had 10 days to prepare for this game whereas we played City and Villa during that time. They have won 9 and drawn 1 of their last 10 league games and are unbeaten in Europe. They were at full strength while we were not.
Also good experience for the manager too. Even though he’s been around decades, he’s not really got much experience of CL or Europa
I worry about the nature of the 'experience' some of the youngsters are picking up. Bergvall looked terrified from the first whistle, confidence looked shot and whereas we have seen him in previous games at least cover plenty of ground demanding the ball, he looked like a deer in the headlights tonight. There is a fine line between a positive experience from which a player will grown, and one from which they will shrink into a lack of self-belief.
I do think especially learned from the Brighton game tbh. In every game since (except palace) his subs and tactical changes have made a big difference. I love that he's prepared to drop Maddison (who is proving him right!) and is prepared to make early subs to benefit the team.
He was a real shadow of the confident, almost cocky, lad that we have seen so far. But that atmosphere is intimidating and one of the most frightening for any player. Having said that, young Archie was like a duck to water!
I like it. You learn more from tough times than easy times. Anyone who shrinks from it doesn’t have the mentality needed.
I kind of get that but remember Bale being like that under Ramos and in Harry's first season. It comes down to mentality and how the club help him
