Slot wants a strong 9. A proper finisher from those crosses and wider area balls. This is why I am constantly looking at nunez and wondering when will we actually see him make any runs that a box player should be making. He's great lashing about but in the box he just finds such odd positions at times. He's contributing what he can but there's another level for us.
I honestly he's not asked to lead the line like a traditional number nine. He's asked to contribute to build up and spends a lot of time tracking back. He won the ball back a few times just outside our own 18 yard box
I think it's a case of slot wanting something specific from the 9 position I.e. a Firmino type, which Nunez obviously isn't, but his only other option atm is Diaz down the middle and he has to rotate somewhere.
No not like a target man but he has to be there to finish in the end. If you compare to isak last night it was night and day. So busy, so effective, so genuinely dangerous. If you compare to kane who fancies himself a 10 and a 9 that guy comes alive in the box in terms of understanding where to be and how to make space. Nunez seems to take himself.out of the danger zone. I've never really seen him get across a cb to finish much. He's a nice lad who works very hard amd gives his all. But. But you have to do more on the ball than some of the God awful stuff he did for us last night.
I don't think he wants a Bobby. I think he does want a genuine 9 who can do the work. I think if he had firmino he would love him to play where szobo plays. He'd be brilliant. I'm sure if you handed slot the 19/20 side he'd love it and have henderson and windy at twin 6s and firmino at 10 but he'd want that striker up top.
People saying that the referee didn't get any of the big decisions wrong ( penalty shouts for both sides notwithstanding), that's all well and good if he gets the small decisions right or at least a good portion of them, which just didn't happen. Dishing out yellows to our players, mostly for nothing, altered the way we played. With Gordon flopping all over the place and winning a foul and a yellow card for our players, nobody wanted to take him on. That meant they stood off him and he more or less had the freedom to do whatever he liked. That had a big impact on the game. It's about time referees stopped falling for his antics.
There's not one of those that's not a yellow will be is argument. I'd argue macallister was harsh in the extreme but he was arguing with the ref before it so I'm sure it was a petty got you card. All the players who swung out of someone to stop them got a card. Our lads got very cheap bookings as a result. He booked pope for mouth after the final whistle as.well. He missed obvious fouls like joelinton and missed howling dives by Gordon So he was in his right to do what he did mostly but it showed him to be a pedantic home towner who missed things
A lot of that is true. My argument is that when you have a referee dishing out yellows, mostly for nothing, the players are forced into playing cautiously. Players con the referee every game but honest players know when they have been booked for nothing and it alters the way they play. It's my biggest bugbear with referees - booking players for fouls that never happened. It's natural that they will miss fouls but 'seeing' things that never happened is very frustrating.
Basically if you are moving at all and are fouled its a yellow card nowadays, becoming ridiculous. I get cynical pull backs etc but it's all been taken to the extreme now.
May as well keep him until the end of the season now - unless some Spanish or Portuguese teams are mad enough to pay £40m for him. The thing that disappointed me last night, especially in the first half, is that the one thing we can normally rely upon him to do is run the line and keep the opposition back four occupied. he just didn't do it last night (not in the first half anyway). He helped make the 2nd goal against City by doing just that. I don't expect him to finish a 50/50 chance nowadays, or even the 65/35 he got last night and fluffed. He never stops trying, and that's fair enough, but we could buy that lad Delap at Ipswich to do exactly what he does and more, and he tries hard too. I'm not saying we should, but I ask you why we've paid top money and top wages for a guy who, at best, is Championship/Prem relegation standard - and we all damn well know it. Don't want to start a pile-on on the feller as I like him and you can see he doesn't lack effort, but he's Ricky Lambert with pace (though Lambert could finish) or even a South American Benteke - and all those guys tried hard too. Sorry, but he just doesn't have the quality to be at a Top 6 club, and that's that. Some classic worldies for the memories though.
He's done it a couple more times this season and got away with it (I think Brighton and Chelsea, IIRC?). I don't think he'll do it again.
Was going to say similar. But thing on sky about did they get big calls right - funny they go into second by second detail about how ball was only in play for less than 2 mins of the 5, as if that means anything. The ball is only in play about 60 mins of 90 so that % adds up fine. The fact it took Newcastle over a minute to take a free kick is their own fault. But if sky are going to go into depth and examine that, then go the whole hog. lets look at how Mac was booked for a bump of bodies that was a nothing foul and Joelinton managed to avoid a yellow for a late sliding tackle. lets came how Gordon dived to win 2 free kicks when he should have been booked for both and been sent off.
Bit over the top. Guy smashed in goals in Portugal and champ league. Also delap would prob cost just as much as Nunez. Ipswich would want about 40/50m for him which shows you why there is very little value in the prem. he cost them 20m after scoring 8 in 31 in the champ.
Lots of players are confidence players. Some, like Salah, can take set backs and missed opportunities in their stride and go on to produce incredible football. I think Nunez is a player who needs a high level of confidence in order to play well. At the start of the season it looked like Slot just didn't fancy him and imo that has affected his confidence long term. He's still getting stuck in defensively, just needs a couple of goals to get him up and running.
Kelleher imo showed zero gsme awareness there. It eas a bizarre decision that could only be explained by him losing his bearing totally and thinking he eas bitterly on the goal.line. It's 5 mins to go. 3-2 up after being behind twice. You deal with the ball. You don't let anything bounce you don't let anything over your head etc. He's just let that go when he could have caught it or at the very least punched it. Yes they guy produced a great finish but if keeleher was even on his line he's not scoring at all. Once you come you must deal with it. Worse still is Newcastle are well known for back stick action from the big cbs so kelleher would have seen them.out there and then see it going back stick so comes. Deal with it. Absolutely rank decision. For the record i felt quansah yellow was piss poor from him. I thought vvd knew exactly what he was doing when he ran into Gordon. I thought gomez was terrible with his back pass. He knew the man was there and could have smashed it out. Don't do what you are worried about smash it out and regroup rather than getting it badly wrong I thought we were second best and quite flat so the second half was good from slot and salah. The team fought for what it got.
It’s the one thing about vvd. The amount of time when he’s running back towards goal if ball is bouncing and he’s out wide he just smashes it out of play. Will never try and play it back to keeper unless he has the ball under control. Some players almost feel like they have to do too much with the ball or be judged
I've admired that about him for years. Nothing fancy, if you're under pressure just boot it out and regroup, no tricks in a dangerous area. Quansah did the same a couple of times yesterday so at least he's learning, Gomez takes risks a bit too often.
