What i see now is a manager who got a cb injury and had a cb but has no faith in the cb. He is more willing to destroy the midfield (which is not playing well) to not play him. Thats a problem. That's a major problem.
it’s not just that he won’t play Gomez, as mentioned yesterday, the midfield movement was awful in the first half was awful, we played slow across the back line, allowing Chelsea a high press and none of them moved very much to allow a pass through the line to put us on the front foot. Mac Allister might as well have been a cardboard cut out most of the time. At times he was almost playing in defence he was that deep. I actually thought we were better attacking wise when Robertson came in, but that still doesn’t excuse Slot putting Grav at centre back for Konate and then Szboszlai at right back for Bradley. If you have defensive substitutes, use them because it all did was ruin the midfield.
Slot needs to get a grip now. The team has not gelled yet and the bizarre positioning of some players especially Grav and Szboz is not working. Get a settled first team that knows what to do and move forward from there
You have to have faith in a player improving. Slot seems to want a player now and that's it. What we dont know is if bradley was told pregame in the briefings thst he will be up against the biggest diver and whinger going. Stay on your feet l, dont give him an excuse. Same for gomez. Yeah he was awful v southmatpon but he is literally what you have. 2 chances now to show youve worked with him to get him up to speed and you put gravenberch back there and destroy the team. Threw endo in late there and he was totally cold. He keeps putting jones in at cm but he is not nor never will be a cm. He can knock it about but the boy is Harry Wilson without the goals. Get him as far from our own goal as possible and run about pressing but never at cm.
I still don't think slot understands he's going to need that full squad at points during the season. If I was gomez I'd be completely pissed off. Im amazed chiesa is still putting in any effort. Its like watching grassroots, the manager picks his kid & his kids mates and you're ****ed if your not in that group. In fact looking at the tactics and the general state of running about headless, falling apart and lack of organisation and it's very much like watching a very well paid under 9 side.
I'm more and more annoyed at the Elliott and Quansah s transfers as time goes on. Perfectly good CB at the right age but no, doesn't trust him. Doesn't seem to trust many players in all honesty.
In fairness we have seen this with klopp too. The only way out of it is with hard work but the first taster in hard work is stop over complicating things and start being consistent in what you do on a daily basis. Keep Szoboszlai in midfield. Keep gravenberch at 6 Keep isak at 9. Start subbing off salah or better yet sub him on if he doesn't like it. He has to start doing his bit of working back more.
Agreed, but I think I was the only Red in the pub who was asking why Kerkez had been taken off when, by and large, it was the midfield and attack and not the defence that was the problem. Putting Gravy at CB to bring on Jones was nuts.
Quansah would have made sense had Guehi been over the line. That said, had Leoni not gotten his horror injury, I'd have him alongside Virgil now and not Joe. Gomez's performance against Soton in the LC was dire. It terrifies me that we are one injury from Virgil (God forbid) or Konate away from having to play Joe as a first-choice CB. Nobody can be blamed for Leoni's injury, but it now means we need 2 CBs in January, and if one of those is not Guehi, God knows what we're getting.
"I’ve told you repeatedly that this season will be tough, not only because of happens on the pitch, but also because of what has happened off it." (Van Dijk ViaPlay) I understand everyone’s frustrations but Jota’s passing in the summer is very clearly having a big impact on a lot of the players
It's hard to respond to that. I'm not seeing players that are just not with it and emotionally affected.
Slot commented on konate that he was thinking of thst sub anyway as I quote "the right cb had a lot of possession" How stupid is this Sorry but literally tearing you midfield apart to put a guy at rcb who isn't actually very good at it and then find himself with nobody to pass it to. Neither end of this equation makes any ****ing sense. Konate injury I get ok. A sub is needed. But I was watching konate looking for someone to pass to and nobody moving. Who was suddenly moving for gravenberch
It’s hard to say isn’t it. I’m not defending Slot and his substitutions because I agree that they should be like for like subs and players should be playing in their preferred positions. I just think that we don’t know how players are actually affected by loss of Jota in the summer and it could explain the form of some players (probably referring to the players that have been here longer like Salah, Konate etc)
Yep, and I've repeatedly pointed this out. Not sure I like VVD pointing it out though, that was always going to get a backlash unfortunately.
They were certainly effected when it happened, they were effected by the delay on starting pre-season, and they certainly wouldn't have been "over it" by the start of the season. It's all a knock on effect. The new players would have felt isolated during that time too, there wouldn't have been much bonding happening. Plus a lot of changes in the squad as well. It makes for a lot of contributions to poor form, add to that a tough opening run of fixtures too. We did very well to win the opening give games and find ourselves 5pts clear.
They look unfit. 1 game a week was ok but they started v atletico, blew up on 60mins and have lost the next 3. But we've been wide open all preseason too. Really easy to run right through
