Not really. In terms of the title: that's gone. It's between Arsenal and City and I can see City winning it now they've started to hit form. Arsenal have had a run of decent fixtures to start with, but I'm not sure they know how to take it over the line when City are breathing down their necks. I expect us to finish top4, maybe not easily but we'll get it together and do enough or more to get there. It also helps that the other challengers are all really inconsistent as well and while some other clubs have started well (like Sunderland and Bmouth) they don't have the squads to maintain it over the whole season. The big question (for me) is will it be with Slot? I think he's still not convinced the majority of the fanbase and I think he's seen as the main cause in the problems.
We've actually front loaded the season with the most difficult fixtures, a better set coming up should give us a chance to get back to winning ways via getting back to basics.
Slots now claims the clubs strategy is to have 19 or 20 players. Its all down to injuries. Let's just check that logic 1.alisson. 2. Marmadashvilli 3. Woodman. (Not squad player?) 4. Bradley. 5. Frimpong. 6. Robertson 7. Kerkez 8. Konate 9. Van dijk. 10. Gomez (not wanted) 11. Leoni (is he not a first team player?) 12 gravenberch 13. Macallister 14. Jones. 15. Endo (not wanted, not used) 16. Szoboszlai 17. Wirtz 18. Gakpo. 19. Ngumoha (clearly.not seen as first team) 20. Isak 21. Ekitike 22. Salah. 23. Chiesa. 24. Elliott. Loaned out. I can obviously write off 3 players straight away. Woodman, Leoni and Ngumoha to get him to his 20. What do i do with the 2 players he doesn't want to use then? Seems a bit short sighted if the club strategy is 20 players to not use 10% of the available players. Seems to me then he's got 18 he wants to use Then you take robertson and salah as players who can't running more and the issue gets worse doesn't it? U21s are no use as slot doesn't want to use them bar ngumoha. Anyone even half decent was loaned out and the rest are crocked.
Taking the city game in isolation, these things happen. City were really good and they outplayed us. I think we have turned a bit of corner from were we were before the Villa game. As others have said, we've played a lot of tough fixtures in this period and I expect performances and results to be better after the international break.
I agree to some extent. It is difficult to argue that an offside player in the six yard box is not interfering with play.
I'm glad they did. I don't think anyone expects anything to come of it but clubs should be pointing out the failures every time they happen.
this is the problem there was no "failure" as such as the "interfering with play" decision is subjective and determined by Ref and or the lino .Now despite the bollocks about VAR being unable to intervene in subjective decisions it clearly can . The real gripe is about consistency but unlikely to get it with humans in charge .
I have to say I expected it to be a bridge too far after thr real Madrid game and it was away as well. We are, where we are. We are not at the races for 1st. Its fairly obvious irrespective of what anyone wishes. We are not about to pull a spurs there and trundle along in 17th. We will improve once slot can keep the 14 or 15 players he wants fit. Macallister is key. Salah is a problem.he has to adapt.
I'm not seeing a team that it's capable of winning many games. Something is very wrong. If I had to guess we'll be mid table very soon. Hope I'm wrong but I may don't see us beating many PL trans, they already smell blood.
I don't see anything 'very wrong'. There are clearly problems to be addressed, you don't lose three quarters of your forward line in one fell swoop and carry on as normal for instance but there's too much talent for this not to come together and start blowing teams away.
Salah has been, to put it mildly, poor. In many respects, its like playing with 10 men. He put a shift in against Real, actually tracking back and defending and he scored a lovely consolation goal vs Brentford, but outside of that he's almost non-existent. He's getting marked out of games easilly, not competing well and getting knocked off the ball. Where has his fabled strength gone? When trying to dribble, the 2nd or third touch is always, always too hard and he loses the ball.
