The best bit for me was that he just got straight back up and continued to play as if nothing had happened. He was excellent against Maribor and put in a real shift again today.
Just saw the goal on MOTD, excellent header. Didn't see him involved with any of our other chances though, did he have a good game?
Agreed. Actually he sprinted off his line a couple of times at least. Once he got to the ball through a crowd of players and gave it a good old thump.
Agreed with all that (apart from The Sig in central midfield because I don't think he's up to it). I think we might get away with two DMs if they're both Sandro, though I admit that's quite unlikely without a change in the basic laws of the universe. Good quote also for the Fail - I can almost see them printing that! In fact when will anyone print that we've had a good start to the season (well we must have as some of the teams below us in the table apparently have!) ... and with my 'glass half full' hat on (sounds a bit wet) we should actually be happy that we've achieved this with half a first team not being available and (according to one poster at least) some kind of statue in goal (beware GH10, he may be a weeping angel coming to get you!)
I think the system requires two defensive midfielders in order for the attacking three to be freed up to support the striker. Defoe is looking much better because he's not really the lone striker in this system as he usually has one of the attacking three close by so doesn't have to hold the ball up while waiting for support. Clearly the system will work best if one or both of the DMs can also pass well and beat people but their main job is tackling and breaking play up so they've got to be good at that too. Personally I think any combination of Parker, Sandro, Dembele, Livermore and Huddlestone would work OK once they are all fit and used to the role, but Dembele and Sandro is clearly the strongest pair.
I don't. We saw Sandro and Livermore the first 3 games of the season and it was painful on the eye. Parker and Sandro played a couple times together last season and didn't look great if I remember rightly. Huddlestone and Livermore would be a nightmare waiting to happen, no pace, no ability to beat a player and they'd be so far deep in midfield you'd be able to fit 10 Peter Crouch's between them and the attacking midfield trio. Worryingly for me is that when Dembele is not playing, we look so flat in the attacking side in the CM department. Sandro has been immense but without Dembele, we lack a player that can take the ball and travel 20 yards trying to create something. I'd rather try Sigurdsson in the CM role if Dembele can't play and see how that works out, he's more mobile than Huddlestone and while his passing range isn't on the same level as Hudd, he can still ping a decent ball, plus I really don't think he'd be much worse than what Hudd and Livermore have been this season. Like you say Sandro and Dembele are the strongest pair and a bloody good one at that! But we have no decent back up option should Dembele be out. We've really got to wrap Sandro up in cotton wool too in my opinion, he's been awesome lately and the last thing we need is him picking up any form of injury otherwise it could cause some major problems.
Good points SoS. Couple of buts though. We saw Parker Sandro with Harry, not good as you say. Sandro Hudd, ok v Saints, exposed v Chelsea. I said this last week that Hudd will get by against these teams, but top6 will take him out the game. Once or twice yesterday Hudd lost it, got left floundering but Soton never made the most of it. Livermore with Sandro no, in place of, maybe. Jake played well with Modric last season, so I'd suggest he may do better with Dembele.
The system needs one of Sandro, Parker or Livermore paired with Dembele or Huddlestone to work at it's best. You could conceivably pair up Dembele and Huddlestone, too. Might work well actually, thinking about it. Sigurdsson, Jenas or one of the youth side (Carroll, Pritchard, Luongo?) should be used instead of going with two holding players, which simply fails every time that we use it. The only exception that I've seen to that was the awesome displays of Palacios and Sandro against Milan, but every other attempt, even when switching to it via subs, has flopped miserably.
A big difference between yesterday and against Maribor was that against Saints only Hudd really got forward with any regularity and Sandro did most of the shielding, whereas when we played Maribor they alternated, leaving us exposed when Hudd was sitting deep as his lack of mobility basically sees him bypassed most of the time. I think AVB and Sandro realised for the weekend that he can't play with Hudd like he can with Dembele, which is progress I guess. That said I still think that Hudd won't be good enough against the top teams in the defensive aspect as he will get overrun.
PNP, Jenas?? he can't pass the ball mate. Please do not write his name again, as you said earlier he can't even get a game at Forest, eligible for 5 games, came on as a late sub for 20mins in 4 of them. There's no place in our side however desperate. I'm sceptical of your choice of Demb/Hudd too, if you're having a DM, tackling needs to be the forte of one of the two. The back 4 want better protection than that. Of our MFer's that can sit and tackle, Sandro, Parker, Jake in that order, to partner Demb, Hudd, I have to stop there, as I'm not sure what Sigs best position is in this team...not sure he or anyone else does either!
Maybe Walker and Lennon have found out a good way of playing together, I really liked the attacking moves they came up with yesterday. I much prefer Lennon, when he goes inside quite a bit and mixes up his game, and it gives Walker more space to run on the outside.
Jenas isn't a great passer Notso, but he's got a decent engine on him and it's better than just inviting the opposition onto us, getting forced back into our own box and desperately hanging on. I put him down as a last gasp option, but I'd prefer to see him alongside a holding midfielder than have Parker and Sandro picked together, despite the fact that they're both much better players. Balance is extremely important to most sides, but it seems to be utterly essential to ours. Dembele and Huddlestone doesn't sound like a natural partnership, at first glance. I think that they've got a lot of complementary traits though and Huddlestone paired up well with Modric for a while, which makes even less sense. The Belgian's got a physical side to his game, likes to drive forward and take people on, bringing the ball out from deep positions and covering a lot of ground. If we plonked Huddlestone in front of the centre-backs and just had him picking out passes to Bale, Lennon, Dembele, Dempsey and Defoe/Adebayor, then I think it could work well. Not my first choice, by any means, but it'd be interesting to see how it would work. Jenas got a good goal against Barnsley on the weekend. Very cool finish. Wouldn't credit it too much though, as they had Alnwick in goal.
Jenas HAD a decent engine on him, thats confined to history now. Again re Demb/Hudd, I agree Hudd would be fine pinging passes, but that doesn't account for 90mins, its when we don't have the ball Hudd is exposed.
