Apart from the fact that he can't pass and gives the ball away too much! I say that slightly tongue in cheek because there is no doubt that we are letting in more goals with him not playing. Whether that is down to his absence or the quality of the opposition I don't know.
LFF, take your Corkie glasses off. From the very start, when he was getting crucified for his passing ability, I said that his presence and 'destroying' is crucial to how we play. A team of Jack cork and Adam Lallana's would get beat every game. A team needs a blend and Victor's presence is key. Several years ago, I played with a player who was a complete cart horse and by far the worst technical player in our team. He was our captain and leader on the pitch and without him we were a poorer team. He'd get stick every week from the other players as he couldn't pass wind or trap a bag of cement, but we needed him.
I think that it is what I was saying actually; that despite his obvious limitations as a footballer he improves our defensive capabilities. Hey, we are agreed! Oh, and I didn't even mention the amazingly brilliant Cork
lol. we should all head off to the KUMB and cheer ourselves up with how a 'big team' can turn on their man. Happy new year guys
His 81% pass accuracy isn't really bad. I know a lot of his completed passes are simple ones so I'm not making an argument he's on Morgan's level of passing, but it shows he doesn't give the ball away as often as some people make out.
Reviewing the season so far, we have played well in almost all games and had a chance of winning most. We were defensively very good until we lost our GK and several defensive players and/or met the tougher teams...even then we managed to get points off three of the top teams. We are safely midtable (for now). What we have to see now is can we return to winning ways against midtable/lower sides over the next few months. We have players being considered for England at all age groups. Overall I am very pleased with the club and I suspect any disappointment is due to the fact that we slid to this position rather than climbed bravely to it. Just gives a different perspective. The proof of the pudding is the next few months.
Do we know what Big Vic's injury situation is? At least the schedule is getting lighter now, only one more midweek game.
He can't be close to coming back as we have neither heard nor seen him. His cracked bone must have made it impossible for him to regain fitness...suspect it will be a while.
For sure - the massive discrepancy between pre-match chat on here and then post-defeat reasoning is baffling. As someone else pointed out, most other teams have managed Chelsea OK at home (bar Sunderland, West Ham etc.), and it seems that according to some we may as well not have even played the game, as Chelseaâs squad is so superior we may well have just chalked down an automatic 0-3 on paper and then not physically turned up. For our aspirations, we should be looking at getting something out of all our home games (or at least trying not to ship 3 goals at home on a regular basis recently). In some ways, we have definitely found our level â we have barely moved in the league placing lately, no matter what our results â and all that talk by many on here of us being small minded and needing to compete with the top six looks just that: idle talk. Mid-table complacency is culturally difficult to play yourself out of, despite the belief and ambitions of the squad as a cohesive unit. We are very good and in no danger of going down â but we need to press on from this, and aim for results (draws at least) against the teams we are trying to emulate. Raising our game is key in these matches. I am mainly disappointed by the way we have either rolled over (yesterday), or played well and not got anything (Everton) lately. These are worrying poles of performance. But equally, we do have key players out injured, and this run has completely coincided with that issue. I just hope we buy this window, as it is head in the sand if we think we can continue in this vein, as who knows what will happen if a new match of key players (Lovren or Adam, say) get injured?
We may buy if the right player comes along and we have the money (?). However, it is only essential if we can get a European place or need to avoid relegation...neither of these is seriously the case. Perhaps Nicola would rather keep his powder dry (if indeed we have any powder) for the planned summer moves. I'm expecting nothing this window apart from a loanee GK (and do we even seriously need that if SKD can fill the gap). I doubt that Nicola is panicking.
Surely Lovren made a class tackle on the left hand post in the final twenty minutes or so (dispossessed Hazard, I think) - complete penalty territory, and came out of it clean as a whistle? Best tackle of the game imo.
True, actually. I guess we're not going anywhere within +2 or -2 table places, I suppose. I hope! A cup run and maintenance of some consistency in the league would be nice. On another note, Swansea seem to lose loads of their games lately - I can imagine they must lie below us in the form table. Above West Ham, though, of course.
Well, we need cover almost everywhere ideally, but Clyne did perfectly fine. Shows up in the opta stats. 1/4 tackles completed. Still not exactly great.
