Forster - 7 - Did what he had to do well enough made one great save. Slow distribution and average at best kicking. Clyne - 5 - Played poorly today, offered little going forward and was relatively poor defensively. Fonte - 7 - Did alright today and was one of the few players willing to bring the ball forward. Yoshida - 6 - Fine defensively but, unlike fonte, was poor in moving the ball forward. Betrand - 7 and a half - Pretty good, got forward well and put in some decent balls. Occasionally got caught too far forward. Wanyama - 7 and a half - Did his job well, occasionally wasted possession. Schneiderlin - 7 - Really depends what you want from him at the moment. He was back to old school Adkins and just sat and defended, which he's fantastic at. However he needed to bring the ball forward and link defence and attack which he failed to do today. Davis - 5 - Pretty poor today, robbed us of any width and wasn't as good defensively as he usually is. Ward-Prowse - 6 - Lovely free kick but other than that was just a bit too slow offensively. Tadic - 6 - Did alright in terms of beating his man but misplaced quite a few passes and ultimately didn't do anything too impressive. Pelle - 4 - Got **** all service today but the service he got he did bugger all with. Like many people have said (including me) it looks like he could be a flop. Koeman - 3 - **** tactics today. Pelle is a big fella but Jonas Olsson is bigger, playing the long ball up every chance we got was the wrong move. A striker like Long playing centrally would have Olsson turning back and running which is his weakness, this was obvious from minute 1. His decision to bring on Cork for Ward-prowse was stupid as well, removed any real attacking impetus from our play against west brom, at home!
Koeman getting 3 for **** tactics is very harsh. Pelle is his first choice striker after one game and a good team performance against Liverpool. To suggest he changed that is a little odd. I was surprised cork came on but not surprise JWP came off. If Vic had been caught in possession by Mulumbu as many times as JWP did, he'd be getting slaughtered.
I still maintain that if we had Adam centrally instead of JWP we would be in good shape. I love JWP and think he will be a real talent, but he has a lot to learn and slows the game down where Adam would make things happen on his own
The problem here is people started believing all the 3-0 predictions. always looked like a tougher game to me. We are still very much lacking, & it was highlighted in a beautiful manner today, it will surely speed things up next week while we crash out the first cup, Amen.
Forster 8 Not much to do...defending wasn't the issue today Clyne 6 Average game for Nathaniel, but will be a key player this season Fonte 7 Good defensively, a bit more leadership from our captain required on this occasion Yoshida 7 He did we'll today, much better than last week Bertrand 7 Got forward well, defensively also fine, more end product in final third required Wanyama 7 Solid game Schneiderlin 7 Played well, but I was hoping for him to have more impact on the brick wall that WBA put up in front of him Davis 6 Average today, Taider in against Millwall and if he performs likely to play in our next PL game JWP 6 In the position he is playing he needs to dictate our play more than he did today Tadic 7 I thought he did OK today, needed more movement around him Pelle 4 Poor, I hope he improves Koeman's after match TV interview was spot on...shame about our offensive performance. Onward and upward!
It's like I said though. Olsson vs Pelle was only going to end one way. If I can notice that as a random punter then he should be able to see it.
Adam? If you are on about Lallana then it is not really worth thinking about it. He is gone and we move on.
Yes I was talking about Lallana. Ok then I'll rephrase it; we need a number 10 who is actually a number 10, or JWP needs to adapt to the role. I would like to see what taïder can do in there next time out.
Fans - 3 - Those that did bother to turn up, don't know why many of them bother. They attend games like they are sat at home in front of the tv.
Agreed. Poor atmosphere after the first 15 minutes and once again missed lots of the last ten minutes with people trying to leave.
Forster 7 Clyne 5 (2 weak performances in a row?!) Yoshida 6 Fonte 7 Bertrand 5 Schneiderlin 7 Wanyama 7 Tadic 7 JWP 6 Davis 6 Pelle 5 Long 6 Cork 5
You should be a football coach then. That's such an arrogant comment its incredible. How many times have you seen Pelle play to make that judgement? Pelle was poor against Olsson but for a fan who's watched him once to give it the big "anyone could tell that" is just pathetic, really pathetic. Koeman has managed this player for two seasons and no doubt has seen him dominate some CBs and had faith that he'd be good today; turns out he wasn't but FFS please don't make out your some kind if coaching genius.
There was no atmosphere at the ground today, I felt. The only ray of light was Forster who looks like a marked improvement on Boruc but , apart from flashes from Tadic, I was disappointed by the display put in by the out-field players. I would have to say that Pelle doesn't look like an £8 million player and seemed incapable of holding the ball up for such a big person. His touch looks poor as well and, on first appearance, he looked out of his depth and maybe someone who would have been better suited to the Championship. Difficult to really make much out of watching one game although there seemed little creativity and nothing going on down the flanks. Both teams looked poor and Koeman seemed unable to make the kind of changes that would have unpicked the lock. I would have been interesting is he had Gaston and Jay to select from but the squad he had available today certainly lacked creativity.
You seem to have taken that a little to heart. I don't think I'm a football manager for christs sakes, I think it seemed pretty obvious that Olsson who is big and strong would do well against a big and strong striker but **** against a small fast one. You need to sort your tone out pal.
