I don't think Palace look that great defensively though. Get the ball to Mane, and try and keep Long in the game.
Looked very, very tight. Only saw one replay. His shoulder might have been off. But we simply cannot ever expect that to get flagged. Benefit of the doubt must go to the attacker. Fonte should dive in outside the box, and shouldn't get made mincemeat of so easily. He thought about diving in, didn't, and was left flat footed. He needed to commit to diving in, or to getting immediately tight to Bolasie. As for Van Dijk, he went walk about again and gifted a tap in. Not good enough frankly. The biggest danger is conceding a tap in. You have to at least give your keeper a chance. It's the second time Van Dijk's done it recently. He didn't learn from last time. Three centre backs on the park and conceding like that is poor to say the least.
No idea what RK will do for the second half; Palace a good counter attacking side, so all the advantage to them. Cannot help but feel we are a shadow of the side of last season; no idea why that should be either.
Koeman proving to be rather stubborn again. Allardyce ditched 3 at the back after 19 minutes today. He brought Rodwell on for Yedlin. Van Gaal has been known to ditch it quickly too (at half time). Steve Bruce is another manager that comes immediately to mind that is happy to swallow his pride and ditch 3 at the back at half time.
Virgil and Fonte were definitely at fault, but I can't understand why they're the "wrong" way round. Yet another foul from McArthur goes unpunished with a yellow.
We were on a high last season , new manager etc ? Homey moon is well over . Time for our squad , and dare I mention it , RK to step up . No panic , but Getting interesting ;-)
Not a high l would say last season. Expectation was that we should be performing some where near our level of last season, but we look flat most of the time. On paper a stronger squad but mentally we look suspect. Which is why its so perplexing the squad of this capability looks out of sorts. Where has the creative football that was so pleasing on the eye gone? Its not a panic I agree: just so disappointing to see the slide from grace. I also agree that RK needs to step up and wrote this a few days ago.
We lost against Palace in the FA Cup at home in January. DTLW was cherry picking slightly when he mentioned our run against Palace, by our mentioning the head to head meetings in the league. Imo only the head to head meetings in the past year between two teams are relevant.
When I said " on a high " ref last season , I did have a? after it . No panic , again we agree . RK , agree again . He is not perfect , none are . But he is the man who makes the decisions !
I mentioned that he will be under huge pressure, and may get sacked, if we lose to Palace, Spurs and Arsenal. If he doesn't then he will be facing West Ham away having got one point in six games (and getting knocked out 1-6 in the cup during that run). But there is lots of time to turn this around, and I obviously hope we do. Half an hour left in the game, in theory it's still winnable. I just wish Koeman wasn't so stubborn. He needs to ditch the back three. Otherwise he's basically relying on get bailed out by a moment of magic, or a Palace mistake. And Palace are still looking dangerous.
Most of those shots are coming from players who aren't exactly noted for their scoring prowess...Palace seems rather content to give them space to shoot and close down their other options.
Ok then. Pelle and Tadic finally coming on. Three at the back is finally ditched. This should have happened at half time.
