It's hard to play Long and Davis in the same lineup. They do so much of the dirty work well, but you need an awesome finisher to offset their relative lack of offense. Also hard to play Tadic and Pelle in the same lineup. They too, are good at their roles but not prolific enough to make up for Long and Davis. And if they don't score/create, they don't bring enough other things to the table to make up for it. When we took Pelle out, the offense didn't look any more dynamic or dangerous. Granted, Rodriguez is coming back from injuries, but overall you'd think we could muster up a bit more against a couple of 12 year olds. It's not just one player. The whole offense is out of whack. Was this way last year as well. Think we need either one incredible player to build around (which we won't get, or at least Austin is as close as we'll come), or we need to upgrade at both striker and attacking midfield.
Need to see it again, on a clearer screen. Was certainly intentional, and may have been studs on ankle, which would have been a red in my book, but can't say for sure. Looks like it may have been bad, simply because the Everton player appeared to be checking up with Long at the start of the second half. Guilt?
There's a fair bit of agreement here from me. Yes, you could say that the whole attack [please not offense or I'll take offence ] is out of kilter. For me though it's the creative area. It is simply not high quality enough. We don't have a Payet, a Fabregas, or a Mahrez, if you like. That's the one player we need, not people like Austin. We've got a wealth of finishers like him. They can all do that quite well. What we need are better quality chances carved out. All the chief creative guys we've got would be excellent support to a Payet or Fabregas. But we need one fit player of that calibre.
Agreed. If we can find a creative force or two, and we absolutely need to do so, the addition of Austin (assuming he can get healthy) will make a big difference.
Fair enough, but they are all of sufficiently high quality at finishing for us to convert dozens of good chances. It's creating them that's the problem. I know it, you know it and Koeman damn sure knows it too.
Shame about the result....especially as I changed my prediction from 1-1 to 2-2 in the Prediction Thread.
I agree on the creating side, however I still think that overall we do tend to create lots of chances. The main strikers we have used this season and last, Pelle, Mane and Long are not clinical enough (if we are being very critical). Davis, JWP, Romeu,Clasie, Vic and Tadic never score enough. I believe Tadic can be that creative force ability wise, but apart from the first 6 months last season, he hasn't created enough consistently. One thing for sure, is that if we had a very creative/goal scoring midfielder we would be close to being a greater threat to those above us.
We do create lots of chances. But they aren't good chances. We create a lot of iffy ones. One or two chances we create are good to very good. We invariably score at that point, because we're not bad at putting them away, or a Leicester defender puts his arm in the way.
Today, when we didn't create much, we had 18 shots and 4 on target. That isn't a good enough rate on target.
RonKo said Pelle was injured in the first half and was below par, didn't say why he kept Dusan on the right side where he can't cross for toffees, or us if it comes to that........
Good thanks. Certainly good enough for the second half. I'm not normally sat in when I'm not at a game (usually on the side of a hockey pitch or doing gardening jobs).
I'm normally Rambling or fixing something, but today neither, so I watched the stream myself. It was OKish in quality but at least it didn't stop and start. As mentioned before, I lost the ball in the sunlight/stand occasionally though. Can't complain.
