I think you're perhaps forgetting the basics of Bielsaball. We play as a team. We risk all in attack & accept that this exposes us in defence. We attack from the back & defend from the front. There is no doubt that Alioski didn't have his best game, but before you crucify the guy, you've got to ask yourself why. And the simple answer is that he was exposed time after time by his wingers. Indeed, as I posted elsewhere, ALL 5 of our wingers failed yesterday. Didn't matter who was in front of him - Alioski suffered. As for how this all came about, it can't possibly be coincidental, so I'll leave that analysis to Bielsa. In this case, I think we'll probably eventually realise that Fat Frank & his team did us over goodstyle. Sadly.
I've said before that players start the game with a 6 and then see how it goes. Poveda and Rodrigo both had limited time to make an impression. They kept their 6 as they did a couple of good things and a couple of bad things. It's about what was expected of them. Par for the course. Bamford getting a 6 is the same. He scored a good goal. Took it well as you say. However I agree with Klich who in the first half gave Bamford a bollocking as Klich was having to press the Chelsea backline himself because Bamford wasn't doing it. That had a knock on effect twice (that I saw) as Kante was left freeing the middle to run at us. Bamford didn't even cover Klichs position whilst Klich was doing his job for him. Bamford didn't put his usual shift in yesterday for whatever reason. He's usually very strong on his press. He gave the ball away regularly and yes missed a couple of half chances. However he did well to be johnny on the spot. I would say Bamford was below par at a 5 out of 10 yesterday bit he got his goal and therefore he is forgiven slightly and gets a 6 which is about par. For what it's worth Werner would have got a 4 from me. Missed lots of opportunities to kill us off and early doors too. He was a constant thorn in our side but should have had 3 or 4 yesterday.
Our worst performance of the season yes but due to 2nd half. But on the plus side you have to remember that theres about £300m difference in the value of the players on the pitch. Chelsea will finish in top 4 and could be even better, so lets not cut our wrists. we played well against Liverpool and was unlucky we took a point off City, we lost against Chelsea but thats not too bad is it, really. We would have all expected to get battered by these 3 teams a few weeks ago. West Ham and Newcastle to come so give me 3 points them or at least 2 points and we should be happy
We aren't going to play a team like them every week. Spurs maybe a hard game, but so far we haven't done too badly.
After 8 games we had 10 points. I said at the time if we matched that for the next 8 games we’d still be on course to finish comfortably in a safe position. We got 4 points from the last 3 games so still on course for the 20 points from 16 games we need. Happy with how the season’s going so far - consolidating in an entertaining way.
