Chelsea v Saints Saturday 16/12/17 KO 3.00pm.

I'm saying Mauricio is. I'm not the manager. Just like players have a best way to be played to bring the best out in them, so do managers. Although to be fair to Pellegrino, after a couple of months with the players he has recognised we don;'t have the players for it. thus our pick up in performance when he switch to traditional wingers. But i still want to at least give him one window to try and get us playing to a way that suits him.

 

He turned Sunderland down too! McInnes going to Saints would be like seeing the mother in law drive off a cliff in my new car. He`d certainly do a better job than MP2 though. When he was at Bristol City for a season in the Championship he won home and away against Saints. Then he got sacked. Murty knows Saints from his time here, but its far too big a job for him.

 

That is one of the very few decisions he has made that I agree with.

 

Or more... me thinks!

 

How about 5 years with the same manager?

 

And not having dick head players wanting to leave

 

The issue with playing the formation we used to day is that we don’t have the players to make best use of it.
If we play Gabbiadini up front, he will run the channels relentlessly, but we don’t seem to have the players who can see his movement and give him the type of pass he would thrive on.
If we play Austin up front, he lacks the pace and mobility.
Long, has the pace and mobility, and works hard, but has little else.
What all three have in common is that none of them can hold onto the ball for long enough to allow other players to get forward and support them, which means the ball is always coming back at us, often catching players out of position, because it bypasses them whilst they are still trying to get forward.

If we are to continue using this formation, then I think that we need to put more trust in the likes of Tadic and/or Boufal to put in a defensive shift, because they are just about the only players we have who can hold the ball up for more than one touch, when we do get forward. But above all, we need to bring in a striker who can hold the ball up. There must be someone out there, even if we go down the route of signing an older player, as we did with Pelle.

 

But it’s my biggest frustration - we play to Gabbiadini’s style actually quite often. When Austin is on the pitch.

 

Provided you get the right manager. I reckon 5 years with this guy in charge could see us roughly in league two.

 

A quick look at the underlying stats shows that they have clearly sold their soul to Beelzebub.

 

It’s because they play in Proudsville

 

Sat in the Chelsea end today but gave a great view from a height I don’t get to see us at when we play at home.

Massively highlighted was Gabbi’s horrific level of effort. Conversely Redmond, Romeu and PEH worked incredibly hard. Maya with some wonderful blocks but continuously got too tight to Hazard, maybe that was the plan because there were two other centre backs to sit back.

Easy to see who’s committed and who isn’t.

Boufal completely changed the game with his injection of positivity but too little too late.

 

Haven’t we played like half the league?

 

Poor phrasing perhaps but Isn't that exactly the point? 4 wins from half a season.

 

Not much to say about this game, we went to stifle and we stifled. Predictably we couldn't keep a clean sheet and as we were never setup to score goals we didn't. Bertrand and Redmond can't stand each other imo, Bertie is out the door at the moment, sad for our best player. The whole team has lost its drive, Romeu is all over the place, lemina's initial gloss has been worn off just like it did with gabbiadini. There is malaise in our team, bringing in a striker won't fix it. The bad needs rooting out.

 

Which appears to be happening with Pellegrino dropping VVD.

 

Yep. It's getting desperately late though.

we have spent half a season trying to sort ourselves out and we still don't know how to play this squad. Nobody anywhere actually knows how we will line up or who will start. There is no style, players like Stephens get no consistent chances so the mistakes get made. we've started long, Austin and now gabbiadini up front and all I can sense is that we 'hope' they will get a goal, not that we know how to supply them. I don't think anyone in this squad knows what their role or what the rest of the team will be doing around them.