Just leaving the ground. Harsh to blame pellegrino for today IMO. Maybe he could have brought lemina on 10mins earlier, and possibly sims earlier as well. But the fact is, if we persist with Shane long up front, we will go down. We need a physical striker, to hold it up and relieve pressure
Let’s face it. We’re not all that. We could be with the players we have, but a combination of poor management and decision making by the players let us down. A relegation battle looms. Makes me feel 13 years younger. That’s a positive.
He also then brought on Okaka, giving them another big body in the box at which they could aim crosses, because they were absolutely killing us in the air. Not surprisingly, the equalizer came from a ball that Deeney won (easily) and headed back across goal.
Shane Long was the main part in both of our goals today? I'd say letting a two goal lead slip is more of problem but hey ho.
He played okay (for him), but the way we hoof it and put in crosses means hes a waste of space. We are so lightweight. Either way I don’t see what pellegrino could have done today, with the players available. I want him out too, I just think there are more issues than just him.
Same. Doesn't matter who the striker was: there wasn't going to be any hold-up play, because we couldn't even punt the ball far enough to reach them, and no striker would be able to fend off two defenders for 5+ seconds while the rest of our team rushed up. That he was horribly isolated spoke to the fact that his theoretical support was on the edge of our box.
I do think the MP criticism is over the top, but this pattern can't be ignored. He took Davis off because he obviously isn't up to competing in a PL midfield battle anymore, and in doing so we did seem to regain some control of the game. Watford were able to get crosses in to the box and cause us problems. Deeney and Okaka were dominating Hoedt and Stephens. We need at least one centre back, as Hoedt just doesn't convince me he's consistent or good enough. At the end of the day, I would have taken a point before kick off. Our defence isn't good enough, theres a limit as to what MP can do about that.
Its odd but at the moment my emotions are all over the place. Veering from positivity that the board are doing something behind the scenes, to absolute anger that they aren't and then in between a feeling of really can't be bothered any more. Why would Gao spend all that money and then seemingly risk it loosing significant value by not doing anything. To me it seems very fishy
Seems very similar to Palace the other week. Leading at HT, opposing manager makes tactical changes & MP just waits until damage done. Knew with Palace, as soon as they scored we’d lose because they were so much on the front foot & we were just back peddling. Regardless of the handball, good job we had a 2 goal lead at HT or we would have lost. Would have lost if a few more minutes had been played. One away to date & that was fortunate. Ffs, just not good enough.
I think working with the psychology of the players is as big a problem with him as the tactical stupidity.
