Not sure yet about Kabak. Definitely improving, but nowhere near as good as Joa and matip on the ball. Won't have a word said against Nat King though. What you see is what you get, and once again won every header he went for. We should get a few million now in the summer for him.
Phillips almost at fault for a goal when he was slow to get out, played Watkins onside and they hit the post. Kabak is clearly the better player of the 2, and 3 years younger. He’s not as good as Matip or Gomez on the ball agreed, but he’s younger and isn’t awful. He’s much more comfortable on it than Phillips who tries to play some vvd 50 yard cross field pass every game abs whacks it out of play
Think just been a long season. Seen a lot of teams that try and press fall away as seasons gone on. City barely do it anymore instead they drop off and then win the ball back and build up from the back and in doing so have conserved energy and helped them be fresher all season.
Given his personal circumstances I think it's quite likely he's under a bit of a cloud at the moment, and we could be a little more understanding.
Soton were excellent in the first half of the season, pressing, closing down, winning the ball back, but after Christmas that sort of went to **** and they went on a massive losing streak. Why... Cause they were tried. (leading to injuries etc) Frankly the '25 man' squad wasn't designed to cope with a season like this ,but of course that's how every Prem club is built as its how a regular season would go. (Well except Man City who have a '25 man' Team) Its no wonder why some of the football has been a bit **** this season. Keeping the cup competitions this season was a mistake (not to mention the ill judged insistance of carrying on with needless International games).
Win is a win. League form has improved last 3 games. The rest will come. It might come next season mind!
I didn't watch the game today. Truth be told I haven't watched many over the past couple of months. I think they play better or at least get better results when I don't watch. I agree that the Cup and International games shouldn't have gone ahead this season. Trying to carry on with a full complement of games and competitions in the current climate was madness. I'm looking forward to next season with fans and a return to 'normality ' on and off the pitch.
Phillips will be a cracking purchase for a team that likes to sit deep and defend, Sheffield of Burnley that kind of thinking.
I don't particularly see how taking off a cb and moving the no 6 to cb is particularly effective in bringing in shaqiri. At that point milner thiago and shaqiri ended up as the cbs. Milner could have come.off for shaqiri for example. Anyway there was some word of a knock before the real game but the lad has now played through real, arsenal and villa. We will hear at some point I expect.
I disagree, he defended well and played well in attack often, yes there were faults there but that was the same for every player, overall I was happy with his performance.
True, though perhaps the reason is resting fabinho a bit by sitting him in there while just not having the confidence to just take him off. In the end shaqiri did what he does which is end up out on the right wing despite playing cm and crossed for thiago. The luck went our way with both goals for once. Both dropped to us not the opposition but both players had a lot to do to finish. We should have won by 4 in theory. (Not that the last chance would have existed) Salads miss was awful. He could have gone through the keepers legs, over the keeper or round him but he actually just stabbed at it and missed. Imo the firmino goal was chalked off via var seeking to rule it out. Whoever was on var was out to try anything to get at us. Even reviewing trent for a red and a oen for nothing. You could see they could not see the ball on the shot they used for the offside. Then they sort of put the line for the defender mid foot,no real effort to get it as close to goal as possible. They the pricked about zooming in till the picture was poor to get the offside line on jota as far forward on him are as was humanly possible. Anyway then mane missed an absolute sitter. Mane I have to say needs to go away for 2 months ad get his head right. He was shambolic after coming on. Cannot start with that attitude v real madrid.
Not sure they can afford him being a Semi-professional club in the Northern Premier League Division One South East
This^ 100%, though I wouldn't go so far as to say they're targetting us - I'm sure other clubs can point to similar incidents. I've made no secret of the fact that I've been against VAR since day 0. I've said all along it's against the spirit of the game and met derision from some quarters, but I stick by it. The essence of good football is elegant flowing moves and great goals, VAR just seems determined to rule out as many as it possibly can over trivial margins. Even if it gets some things right, it's sucking the life out of football. I don't care how much they've invested in it, I hope they eventually see the light, scrap it and give us our game back.