He ran a lot in to blind alleys though, his run in the first half was brilliant that Reguilon ended up wasting but other than that it’s hard to think of what he actually offered in terms of productivity. The rest of the team were dire, no arguments on that. I just don’t particularly think he had a good game either, better than rest perhaps but it was very Traore-esque for me. All bark no bite type of performance.
The problem with people having laundry lists of players to get rid of is that, in reality, signing half a starting xi in one window might work on FIFA, but in reality it doesn't. The Baldini Splurge is the best example of this, as we signed half a starting xi (with at least three of them not even needed) and trying to integrate the lot of them at once would have been tough for any manager, and given we had LAdPCeVB it was inevitable it would go wrong considering his incredibly rigid tactics meant he had a bunch of new players who were expected to play exactly the same as the players they were replacing...most of whom were still at the club anyway Realistically who did we need to get rid of in the summer? Aurier, as he was a disaster with a year on his contract Sissoko, as he was physically declining Lamela, as injuries had caught up to him Dier or Alderweireld, as they'd both lost their pace and were getting exposed as a result Carter-Vickers, as he's never going to break through Ndombele, because he's a drain on resources with a dismal attitude And of that list, most of them got moved on barring Aurier (whose contract we terminated), CCV (who we loaned, again, because the definition of insanity is a thing...) and Ndombele And Ndombele is the issue, because he's effectively a domino in the middle of our squad at the moment: move him on and we both get a fee and free up £120k a week - but since none of Barca, Los Ladrones, Bayern or the 1970 Brazil team showed any interest we're stuck with him And this leads to the second issue with Ndombele: realistically the best option is to use him in a swap deal, but naturally that had a problem when you look at the creative CMs we were linked with Ndombele has four years on his contract Houssem Aouar has two years on his contract Franck Kessie has one year on his contract Nahitan Nandez has three years on his contract There's no point swapping Ndombele for Kessie or Aouar as both would have left us with the worse end of the deal, especially Kessie as that would effectively be throwing a minimum of £25m off a cliff, while Nandez simply wouldn't work as Cagliari can't pay someone £120k a week (and similar can probably be said for Lyon, given they were trying to get their top earners off their wage bill all summer while pretending it was due to attitude problems) Also, it has to be said our creative midfielder issues are compounded by one simple problem: Ndombele was signed to be an 8 while Lo Celso was signed to be a 10, yet because Ndombele is only interested in the attacking part of being an 8 and nothing else that means we have to drop Lo Celso back to play as an 8 (which is why he left PSG for Betis) and as a result we completely nerf Lo Celso's ability to arrive late in the box to score, something which isn't an issue for Argentina which is why his performances are night and day - which is also why I've said more than once that one of the biggest "What if...?"s of recent times is if in the 2019 summer window Poch's attitude wasn't sign Ndombele and pick one of Lo Celso or Fernandes, but sign Lo Celso and pick one of Ndombele or Fernandes, not least because that could have removed the knock-on effect of not bringing in Pini Zahavi to get Ndombele across the line to keep Poch sweet, which saw us paying so much that also made Ndombele's agent happy...a certain Mr. P Zahavi The biggest issue with our midfield at the moment is it's a transitional design: Nuno wants a rock solid midfield three which recycle the ball out to the wings like Norbert has at Liverpool, but we still have Poch's personnel which is about creating space through the middle which is why Dele, Lo Celso and Ndombele are still here, which takes us back to Ndombele being the domino that needs to fall because getting him out the door frees up both funds and wages for a Kessie or McKennie - but instead the best offer we had was cash + Tolisso from Bayern, but given Tolisso is injury-plagued that again would have been a bad deal as we'd have had one less player available today to add to the list already missing from the last week or so's ****show
I don’t think he’ll learn. Whilst the formation is different this is pretty much how his Wolves side played under him, they remain compact and primarily aim not to lose the game, more so than perhaps trying to win it. Works for smaller clubs but a side who wants to be in the top four/ six again we need to be on the front foot and looking to kill teams. I truly hope I’m wrong as he’s a bit like Poch in terms of being very likeable but I just feel we’re all gonna be watching Jose-lite football under him.
This was the perfect storm Red zone players 12.30 ko after international break No Son London derby Moss reffing Zaha up to his tricks against a makeshift defence
I disagree. He was beating 4 or 5 players and laying it off to people in space, who then did nothing. It's disappointing that we don't get him running at people in better positions, though. They either get left for dust or foul him. Having said that, the second option often didn't matter today.
Those people in space were often to his side or a few yards in front, very Winks-esque in that sense (minus the Reguilon one, that was genuinely brilliant play and the latter certainly messed that up). It’s nice to watch from a skill perspective but it doesn’t really do much in the grand scheme of things, whether it’s been in Poch, Jose or now Nuno’s system he’s an exciting player to watch but doesn’t impact the game anywhere near what he should do for the talent he has.
I feel it's because he's often misused, like when he's picked on the left or has to do it all himself, like today. He's not getting picked out by passes from our midfield when he's one-on-one with a defender, who he can roast. He's picking up the ball at right-back and going through their left-wing and the whole of their midfield. Someone's going to get him eventually. To continue the Traore comparison, how often was he put into good positions against isolated players against us? Happened time and again, yet he couldn't capitalise. Moura today? Don't think it happened once.
I forgot that Sessegnon was also injured for this match. Basically anyone who could play on that left wing!
Agree on the latter point as that reverts back to lack of creativity from deep and why this is all on Nuno but I think in his three or four years now at the club he’s never been able to fully show us what his best position is. Is it behind Kane? On the right? In Son’s spot? I feel like in all three he can put in a shift and excite us once or twice but he’s never really solidified a position that makes us think “that’s his to lose”. Tactics and style at times may have hindered that but with for instance Kane, we know he’s a central striker, we know with Son he’s a left wing forward, we knew with Bale he was a right wing forward… Just what is Lucas’ best position? I don’t think I should be wondering that after years of being at the club. I think all in all he’s a very, very good squad player to have but I think he lacks the quality to be a guaranteed starter here, similar to how Lamela was, albeit right now, there isn’t a player significantly better than him now that Bale went back to Madrid.
When everyone else is crap, best you can do is your job, he did everything very well except create/score which is hard to do when everyone around you is doing nothing going forward.
Watched this briefly. Zaha reacted poorly to tangagas challenge and that was a yellow all day long for tangaga (deliberately taking him out in dangerous position) rather than the aftermath. Think zaha might have reacted (need to review) as tangaga might have accidently caught him the face with the hands. Saying that zaha was whining all game. Also thought tangaga was a bit unlucky to be sent off. I can see why moss sent him off as he slid in and was late, but he tries to pull out and theres not really much force. It was one of them halfway between a yellow and nothing. Palace totally dominated the game though and so far i can see nuno sets you defensively just as i thought he would
"We didn't create...". Yeah no ****, Sherlock, what was he expecting starting with the likes of Winks joining two DMs in a midfield three and Dele playing LW?
I don't, he slid in right in front of the ref just a few minutes after he picked up a yellow. See these situations happen a fair bit and it always ends in a second yellow. Naive and stupid on Tanganga's part. Moss had a poor game but Tanganga made that decision so easy for him.
Today was beyond bad but it is to be expected when we have a weak squad and so many missing. Conceding 3 in the last 15 minutes is very poor but not something we ain't used to. The truth is that we ain't a good team. We have players that are not interested (Dele, Kane, Dier) any more, have been failures (Bergwijn, Sanchez, Sessegnon, Ndombele, Lo Celso) and others who are just not very good (Winks). Poor transfer windows since the summer of 2018 have seen us implode on the pitch from January 2019 onwards. From 29th Dec 2018 to today or record is; P99 W 45 D 21 L33 PTS 156 PPG 1.57 That would make 59.8 points per season. The previous three seasons our points totals were 70 (15/16), 86 (16/17) and 77 (17/18). This decline has been coming for a long time and I see no short term solution. The club (and Levy in particularly) is in for a very rough autumn and winter cos crowds who are paying a huge amount to watch poor football are going to make themselves heard. I got why Pochettino was ditched...I disagreed but saw the rationale....but every other decision has just been plain wrong.
We got lucky and built one of our best sides ever for £100m or so. It was worth £600m at its peak. We didn't have £600m to replace it so we've struggled. I don't see what anyone was supposed to do about this but sacking the guy who actually built that team should never have been part of the plan.
So the team bus just went past the end of my road Should I have told them to head back to South Norward and don't come past until they do a better job?
So my comment about us finally having a defence after 3 league shut outs was premature and our bad performance in Europe was a one off. Oh well! Back to normal! COYS! Straight jackets on lads!!!!!!!!
