At this point I'm guessing that Steve Perryman must have insulted the mother of at least one of the officials Justifiably, if this is what she brought up...
You’ll take a point after that performance. Really need to start working on our attacking phase of play though. Albeit it’s not helped that LW and ST is basically relegation calibre at the moment. Far cry from the Kane and Son show. Definitely paying for that now.
I'm not saying he should be under any pressure. But there are clearly questions that can be asked. Does he know the best balance in midfield? How does he plan to address the obvious problem at LW? Why is he so fixed on 433 when we don't seem to have the personnel to deliver it?
Zero end product though for me. It’s basically like watching a young Yannick Bolasie - has the skill but little brain or actual impact.
Sometimes you’re playing **** and have to grind it out. Frank seemed to set us up to bypass the midfield and try and hit them on the counter, and it ended up looking like a very disjointed performance. The players well and truly at fault too, some poor performers out there, but I think Frank cops a fair bit of blame for that one - we just seemed to allow them the game. Bodo deserved to win on the balance of play but it only rams home the importance of getting the ball in the net when you create so many dangerous situations at this level.
I think he made more and more connections as the game went on. The movement between Simmons, Oderbert and Spence/ Udogie is improving
Good point in the end. They’ll give better teams than us a game up there. Unfortunately it looks like we’re stuck with richarlison up top but think Frank needs to find his best lineup behind that and stick with it for a bit. Odobert, Xavi and kudus I would say personally. Give it a consistent run out. Not surprised we’ve struggled in those areas at times though when we’re transitioning from one of our greatest ever players leaving in the summer then losing our best striker and two most creative players to injury (although the Solanke situation does seem a bit of a shambles).
I don’t think anything is coming from that flank though. All the creativity is coming from Kudus and as teams are now doubling up on him, it’s becoming harder for him to make stuff happen, though there are times he does need to release it a bit sooner. I’ve yet to really see Odobert take the game by its neck, personally I think he should’ve been loaned to the championship this season, likewise Tel. We really need to attack the market in January for a top LW. Had we sorted it in the summer it probably would’ve been a 10/10 window.
Oderbert is not a Son I don't see him similar to Kudos but we can expect a 3 part creative effect from the left. I hope. Not arguing its there yet.
I get the tactical reasons to have Bentancur at the centre of midfield, as (on paper...) he would get the ball from the CBs and we'd be attacking right away which makes sense both if we want to play on the front foot or if we're looking to counter - but he needs to be shielded by the midfield for this to work, which would logically be pairing Sarr and Gray ahead of him, but because he wasn't our tactics evaporated around the same time our midfield did We definitely need to inject a little something into the transition into the final third, though. When we do get the ball to Kudus or Simons things start to happen, but we're not doing that as consistently or reliably as we need to and that leaves us banking on Porro to fill in the gap Odobert, meanwhile, is an odd one: there's clearly promise, but he's getting settled into the side 6-8 months later than initially planned due to missing so much of last season due to somebody declaring war on his right hamstring during the early part of the season
I think that’s the thing though, he’s not a Son, he’s not a Kudus… just what is he (likewise Tel)? There’s potential and he has some nice attributes but I think he’s a good 2+ years away from being a meaningful player. I’d have rather we tried getting him a loan and 30+ starts somewhere. In hindsight I think we’d have been stronger keeping Solomon in the squad and getting one or both of Odobert and Tel out on loan. Edit: or better yet, signed Semenyo
