Bugger me, if that's the best performance, his standards of expectation are worryingly very low. I wasn't there, but from what I've read here, we were only good for the last 20 mins or so.
That's not quite correct. We were OK in the first half. Holding our own against a team who looked very comfortable in possession. We certainly piled the pressure on for the last twenty minutes. Dembele should have placed a pass instead of going for glory and a good save from their keeper (who also looked very confident) for a looping header that was going in. Having said that, it had a feel of one of those games where we might have played for another 30 mins without scoring. Very disappointing night.
The first half was exactly ok. Turgid mostly. Until the first goal neither team looked remotely like scoring and then we didn’t really between their first and second goals. We’re a better team when it’s chaotic, especially at home with the crowd up. Trying to do measured patterns of play and passing out from the back, playing through the thirds and all that bollocks just isn’t what works for us. Get it launched. Get people around the second ball. Definitely don’t fanny about with it in our half hoping between Varane, Dunne, Mbengue and Morrison somebody is going to want the ball because they don’t.
How many times did we give possession away when not under pressure, I would suggest at least 10 times
We won 55% of ‘ground duels’ so there’s reasons for optimism. Being a stats nerd here but to have 12 corners and other set pieces and create 0.35xG from them is quite difficult. If all the players just ran around the penalty area in random directions and the ball landed in a random yard of turf like we were playing Battleships you’d accidentally get a few decent chances.
What I found frustrating was that we kept banging in crosses and never got anywhere near them. Utter madness to carry on with the same old thing when it clearly wasn't working. Mix it up a bit, please! But that requires players who can pass and control short, sharp balls in and around the penalty area. That's what we had when Warburton's team was at its best. Contrast that with Burrell's attempt to control the ball in the first half, when he knocked it, unintentionally, fully 10 yards forward. And I thought he was one of our best players last night!
It's a few poor performances in a row now which is worrying - have we been rumbled? Press our defence they'll make mistakes, get a goal and sit back, we're unlikely to cause too much trouble. The breaking quickly counter attack seemed to work best but we're no longer doing that either for some reason. We probably need a nil nil or something to get some belief back again
