Well at least we came away with a point on another day we would’ve been 3 down at HT. A slight improvement after the interval but all too often reduced to speculative shots from a distance without any real hope of scoring; also I lost count of the number of times of tame shots on the turn where there were other players in better positions….all this with Villa & Newcastle to come at this rate we’ll be scraping to make the top 6.
Total garbage, players, tactics ( laughable) quality, and style. Apart from that, we got a point. Only Fofana Chalobah and especially Sanchez looked like players, the rest were full of dreadful passes, lack of vision, zero attack, zero directness. This Maresca Mogodon sidewards backwards dross would ruin any player, and it is doing so. All game long the midfielders and forwards were facing backwards to take passes from behind. Not for us any running onto through balls because there wasn't any, Maresca doesn't see that as important obviously because we don't do it. Once promising players have again become boring robotrons, a backwards pass the first move of choice. Maresca has surely ruined more players than he's improved. Unless he heads off, we will struggle now to get top 4. Don't see many wins in our next few games, no doubt just more dross and rotation until the players heads are spinning even more. What he should rotate is the direction the attackers are usually facing, 180degrees to face the oppositions' goal, towards which they need to run.
What’s more noticeable is the absence of any spine in the team - that if anything should be the first order of the day. Our recent leap up the table was courtesy of some lame opposition so we’ve become the victims of our own hype: “another dent to our Premiership challenge” we’re having a laugh at our own expense.
What I'm missing is seeing James or Gusto or Cucurella race down the sidelines, they were brilliant at just that before Maresca. Fofana and Chalobah can also attack, especially Fofana, but they never do, they are reduced to playing ping pong while the forwards are looking backwards to see if anything is happening. It usually isn't. Where is the midfielder who can penetrate or pass like Lampard could, or Zola before him?? and finally why no striker who can get involved or ,perish the thought, actually score?? I blame the so called "sporting Directors" who seem unable to find the type of player we actually need, despite having bottomless pockets to buy "promising" kids in nappies by the dozen. Fundamentally, as you say , we have no spine, something that goes from the head to the feet, or in our case, the defence, through the midfield to the forwards.
