Is it right that both Spurs & LFC are already into group stage ? I thought EL was only on 5th place from EPL (Spurs) & LFC got in because of Chelsea winning LC & us Arsenal FC ? If that's the case, why aren't LFC in play-off ?
My only concern would be Tadic. He's got a few injury free games under his belt now but he still looks out of sorts.
I felt that Tadic was a bit frantic in the Espanyol game....usually a sign that a player isn't at his best. He needs to regain his calm confidence.
Yeah I can see the reasoning behind that, but I don't understand why Kazakhstan is at all? No matter what way I look at it I don't see how it's not part of Asia.
Perhaps it is because their previous overlords were, so when that country split up, the constituent parts could apply to join EUFA. .
Good review, LTL. I, too, am worried about Caulker. He was at fault at least twice where a better team than Vitesse would have put one or two away. We can't risk that vs Newcastle, so Maya and Jose in the middle for me. Tadic was anonymous again, which is worrying .....
I'm equal parts worried and enthused. He looked like a player coached in zonal marking when we're playing a man marking system or something. It was odd, but he could be very good, I really believe that.
I also thought your review of Caulker was spot on. What he did well, he did brilliantly. Then there was his positioning and habit of expecting the keeper to claim balls he needed to deal with himself. Is he good or woeful? Hard to tell right now...
For what it's worth, a Cardiff fan I follow watched the game and said something like. 'Caulker's already lost his man from set-pieces three times - they'll have to get used to that'
That's what I thought. He made some good tackles and blocks but appeared to have no idea what was going on with free kicks and corners.
True, but I also watched him completely out muscle a vitesse midfielder with ease and turn a potential threat into a pass back. I'm not here to defend him pointlessly and I agree fully with LTL. The lad has all the attributes to be a legend. He just needs some coaching and confidence to become a force again. He sems a perfectly reasonable number 3 or 4 in any case...the black box strikes again.
Caulker also did a great last challenge to stop a one on one. Fonte looked a little rusty, specially when he passed it straight to a Vitesse player in the box. Like LTL I think a lot of his problems are from playing for two crap defending teams like QPR and Cardiff. I can see Caulker getting better and better as the season goes on.
Koeman will sort out Caulker. If you can't learn to defend under his tuition, you will be a lost cause. I just looked up a match report in the Mail. Just like last time, there was half a page for the WHU match when they don't give a flying fig, whereas we had a couple of sentences about the match and several paragraphs talking about it being marred by violence. They did give the facts that it involved Feyenoord fans and only 3 Saints fans were arrested, but people don't always read down to the bottom. This was an enjoyable time for the huge majority of fans there.
Agreed. And Koeman reckoned he wasn't much of a CB. Thought himself fairly slow. Frankly, when he can chip in with that many goals from defence, I think he's entitled to be a bit slow.
