Lemina superb, exactly what we needed and is already improving from his first few performances. Hoedt's distribution looking very impressive, saw him ping a 30 yard ball with his weaker foot to Bertrand which was pretty incredible. Looks a little too relaxed defending at times though, which I'm sure he'll eliminate in time. Tadic has Schlupp on toast.
Lemina was sorely missed last week. He must have been knackered not to be left out. Hoedt's long passing has been sublime and makes us much more dangerous, wish we'd scored more. Not impressed with Redmond.
Lemina and Wesley running the show, brilliant (amazing what happens when you buy quality players). Maya and Romeu doing a great job on Benteke. And in this formation, with these, um lets call them limited attacking players, having Long in the team has increased our onfield quota back up to 11 players again. (This is absolutely not a gig at Gabbi. Everyone, even Long himself I'm sure, would accept that Gabbi is the better player. But if he's detached from the team, and doesn't have players who can find him, playing him ahead of Long is not of much use). Redmond however has been poor. I still can't accept Tadic playing on the right (he's played well, but he's not a right winger - as illustrated regularly when Wesley pinged him a ball into space). And we're only winning 1-0 - surely Palace can't be this bad again, and we haven't exactly created a load. But back to the first paragraph. I'm very happy with that 45.
They have looked very good, but to be fair, they are being allowed to play at training ground pace. As I said earlier, with the ball spending so much time on our right, Redmond needs to get more central to become more involved and to become a problem for them defensively. He has caused a few problems when on the ball but could give Davis a bit of support for the short pass. IMO he needs to make more runs into and across the box. As a comparison, Townsend was picking the ball up, in the first minute, in the inside left position, from the right wing starting position.
Excellent! Pleat called Hoedt a "calm head" which is the least we need in defence! Hearing Tadic and Cedric's names a lot as well during the commentary. Although I'm home now I'm not going to watch in case my jinx starts again...
We are dominating but some how I think Palace look the more likely to score next. I know we can, but can Palace go five games with out scoring, surely not! I think Lemina looks very good, but I think our crossing is generally poor, and for team that are dominating as much as we are, I don't think we have really looked like scoring again.
I was thinking Gabbi must be fuming on the bench. We're finally playing the passes he needs! Saying that, Long is adding a different dimension with his heading/hold up play that Gabbi doesn't. Combine those two and you'd have some striker.
I wouldn't change it at half time. Give it 15 minutes. Redmond has still shown some good glimpses, including a couple of shots. One good. One scuffed.
Not at HT. But give it 10 mins, and JWP for Redmond would be an obvious change for me. Wesley pinging those balls out for JWP to cross from the right, excites me no end. (As of course does Tadic on the left)
Well well well. That Lemina ain't too shabby is he. Yes, Palace are awful but he still looks like Pogba. Rooty tooty Hoedty looking very tidy too. Get VVD back in and I may well need to reflect upon my league position prediction in Vin's Gin.
