Dušan demands respect from Claude

Yes, I noticed we have kept Tadic on since this media leak. Tadic has played well and has been deployed mainly in his favoured position. The only worry is that as the game waned he was unable to retain the ball up the other end of the pitch and he does not have the pace to scare teams so it kept coming back again and we had to hang on. I have noticed similar when both Boufal and Tadic have been on, they should be able to retain possession, however we do seem to drop deeper and keep losing the ball in these holding on scenarios. Someone like Redmond is more of an attacking/pacey outlet and I was surprised to see him withdrawn earlier today.

 

Hang on a bit, he has been outstanding in the last two games, but against B'mouth he wasn't that great, and the gaffer hooked him....& rightly so. CP has not responded to the media, he has asked DT for a responce....and got it. Now Dusan can moan about being subbed, because he is playing like he's unsubable. Credit all round, but not to some lame story.

 

Claude told him if you want to stay on for 90 mins, play for 90 mins....obviously listened.

 

He looked knackered by the end yesterday and might have been hoping to be subbed. Claude obviously saying "be careful what you wish for"!

To be fair, if it was a question of putting on a sub for players who needed a rest there were a few nominations. That was one hard game yesterday, and Tadic did well - as did those around him.

 

He was knackered yesterday because he had actually put in a real 90 minute shift. I have never seen him put in so many tackles and interceptions rather than floating about trying to deliver the ultimate assist. If he can repeat this alround performance every game he really will become one hell of a player

 

Pedant alert: apart from the very next game after the media leak. Bournemouth.

 

It is good that he was tackling etc, but I want him doing his magic and trying to deliver the ultimate assist - that is after all why we signed him.

I'm not comparing the two, but I was never ever worried that Matt Le Tissier didn't tackle much. Too often we moaned about lack of creativity and then when we have the player to deliver that creativity, we want him to chase and tackle.

As I said, good that he did, but not his raison d'etre.

Edit: if he repeats creativity with work rate/tackling each week, we'd soon be losing him. Careful what we wish for

 

I am already concerned that his mind may be wondering if he feels dissatisfied enough to moan to the press. Perhaps he thinks it is time to move on...depends how settled he is here generally.


By concerned....I don't mean really concerned....we seem to replace players all the time. Though I do like Dusan.

 

I really like Dusan. I think he is magical. I also think he suffers sometimes because of the English disease some of our fans have.

#hugetalent

 

For some fans, a temporary fall off in form is enough for a player to be ditched....they forget what he has done before. Look at the way some have attacked Forster....as if he would never be a good keeper again. Is he the best keeper in the country...probably not, but then he wouldn't play for us if he was. Is he aware that his form has been a bit off....yes....and he didn't need the fans to point it out to him. If you listened to some fans, JWP isn't good enough for us. I love Dusan and his moody Serbian interviews, but I think I'm learning at last not to love people too much. Am a bit alarmed how quickly Manolo worked his way into my heart.

 

I'd temper the fact that he has played the last two 90 minutes, with the fact that Boufal is injured.

I would really like to think that it's solely because of his performances; not because of his out burst, not because of lack of options. He has run the show and deserved to stay on the pitch. But I'm not inside Puel's head, I don't know what his thinking is. For all I know, Tadic still would have been hooked had Boufal been available (especially given that bringing JWP off for Boufal just days earlier did somewhat backfire for Puel, so it may not have been JWP again).

 

Glad to see Tadic step his game up after those comments, he really needed to in fairness. Although we have seen this before, at the start of the season he was fantastic but since November he has been relatively poor. He does seem to really go through patches of form where he is either at one end of the scale or the other. Let's hope he can add a little consistency to his game because when he is good, he is bloody good and the entire team plays well too.

As for signing for a bigger team, I don't think he is quite good enough to attract interest.