That City picture isn't really accurate as he got onside before the ball was headed, I remember it as I thought it showed up how absurd the whole interfering with play thing is. Still should have been disallowed for obstruction though imo. I still think offside should be offside tbh, if you're in the attacking third you're interfering with play one way or another 99% of the time. Not seen your one btw so not commenting on that but seems pretty unanimous that it was a poor decision.
That's pretty much where I'm at with it. There will always be people who look for reasons why things are going wrong and pointing out anything and everything that could be factors. I don't know what the players who aren't called up do during international breaks but I can't recall seeing any holiday pictures from them during those times. If the boss is off on holiday while they are still coming in for training maybe that doesn't look good. I'm not especially bothered by it I just thought it was interesting because I've never questioned what happens at the club while the internationals are on and I was surprised when I read it.
How worried are you lot about your start to the season? Is it just a case of too much change in the Summer and struggling to integrate them all or deeper issues do you think?
To be fair that picture doesn’t show the whole picture. Silva isn’t offside at that point because the ball is mid air from the corner. He only becomes possibly offside when another player touches it and by that point he’d moved further away from the keeper. Both were fine as both players were no where near the keeper interfering so both should have stood
Disappointed, but not alarmed. It was always going to be a challenge to win back-to-back titles, although, tbh, We won it very easily last year with a month to spare. But City were cack last season - that isn't going to happen every year, and we knew Arsenal would be stronger this season. You factor in the amount of changes we had - and I applaud the club for getting its chequebook out this summer - and this slump was always a possibility: it's just that the first five results gave some in and outside the club that everything would be piss easy. We're hitting an equilibrium now, and I think we'll probably finish around the 70-ish point mark, probably (though not definitely) good enough for top 5. I think the league has gone now, so we should concentrate on being the best of the rest after Arsenal and Chelsea, and qualifying for the CL knockout stage without going through the play-offs. Then let's see if we get Geuhi in Jan.
Lots of change to key areas. suddenly expectation has gone up where as before teams thought could get at us and we picked them off, now sitting back and going long and catching us out. Star players not looking anywhere near where they were last year (Salah / Mac 2 main examples). The Jota stuff has to have some impact - delayed pre season, new signings coming into a team in mourning can’t help integrate as a squad before you even think how those close to him feel - and then are reminded about it 20 mins into every match. TAA in my opinion having huge impact when on the ball - don’t control tempo like he did and those relationships built up with Salah over 6/7 years now gone. If things are like this in Feb/March I’ll be concerned but have to think eventually Wirtz Isak will click into gear and team will develop a new style where it isn’t about TAA passing to Salah and more Wirtz the creative hub that things run through.
Fair enough mate, I'd still be surprised if you finished outside the top 3, form is temporary and all that, but yeah it looks very unlikely you'll win it this year. What's the deal with Salah? Only watched a couple of your games so not professing to be an expert but he's looked well off it when I have. Odd thing is I thought he had been in decline for a good couple of years but then last season happened and shut me up, wondering now though if that might have been his Indian summer perhaps? Be interesting to see how he does at ACON and when he's back.
We shouldn't use Jota as an excuse, but Mo, Robbo, Kelleher, and Trent were supposedly his best mates. Of all of them, Mo appears to be the most emotional. And, as Bisc points out, he really misses Trent on his side, just as Robbo struggled when Mane left. He's definitely not getting the same service as last year, tbf.
Salah lost all his closest friends in different ways in the summer, besides Jota (RIP), Diaz, Nunez (which surprised a lot of people that Salah was close to him), Trent and Elliott. He's been very isolated in games so far and as always with Salah, he's finding a different way of contributing. At one time he wouldn't pass to a teammate for them to score if he thought he himself had the slightest chance. Then as he's naturally slowing down he starts stacking up and adding assists to his game..This season he's trying to get a bit more involved in defence. He's stolen the ball several times in a defensive position which he's never really done before. He's definitely still mourning. Atm we have a set of outstanding individual players who haven't got it together as a team yet. I think the new lads are being asked to play somewhat positionally differently and definitely tactically differently from the teams they came from. Kerkez, for example, made the PL team of the year last season but looks lost playing for us. It will all come good because there's too much talent in the team for it not to. I'm not predicting anything other than Arsenal will drop a lot of unexpected points.
Salah could run. He could compete. Even last year he wasn't quick.but he was able to get there. This year he cannot. Hes getting run past and he is unable to beat a man. If trent was there lobbing it over thr top salah still wouldn't reach it. Nunez was a busy player but the runs he made were nonsense at times and his finishing rank. Diaz is missed. Obviously jota is missed as a guy who never gave up and fought despite being pummelled left and right but he would be injured half the time. Macallister is missed. He is a shadow of himself. Robertson is over the hill. We have a combination of two senior squad members being over the hill, one or two being off the boil (konate and macallister) and a lot of younger players coming in adapting. Throw in slot not wanting to everr use reserves and youve a perfect storm Klopp would have endo in there just sat there and be done with it. Slot will never do it and he will pay and pay until he changes.
I've said all along since the beginning of the season that there were too many changes for my liking, but because we won the first few games I was pacified a bit. Then we had a spell more in keeping with what I'd been afraid of. Having said that, I never expected such a dramatic fall-off from the established senior players, though the two factors could be related I suppose. We looked better going back to basics with close to last season's team against Villa and RM, so I'm currently not sure whether we've gone backwards again or whether Sunday was "just one of those games". We were outplayed, and I've no complaints (beyond the perennial one about the standard of refereeing and VAR), but it was City, and a game against them could go in any direction any time - and if Virgil's goal had stood it could have turned out quite differently. I hate international breaks, and imo this couldn't have come at a worse time. I wanted to see how the next few games panned out to see if we'd turned a corner, now we have to chew on another defeat for a fortnight.
They can work on fitness and such, but it's how the team gels that is the major problem, and there's not much can be done about that when the rest of the first team squad are away.
In Real Madrid and Man City we had almost identical fixtures back to back last season, except we played City at home instead of away, Last season we were able to make 4 changes after most of the team vs Real had played away vs Southampton a few days earlier. This time we made no changes and Wirtz is the only one not to have started 3 games in 8 days. An understandable decision given our results when we've rotated away from that line up, but it was always going to be a case of diminishing returns against a strong City side.
We actually had a superb start to the season, we won five out of five. Its the subsequent part of the season that's been **** #pedantic
Not really. In terms of the title: that's gone. It's between Arsenal and City and I can see City winning it now they've started to hit form. Arsenal have had a run of decent fixtures to start with, but I'm not sure they know how to take it over the line when City are breathing down their necks. I expect us to finish top4, maybe not easily but we'll get it together and do enough or more to get there. It also helps that the other challengers are all really inconsistent as well and while some other clubs have started well (like Sunderland and Bmouth) they don't have the squads to maintain it over the whole season. The big question (for me) is will it be with Slot? I think he's still not convinced the majority of the fanbase and I think he's seen as the main cause in the problems.
We've actually front loaded the season with the most difficult fixtures, a better set coming up should give us a chance to get back to winning ways via getting back to basics.
Slots now claims the clubs strategy is to have 19 or 20 players. Its all down to injuries. Let's just check that logic 1.alisson. 2. Marmadashvilli 3. Woodman. (Not squad player?) 4. Bradley. 5. Frimpong. 6. Robertson 7. Kerkez 8. Konate 9. Van dijk. 10. Gomez (not wanted) 11. Leoni (is he not a first team player?) 12 gravenberch 13. Macallister 14. Jones. 15. Endo (not wanted, not used) 16. Szoboszlai 17. Wirtz 18. Gakpo. 19. Ngumoha (clearly.not seen as first team) 20. Isak 21. Ekitike 22. Salah. 23. Chiesa. 24. Elliott. Loaned out. I can obviously write off 3 players straight away. Woodman, Leoni and Ngumoha to get him to his 20. What do i do with the 2 players he doesn't want to use then? Seems a bit short sighted if the club strategy is 20 players to not use 10% of the available players. Seems to me then he's got 18 he wants to use Then you take robertson and salah as players who can't running more and the issue gets worse doesn't it? U21s are no use as slot doesn't want to use them bar ngumoha. Anyone even half decent was loaned out and the rest are crocked.
Taking the city game in isolation, these things happen. City were really good and they outplayed us. I think we have turned a bit of corner from were we were before the Villa game. As others have said, we've played a lot of tough fixtures in this period and I expect performances and results to be better after the international break.
