He has GOT to drop Sels now. The bloke is just ****. He's looking at the Ref for fouls when he is touched and is flapping at everything, and is just dreadful positionally. Poor decision by Rafa to start him so quickly. BRING ON DARLOW. He's looked solid in the cup games. 4-5-1 is not helping us. Diame behind Gayle is not potent enough. We need to go to 4-4-2 as we've looked infinitely better when playing this formation. Rafa is asking too much of us at the moment and thinks we're better than we are. We're not good enough to piss this league with 3 attacking mids scoring most our goals. WE NEED STRIKERS! You can't blame Rafa for the poor finishing but you can blame him for his player selection. I understand it's a learning curve and there's still plenty of time, but he didn't get it right today. Ratings - Sels - 3 - Beaten at his near post and in no mans land throughout the whole game. Yedlin - 7 - Great work rate and excellent runs. Clark - 7.5 - Solid display. Lascelles - 7 - Good performance for most of the game. Dummett - 3 - Garbage. Ritchie - 6.5 - Good work rate for most of the game, good link up play with Yedlin. Shelvey - 5 - Some excellent passes in the first half, tailed off towards the end and gave the ball away. Also some stupid dribbling attempts at times, and lucky to not be sent off. Hayden - 6.5 - Solid enough display for most of the game. Good tackling and pressure. Gouffran - 7 - Great work rate and good defending/support midfield. Diame - 4.5 - Some decent hold up play at times, but he keeps wasting too many chances and doesn't look interested enough. Gayle - 6 - He missed a great chance, but he did run Villa ragged first half with some excellent movement. Tiote - 4 - No positive impact at all. Mitro - n/a - Couldn't impact the game with little time. Rafa - 5 - Got the players up for it and obviously bollocked them for the Wolves defeat, but I was disappointed to see how unambitious is line up was.
Diame, Gayle and Hayden need dropping with Perez, Tiote and Mitro coming in. Diame hasn't had a 4 or more out of 10 all season. Tonight he was pathetic with those two misses. Doesn't even try, thought we were getting shot of that type of player.
You have picked out Hayden when he did an ok job yet Shelvey was **** and almost cost us on a few occasions. Diame is awful and as for Gayle, he needs Mitro or Murphy alongside him to allow him be more effective.
Why Hayden? He was no where near the worst player on the pitch and made good tackles. Tiote wasn't good when he came on. Diame I agree with definitely. Gayle needs a better partner.
Not sure we were watching the same game Tash. I know my stream wasn't the best, but the bits I saw I thought Dummett was excellent defensively. The defensive tackle he put in right after Gayle's penalty shout (that wasn't) was brilliant and important too as they had a good counter set up. He also had some really nice touches in possession for once. As for 4-4-2, to the best of my knowledge, Rafa has never played 4-4-2 and almost certainly never will. If we want him as our manager then that is something we need to learn to accept, just like the team rotation.
These were the 3 players who played tonight and against Wolves who didn't play at QPR. Diame is just a disgrace. Hayden been poor last couple of games. Edit it that just looked up the team Hayden did play against QPR do apologise there Tash.
He played 4-4-2 vs QPR when we won 6-0. And we played 4-4-2 for a period of the Reading game where Gayle and Perez were on together and they raped Reading's defence.
As I just corrected my previous post he did play against QPR, didn't watch the game. Think he's looked off the boil the last few games I've watched, same with Gayle. Were impressive against Reading.
I'm talking about as a long term option. His ideal system will always be the lone striker, but with midfielders higher up in support.
Agreed about Shelvey would have taken him off before they scored personally, but he has had some very impressive performances recently.
If we play a lone striker, I see hardly any sense in playing Dummett or Anita. Yedlin and Lazar in that case, at least they get forward. Dummett on occasion did well in the prem but I don't see what we benefit from playing a very defensive left back in the championship, especially if we play Goufran ahead who does a lot of tracking back himself. Also playing Diame and Shelvey... they seem to just get in each others way. Maybe Rafa does want to play a lone striker, but surely he must soon realise there aren't enough goals in the centre of our team to get top 2 spots in the league if he persists. Shelvey might get 5. Maybe Diame will get 5. I can see Ritchie getting about 10 Gouf another 5. The rest of midfielders, max 5 together. So where the goals gonna come from? Remember last time we had Shola Carroll and McLovin all arounnd 20 goals and Nolan another 15 or so. Gayle might get 15. Mitro 10 if he actually plays, and what Perez 8? Not enough goals.
Darlow is crap No point in this endless changing of crap for crap just pick your best side and run with it for a month
there is some proper ****e in this league so if we don't lose to the so called better teams and beat the ****e we be up come may...
