Provocative headline, to try and get this dead site to awaken. Sarri was supposed to make a phenomenal change to our football and see us attack and win. Great idea but not going to happen with our squad. We are attacking more, and we are winning, albiet against the bottom clubs due to our great draw, but our problems are far from fixed, We still haven't a clue how to break down a good defence, or Newcastles' or Bournemouths. We have no strikers who are able to score and have loaned the two who might just do the job in the future. We have a mis-firing midfield, with Kante in his new role, a shadow of his past dominance, Jiorghino a fabulous passer to no effect, and Kovacic a non event and unfit, but still played before Barkley or better still RLC.. All three great players ,but unable to play as a threesome. None of them has any power, aggression or ability to dominate, which is what our midfield has needed for the last 7 years. If this is Sarris' answer then what is the question? Hazard is Hazard, good when he tries, but would rather be at Real, and just filling in time. William and Pedro swap game for game, with neither ever approaching greatness, just more of the same. William wants away, Pedro is on his last contract. Morata continues to look like a 2nd division player, so what's changed? Bugger all except a more aggressive approach, but with the same results. No midfield, no strikers, no team play, just a bunch of talented ,overpaid underperforming individuals with no togetherness whatever.
Come on what has changed ????? One word - Cescy. Playing with 11 instead of 10. Kovacic looks like Kante. Jorgi looks like Cescy of 10 years ago. We have Ross & RLC waiting in the wings. I am not too worried about strikers especially when we have forwards like Alonso, Eden, Will, Pedro et al. Defense is the only issue I see in our team. Rudi looks better against lower opp when there is no pressure. Luiz is playing Cescy role in the Defense, Hindering always & helping never. Azpi is the lone Defender in back 4. We play only 3 players in back 4 system. Two of them are Luiz & Rudi.. Need Sarri to wake up & fix our Defense. Sorry goons would have bagged 7 against this lot at home Ffs.
Usual total Bollocks from the Yankee numpty. Sarri said “ it will take three months to adapt to this style of play”. That clearly translate into redneck.
Actually, and I am loathe to say this, I agree with Stan. I dont see a problem in our midfield at all, they have looked immense. Shearer and Lineker even commented on Match of the Day how great our midfield has been so far this season. We have come up against two teams who played a back 5 and tried to just shut us out, with no interest in playing football. If anything I am more pissed that Newcastle scored against us at all to be honest. Luiz has not been great. I really dont think we should be worrying about attack at all. We scored 3 against Arsenal and 3 against Huddersfield and 2 each against two teams who kept 8 men in their 18 yard box for 90 minutes. Look at the possession stats for christ's sake, neither team had any interest in anything but a 0-0. And we still won both games..... If anything is going to hinder us goal threat wise, its going to be the ineffectiveness of Morata. I think we maybe need to be more effective out wide, our attacks sometimes get a bit narrow, but I am sure it will be something Sarri works on with the squad. Newcastle defended superbly, I wouldn't take anything from them. They might not have excellent players, but you forget they are managed by Rafa Benitez, and say what you want about him as a manager, he knows how to manage a defense and organise them and make them difficult to beat. Defense will be our issue, all three goals we have conceded so far this season were due to atrocious defending, both of Arsenal's and the Newcastle one. And Bournemouth got behind our defense thanks to Luiz being caught out of position, which thankfully they ****ed up
Agree it’s the defence that will let us down. Luiz doesn’t fill me with confidence at all. We’ll score enough goals. Morata isn’t clinical and I don’t think Giroud will be either but we have enough elsewhere to get by. Hazard, Pedro & Willian will all get 10+ strikers will get a few, Alonso will get some too. Our midfield is outstanding though, I’m not sure what some are watching. Jorginho is a really outstanding footballer and as I’ve said before he’s steps ahead of anyone else on the pitch he’s that good. Sarri did say it’ll take time until we fully adapt anyway but let’s be honest none of us want Conte back and us to play the absolute dogshit football we saw for most of last season, right?
Good post to my provocative one. My actual take is that time will see the parts become the whole. I do think the midfield , while buzzing quite well most of the time ,is still not there in terms of cohesion. Kante has not found his groove yet and Kovacic might just need more fitness. Georghino can run the show when the front men learn where to run to off the ball. Up front, Hazard is scoring and causing problems, Willian and Pedro having good moments but fading over 90 mins and neither Morata nor Giroud look the answer yet. I think the back 4 looked much better last game, Dave much livlier and Luiz improved as the game went on. Can't do more than win all we've played, the equation should become clearer when the reserves start getting some game time as the number of matches increases. Sarri was spot on to say it might take 3 months. So far so good.
No one gave me credit for jinxing Wilson by taking him in my fantasy.. Or else, he could / would have got a hatrick due to Luiz.
Luiz and Morata are worrying me but that aside, we're doing as well as could be hoped for. 4 wins from 4 and the style of football has already changed for the better. Giroud looked a handful when he came on and he might get back in the 11 sooner rather than later. That puts a huge amount of pressure on Hazard and William/Pedro to get the goals though as Giroud is not prolific either. . The new guys all look good as well. Spurs, United, City and Liverpool have all had games where they have struggled as well. We look no better or worse than them at the moment. Give it another 5 games and the picture will be a bit clearer. Don't think we'll win the title but we should at least be competing for top 3-4.
We should definitely be finishing in the top 4 this year, without doubt. Especially since both Arsenal and United look dodgy. I hope we can challenge for the title, but in any event, I dont see why we cannot finish at least 3rd.
wow so much pessimism CP. Our defence looks much more dodgier but tbh that is to be expected when they have a lot more of the pitch to look after as we are playing so much further forward. I would say our midfield is the nuts at the moment. It's been a long time since we traded pure physicality for a midfield that can dominate and run a game and is technically sound. Whilst i would like a fernandinho (techincal and physical) jorgino is more than welcome as he's far more technical but less physical but isn't so slow that he's fab so i'll settle for that. Our problem is Luiz concentration and fitness (he trots back into position) but i think we need him for his distribution. Our other big problem is morata who just isn't quick enough on the ball. I would much prefer Giroud to play and he's always impacting on goals (setting them up) and tbh he hasn't been given enough of a run to see whether he'll bang them in or not.
I think you will see Kante start playing behind Jorginho, and feeding him 10 yards further up the field where he can influence the attacks more with his passing ability as used to happen with Fabregas. Kante shields our defence better than anyone else, and Jorginho is better at covering the ground than Stans mate. Just hope Sarri tries to implement this before we loose too many games because when we come up against the better teams we are going to have to score tons of goals just to keep it even with the system we have at present.
i'm not sure we'll see that. Kante is a brilliant shield and is excellent at covering tracking, reading the game and taking the ball. Unfortunately, if a ball is play to him and he's getting closed down, his control isn't good enough and his awareness of where he's being closed (to either pass the ball first time or control the ball into the space which will take him pass the midfielder) isn't good enough as well as moving into space to recieve the pass/make space. That's just a natural talent few players have which jorginho has in abundance which is what allows us to "play" our way out of trouble. Sarri might be able to teach Kante it but i just don't see it as good and as hard working kante is. It's why we hoofed it a lot under conte. I agree we are far more open but i think thats a natural consequence of a pressing game. I'm more than happy with kante being a box to box and dynamic midfield player. He's actually rapid at dribbling the ball and bursting past players but his touch needs to be a bit better and he needs to learn what pass to play when he has options forward
What about the 3rd midfielder? Is Kovacic the man or do we need a different type of player to compliment Kante and Georghinho?? Bit early to tell I know, but who would you use if you had a choice?
I'm not sure you got my point BD I am saying put Kante back where he belongs so he can off load to Jorginho let him do his stuff if it breaks down both have athleticism to recover. Should Jorginho be successful with the intended pass yes then both can advance but leave Kante as the recovery, the guy is the best at it, when he recovers he has a fantastic target in Jorginho to lay off to.
I quite like kovacic .I think he's a pretty complete midfielder, tackle intelligence and passing. Very good technically. I don't know if it's by design (his Napoli team played similarly, left side more attacking than right) but Dave and Kante on the right don't attack as well and Dave doesn't make too many runs forward in the attack transition whereas on the left hand side it's hazard kovacic and alonso who are generally more attacking. For me it actually makes sense for Kante to be on the left side so he can cover for Alonso and hazard but maybe sarri wants a ball player there who can pass it into Alonso and hazard. I know you fancy rlc there but I prefer Kante on the left and rlc on the right if we play him as rlc likes to attack and i can imagine him dribbling or bombing into the box whereas kovacic tends to hold his position than running into the box (maybe as he knows he needs to cover). The only downside is kovacic isn't our player
I know what you mean. The 2 could work (I hated seeing the 2 with 3 at the back) as we now have an extra midfielder. Not sure sarri will go for that from what I can see both the CMS play higher up from jorginho. The other thing is to press the team higher up you need to commit men forward to mark the opposition. When the balls on the left kovacic or Alonso will go higher. Likewise on the right Kante or Dave. Just a bit of give and take to sarris philisophy. I agree having Kante back there would help a lot against the counter when the opposition beat the press or counter us
I went to the game on Saturday and Kante was brilliant, adapted to his new role so well. Our midfield looks good, defence and Morata will be the issue
