I quite enjoyed this half. I think this formation suits us very well. And midfield is playing alright so far. Wanyama is like some huge bear who tears everything apart, whereas JWP, Davis and Reed are like wasps, not a huge presence, but just as deadly with their little stings.
We're a decent team on a poor run of form. Pretty simple really. Hold on to this, and hopefully confidence will start to pick up again (along with the returning players). We need a good, ground-out win like this.
Very poetic. Those guys are pesky, alright. I'd still rather have the bear, but can't complain with the effort our midfield has shown so far. They're doing what they can and so far it's been reasonably effective. Going to have stay on our toes though, takes a little more discipline to play that swarming style.
In Long's defence he makes good runs. At times our midfielders either don't see the pass or don't execute it correctly. That pass just now is a good example.
After several weeks where we struggled to score from good moves, a couple scruffy ones could be just about what we need. Solid performance here.
Nice touch from Pelle. At first glance it looks like he just kind of stabs at it and manages to poke it by Howard with a bit of luck. But in slow-mo it appears he saw where Howard was and intentionally directed it down/right to get it past him.
9 tackles from Harrison Reed so far, which is absolutely ridiculous - Fonte, Yoshida and Alderweireld have made 7 between them.
He's having a great game. But you can't compare a ball winning midfielder to centre backs. He's up to 10 now.
