It would have been hard for him to react to that deflection at that point so I'll cut him some slack for that. But the defending on that play in general was bad. I can't quite figure out where it broke down, but basically we had enough players back to cover even a late arriving Arnautovic but somehow our players were all jammed up in the center-opposite side of the pitch So just that simple shift of the ball from the middle to our right created way more space for them and left us scrambling more than it should have. I'm not saying we could have intercepted the pass or that he should have been covered like a blanket. But he shouldn't have had that much space, and there appeared to be some confusion over whether/when Wanyama or Cedric should be covering that side.
Whenever the ball was played over to anyone on our right hand side, Cedric looked rather surprised, as though he wasn't expecting anyone to be out there. I love his attacking play but not sure of his concentration when defending - he seems to drift over too far towards the ball if it's out on our left, so anything cross field catches him a little out of position. If I can see it, Ron can, so I expect it'll be fixed. Vin
I still think that Cedric was greatly exposed as Long was rarely tracking back to give him any cover. There were times when he had two or three opponents coming out him and dragging Victor and Jose across to support him which left gaps through the middle If we had player JWP from the start instead of Long the game would have looked very different and we might have got some corners and dead ball deliveries right too
Completely agree on this. Tadic is our primary creative player and he had possession of the ball in the final third on numerous occasions. Probably above average for him in a league game. We all know he has tremendous quality and he backs himself to be able to pick out a man in the penalty area, but as you say against big defenders who are compact in the box and the windy conditions it was going to take something incredible to pick out the Saints players with enough space to be able to threaten the goal. Perhaps a few hits in the right areas, that corridor of uncertainty could have forced an OG or fortunate ricochet towards a red and white shirt. I think he tries to be too perfect
I thought Tadic's delivery was poor, nothing to do with big defenders. There were a few occasions when he stood up the full back in the area down the side of the box and I kept thinking about Pelle's goal against Cherries. I was waiting for Dusan to drop his shoulder, make half a yard and then clip or whip one in. He just kept coming back on his right to scuff one.
Anyone notice how Stoke always seemed to have about 12 black shirts in and around the box? That's good defending. We kept running out of options because they had all the dangerous areas covered.
Yes, they did that very well and an attacking team trying to break that needs to be doing it from the byeline. Everyone knows that you've got to hold and give, but do it at the right time. Slow or fast Tadic's got to get to the line. They'll try to hit him and hurt him, but he's got to attack and the only way to beat them is round the back.
Read the Sunday Times report of the game - where they mark the players out of ten, our two top marks were for Long and Cedric. Do these people even watch the game? (I think I know the answer to that).
Thought Cedric did okay, but Long? He was right off the pace all game - figured he was coming down from the party in the week ............
Did anyone play reasonably well? I thought virtually everyone had an off day - couldn't tell you who did their shift okay really .......
Davis and Pelle both did okay. Put pressure on the ball when Stoke had possession in their half. Virgil and Fonte both had good games, covering well whenever the fullbacks went missing. Vic bossed the midfield despite giving the ball away a couple of times.
I think we're all understating how well Stoke played. They attacked very well, defended impenetrably and deserved to win. That doesn't mean that our players necessarily played badly. Vin
Without question. They were excellent and counter-attacked really fluently. I didn't think we played badly in all honesty, but I did think that Cedric and Long both had poor games.
I nearly had Fonte in my list. Took him out as he had quite a few poor passes and he did let Bojan steal a yard the wrong side of him for the goal.. Maybe he should have stayed in.
Not sure who was to blame for the goal as I had no appetite to watch motd on Saturday, but it certainly defined the game, conceding so early like that. Seemed to come out of nowhere really. A collective lapse maybe.
