Not sure they've quite got the balance on these right, yet. Not bad, but still a bit off, for some reason.
Neither Parrott nor Tanganga were in the squad for our U23s match this afternoon That should cover HITC's quota for the rest of the day...
Kind of game we struggle in I’m expecting it to be a slog Only thing I’m not sure about is who will have the defensive brain fart COYS
Not looking forward to this - Palace will play no football,, we will have 70% possession and create next to bugger all and they will break quickly and are bound to get lucky. If ever a fast start and the first goal in the game were required then today is the day i would go Hugo, KWP, Toby, Jan, Ben, Moussa, Tanguy, Dele, Christian, Lucas and Harry COYS
On the plus side, as Mino "****" Raiola is sniffing around Zaha, he might have a poor game due to undergoing the process of having his soul surgically removed via the anus
Yeah it’s definitely their counter we’ve gotta be wary of. Van Aanholt and Zaha can cause a lot of problems if given space down that wing, whoever does start at RB needs be really switched. That said, their RB spot is also weaker due to the loss of AWB so I’d probably have Son starting for this one in the hope he can cause some issues down our left/ their right.
It’s all mental...we have a much better XI than them What we don’t have is the belief that we can destroy these teams because we are better. Our last 16 games W4 D4 L8 but we managed to get to a CL final because we were riding a crest of a wave....that screams mentality to me
That record... ouch. ****ing painful and the worst thing is the football has been dour too, it’s not like we can say we’ve been unlucky, we’ve just been dreadful to watch and the results have matched.
The obvious issue is we haven't been able to control midfield like we did when the Dier/Dembele or Wanyama/Dembele pivots were at their peak, which also ties in to why we don't press like we did in those seasons as our central midfield last season simply lacked the dynamism to strangle teams This is why we need Ndombele to be both fully fit and fully integrated into the team, because controlling midfield is a key component of Poch's tactics and the Winks/Sissoko pivot simply doesn't do that
Yeah I've said similar with regards to controlling the midfield. Hopefully Tanguy is fit to start although I wouldn't be surprised if he starts on the bench. On a separate note, I'm hoping we have a good luck charm today. My mate is bringing his missus to the game, they met when travelling a few years ago and she's now moved to England with him (she's Belarusian), today's her first ever football game. Hoping I'll be saying "Na Zdorovie" in the boozer afterwards!
Moura's better off the bench imo and I think Lamela has generally been better than Lucas so far this season.
Winks + Sissoko + Lamela. Going to be 90 mins of ... keeping smashable objects of all kinds beyond my arm span/reach.
