My sensible response to this is that he cost £60m plus. He was patchy at best tonight, didn't track back or close down players on countless occasions (costing us a goal) which kind of negates his back heel contribution for the first goal. He is sldo still incapable of lasting a fill 90 mins. Maybe it's unfair to judge him on the price tag but in truth he was supposed to be a top player with the potential to be world class. In reality he has been anything but...for over 2 seasons.
Eight minutes for somebody to think "**** it..." and blast the ball into the ref's crotch from point blank range
2-2 FT. Reasonable result, awful performance. Poor team selection and tactics, a couple of injuries and some mystifying subs. We're getting progressively disjointed and dispirited, despite it being early in the season.
I guess that answers the question about where the creativity comes from in the team: if it wasn't getting stretchered off, it was strolling around the pitch when Rennes had the ball
Only saw the 2nd half (with Dutch commentary), but from the disjointed, scrappy **** we ditched up against a mediocre opposition I think that was probably an advantage... All pretty dreadful, but Doherty still managed to be the worst of a bad lot - with the possible exception of the ref who was ****ing appalling. But we didn't lose...
When you don't have to watch Jose-ball any more but then realise you have to watch Nuno-ball... please log in to view this image
Don't suppose he can punch a youth team player to make himself Stephane Dalmat Jr? Or, failing that, punching Jamie O'Hara would also work...
This may all be true. However, if he wasn't on the pitch at all, it may well have been a 2 nil loss. Would you prefer that? He also wasn't the only one who was slow to close down, or who didn't have their best game, yet there are more negative comments about him than any other player. He hasn't started a match since April. Hopefully he'll work on what needs working on and improve, as most of the players need to. None of our midfielders coated themselves in glory. Hopefully the players in the squad and the manager are not as negative as most fans.
The problem for Nuno (and the team) is threefold. 1. We have a squad that seriously lacks quality in depth and one of the quality players has his head elsewhere at the moment meaning that he has not looked like scoring in his last 3 games for us. Our current injury/suspension/isolating players issue is causing a lot of problems as a result. 2. Nuno is tactically making poor selections which is blunting our attacking ability. We have scored just 8 goals in 7 matches. One penalty, one flukey free kick one own goal and one very lucky deflection. 3. Nuno was not the 1st / 2nd or even 3rd choice for manager...and is on just a 2 Yr contract. This makes him an easy target for disgruntled players and fans alike. We play Chelsea, Wolves in the cup and Arsenal in the next 10 days. I see things getting very ugly, very quickly... and Nuno will be toast.
A crap performance from a cobbled together team and mixture of fringe players against a Rennes team that are average but no mugs. Lack of squad depth is all too clear, Doherty is tragic (Davies not much better) and lack of playmakers and back up to Kane (apart from Scarlett) is criminal. Add to that Spursy injuries and some poor officiating, and you have the disjointed performance we saw, take the draw and move on.