Every team gets up to play their Cup Final against us, while we struggle to get up for another 90 minutes every 3 days knowing it’s same old, same old.
Sure, we look like it’s fun when we are running up the score, but the slog of chasing and pressing and recovering when the press is beaten is very fatiguing…mentally and physically.
This year, we came out of the blocks fairly well, as we had a fairly easy start of the season. The last 4 have been against top teams just as we were starting to look ragged and bang average…yet we still should have won all 3 draws (wins lost to last minute goals!) and we’re good for a win tonight, albeit a draw would have been a fairer result!
We are not getting the run of the green on the field or in the treatment room, let alone the disciplinary stupidity we have seen to date.
Get 2 PL wins, play the kids and subs in the CL rubber, go and win the CWC in the sun, and we might come back with some renewed purpose for the second half of the season, even though we could be 9 points behind by them, with only 1 game in hand!
Two fairly straightforward PL games after Christmas and an FA Cup Third Round Draw that has been pretty kind to us, should give the players some time to recover and recharge before the Newcastle game.
The lads look leggy and a little short on ideas. Alvarez HAS TO be benched from that midfield link role, because he loses the ball too often and it puts us immediately on the back foot. Throw Foden or Bernie in there and it will instantly improve both control and creativity.
Anyway, it’s been a bad run of fixtures, but only really one bad performance tonight, with half the team either missing of returning from injury…and we lost to a Top 4 team on a 14 game home winning streak, 1-0 at their patch. It’s not the end of the world, but the timing is fucking horrible, with everyone around us seemingly scoring last minute winners!
