sir baconface
Well-Known Member
Which 4 players would you have brought off the bench to replace the entire midfield?
Well, Carson would be first…
Which 4 players would you have brought off the bench to replace the entire midfield?
Yep, when Maddison is the hardest man in midfield summat's wrong.Match of the day showed a clip of Maddison....yes Maddison....keeping the ball as our powder puff midfield, including Bernardo, tried in vain to get it off him. He was taking the fucking piss and nobody could stop him. That's how poor we were.
Consistently poor? WTF.Agree with Mahrez but Sterling was consistently poor
I have just watched the game in full.
The first 2 goals were Gvardiol mistakes. He has been played a lot this season and would normally rotate with Ake in that full back position but Ake gas been injured. He is still young and playing in an alien position, still learning. I don't want to be to hard on him, he has scored some important goals for us.
The last two goals were breakaway with us pressing higher because we had to try to get back into the game.
Our midfield is obviously not good enough. We can all see that Gundogan cannot play the defensive midfield role. We have to remember that his game is sneaking into the box and scoring goals but he cannot leave his post to do that with this midfield. Rico is not ready to carry the burden in there. Kovacic has covered Rodri's loss for us but again he is not a defensive midfielder. He is out for at least a month. It has been suggested that Stones could fill that role, however without Ridri there he would also look lost.
Up front we have good players but no one to supply the right balls to them. It showed when Kev came on just how much we need his vision. 3 good chances created in 10 minutes. Foden has not stepped up to that role.
So yes, a rebuild is necessary but in January I think we need two midfield players, one defensive and one attacking. When the injuries get sorted out we will be okay until the end of the season. Walker is a problem but we can cover that position with Akanji and Lewis until the summer. Walker can play when we play the lesser teams. We do have Bobb coming back and the young midfielder from Argentina in January, when hopefully we will have a fit squad.
I think we will struggle to win anything this season if we do it will be a bonus.
I love this club and have followed them for 66 years and have seen the ups and downs.it hurts me to see this happening to a wonderful group of players who have given us so much.
Pep will give us a winning team again next year.
Let's just support them through this.
I really like what (little) I've seen of Bobb. For sure I'd like to see him play more.When Oscar Bobb returns, I would always play him ahead of Savinho. In my opinion he’s simply a better player.
He had an excellent start, beating his full back easily. Unfortunately it only lasted 8 minutesSavinho is a high risk player...at least he was looking to drive at players, take them on and do something.....When you have a player doing that it is naturally going to result in them losing the ball more.....he works hard and his defensive work for a new and young player is very good.....he was getting back to try and help better than our central midfield pair!
This seems to me to be the obvious solution as wellSince we don’t have Rodri we should defend deep and break with pace. Look at the goals Haaland scored for his national team mostly runs in behind
The ref awarded Spurs 19 free kicks.Yep, when Maddison is the hardest man in midfield summat's wrong.
His performance has nothing to do with us constantly conceeding the same type of goals....He had an excellent start, beating his full back easily. Unfortunately it only lasted 8 minutes
Well sure... given our current squad this is so.
We play a very high line, aggressive attacking formation with the ball, maximizing width to create space. When the ball turns over, one or more City players will be near the point of turn over and it's up to them to press. This demands stamina, positional nous and a commitment to aggressively press.
This strategy is obviously sound - we won the last 4 titles in a row - trouble is, our squad isn't good enough currently (Rodri is a huge miss) - to implement the strategy. Ball turns over, our line is very high, our fullbacks (one or both) are way up field - and there's no instant aggressive pressure on the ball. From there, a skillful attacker with time on the ball is going to cause problems - and we've been leaking goals as a result.
that was my plan for yesterday.This seems to me to be the obvious solution as well
A few games have been like yesterday. We start brightly, miss chances, then give the ball away and opponents either score or nearly score. Would love Kulesevski in our side.There was a point in the game very early on at 0-0 when Spurs had the ball on there left (our right)...there was a huge switch out towards where Gvardiol was supposed to be to Kulachvski....somehow Kulacheski had managed to stray offside (no idea how)....but at that point they had 3 or 4 players running past our midfield streaming forward....at that point it was only a matter of time and that none of the problems had been solved.
The goals we are conceeding are carbon copies of situations every week....
if the twat is gonna feign injury then kick the fucker anyway, give him something to think about.The ref awarded Spurs 19 free kicks.
17 must of been for their 'hardman' Maddison who just loves to hit the deck when given the opportunity.
I thought the ref was whistling Happy Birthday to him at one stage
We won without him at the very start of the seasonI just wonder if the constant mantra "Can't win without Rodri" has got inside the player's heads and become a self fulfilling prophecy?
Have to agree with O'Reilly, I genuinely thought he was going to start yesterday with Kovacic being missing too.we must at least try oreilly or wright just for some physicality.it might not work but what we are doing now is definitely not working.