Watched and enjoyed that as a pre season today. Until the big changes was looking good for only our 3rd warm up game And we all know Peps squad doesn’t click into gear typically until late September
Thought Phil looked really decent in the centre and thought McAtee and Gomez showed enough to be good bench players.
Concerns - you can see Cancelo is poison in this squad, his body language on the bench next to KDB was dreadful and when he came on yes he did that great pass for McAtee but he was generally selfish and Bobb didn’t know how to play with him.
Also, sad to say but Kalvin isn’t showing signs of getting anywhere near this first team yet.
That’s way too positive!Enjoyed that immensely. Good workout against a very impressive team so the perfect build up to next week.
Foden looked an absolute menace moving in from the right, the inverted role suits him. However I’d much prefer him at cam and then we have someone else hugging the touchline out wide.
We looked solid as a rock first 55 minutes and we have one hell of a core unit. Dias, stone, rodri, kdb and Haaland will win us everything again.
Kdb coming back in hopefully next week adds probably our best player so let’s look forward to the kings return. I love bernardo but feel we need someone in cm who can ping a ball through and open up play. Bernardo is a livewire but passing through balls isn’t one of his main strengths.
Thought mcatee looked tidy, kova fits in like a glove. Phillips needs to improve positioning but writing him off now seems crazy. Hopefully he can get up to the standards and I think he will as he’s already improving movements and passing.
Bring on the Gunners!
LolzNo way we’re even finishing top 4 after that. Disgraceful!!
EzeChiesa...
Its not based on pre-season alone.Disagree with most of that particularly Grealish.
Also you have to be crazy to base any decision on a friendly.
Except for the Foden/Grealish opinions...First half was good the intensity and cohesiveness is still there thats great but we still lack creativity especially when Kdb is not playing. We need to sign an established RW now that Mahrez is gone, Bobb, Mcatee and Palmer are not ready.
Foden - Not ready to play central atm, needs an injury free season playing wide.
Grealish - still doesnt do enough in the final third for me.
Gomez/Bobb/Palmer/Mcatee - Keep one in the squad, loan the rest out.
Cancelo - Erratic and careless player, ship him out.
Phillips - move him on and bring back Lavia.
I watched the match without looking at the forum.
Would agree with that about Foden plus it would solve to right side and give him a regular runIts not based on pre-season alone.
I've always felt Grealish needs to do more in the final 3rd even when he improved his overall play last season. Now with Mahrez and Gundo gone thats 40G/A gone from the team, he needs to produce we're not talking about a young player, he's 28.
Phil for me still lacks that control to play central, first and foremost he just needs to play consistently starting with on the wing, time will tell if Pep will move him central.