Losing isn’t the problem, it’s the lack of effort from players who are being paid thousands. It’s the obvious weaknesses that haven’t been close to addressed for 2 years. It’s the putting KDB on bench and not using him whilst paying 400k a week. It’s the lack of using youth even when we obviously look slow and tired in the midfield from minute 1.
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Bournemouth (A) | PL | Post Match Thread
- Thread starter MCFC1993
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colorado blue
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Not sure what Pep was thinking today. Pitch looked very heavy and Walker, Akanji, Foden all didn’t look anywhere near 100%. Thought McAtee and/or Wright could have been given a start. Tactics should have been to slow game down and keep it tight and then bring on fresh legs second half. Got to give Bournemouth a lot of credit back to back wins against top 2 from last season shows they are a well organized team. They don’t concede many and we were lucky not to concede a lot more today. Doku looked good and pity he didn’t grt 10 more minutes. Assume he was being saved for midweek along with Stones.
ChicagoBlue
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Total lack of pace and results in the passive way we are playing, no Rodri with no proper replacement.We must keep faith with the youngsters and bin off Walker and nunes(played ok today but a million miles off the quality we require) but keep the faith.In pep we trust
Hilarious! Been our best player for the past month! On performances by $$$ players, we’d be binning off Foden before Nunes this season!
Father Paul
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Sadly your analysis is probably correct. Anyway it was a great six years if it is all over.We’ve lost matches before but it does feel different this season.
From 2017 - 2023 we lost matches but, bar one or two, we were far and away the better side, but slices of bad luck, poor finishing, mistakes cost us the match.
This season we’ve probably deserved to lose more matches than just the one we lost today. We’re no longer dominating games in the same manner, teams are finding ways to expose our weaknesses and our play has become often ponderous and predictable with little goal threat bar Haaland.
Vester
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As a team we are just terrible in defense and clueless in attack and have been most of the season. A result like this was coming, and probably already could/should have come on several occasions already this season if it wasn't for last minute miracles. Instead of waking up its unfortunately looking like we are getting worse with every game.
Very disappointed that Txiki (who has done a brilliant job over the years) doesnt look like leaving on a high, instead it seems like he is handing over a squad in a mess. Smallest number of senior players in the league. Several old past it players who struggle to play even once a week. Wingers who possess very little goal threat. "Attacking" mids that have no keys to unlock the oppositions bus. A defense that cant defend counters and seems unable to learn from their mistakes since we concede the same goal every game. We used to have a squad were we could rotate 4 or 5 players each game and more or less expect the same high quality performance. These days the quality drop is significant as soon as a few players is missing.
Pep will figure it out, he always does. And luckily both Arsenal and Liverpool are far from their best as well and we are still in a good position to win it. But we need to start playing better, asap. Our main attacking strategy currently seems to be having our worst attacking players (our CBs) on the ball in front of the oppositions bus both taking shots and making final plays. I'm just a stupid fan and am certainly not claiming to even being in the same universe as Pep football knowledge wise (or in most other ways) but right now I struggle to see what our actual plan is to handle opposition threats and parked buses. There seems to be no plan at all.
Very disappointed that Txiki (who has done a brilliant job over the years) doesnt look like leaving on a high, instead it seems like he is handing over a squad in a mess. Smallest number of senior players in the league. Several old past it players who struggle to play even once a week. Wingers who possess very little goal threat. "Attacking" mids that have no keys to unlock the oppositions bus. A defense that cant defend counters and seems unable to learn from their mistakes since we concede the same goal every game. We used to have a squad were we could rotate 4 or 5 players each game and more or less expect the same high quality performance. These days the quality drop is significant as soon as a few players is missing.
Pep will figure it out, he always does. And luckily both Arsenal and Liverpool are far from their best as well and we are still in a good position to win it. But we need to start playing better, asap. Our main attacking strategy currently seems to be having our worst attacking players (our CBs) on the ball in front of the oppositions bus both taking shots and making final plays. I'm just a stupid fan and am certainly not claiming to even being in the same universe as Pep football knowledge wise (or in most other ways) but right now I struggle to see what our actual plan is to handle opposition threats and parked buses. There seems to be no plan at all.
Well said,Yeah he's got to rectify them fucking injuries eh..
FFS we have players who you can see aren't anything like fully fit..Pep even said earlier that players are playing through the pain barrier.
Once we get players back we will be fine..just got to keep hanging in there until then.
Wolves away was never anything but an away win.
Today a tired performance against a team on it.
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese
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I had a feeling about this one. Still, we were due a loss and with those two sets of shit drawing last week it's not a bad time to do it. 2 losses in a week is not business as usual for pep or city so I'm confident we've had our 'blip'.
A bad day for a team that looked ponderous compared to a foe etched with vitality. Right across the pitch, we were slower than the opposition, slow to react, slow to get back, and slow with the ball. Ake looked poor for such a top player, and Akanji has (for several weeks) avoided anything other than absolute conservatism with his passing, which means that attacks begin when the opposition is already set (because the ball is passed across the back line before slowly making its way to the deep midfielders). I can only put it down to a lack of fitness, and therefore find it harder to grasp Pep's lack of proactivity. We can only hope that players return soon because there will be more days like this if they do not. Well done to Gvardiol, Rico, Nunes, and Doku.
Semper aggressus
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Agreed. We resorted to lumping it long at the end...and it almost paid off. Some of those players looked burned out to be honest, especially Gundo and Walker. Pep is going to have weave some magic. Florian Wirtz or Musiala in January would help. We also need some striking support (cover) for Haaland.
Exactly right. Need at least one attacker in January to reinvigorate the team and give Haaland a break sometimes or help him out up front.
This is where I take you off ignore. Although he got an assist Gundogan is miles off it. McAtee needs to ask out. If he can't get on ahead of this Gundo what's the point?It's been coming.
Gundogan needs to be dropped, still absolutely pissed off we brought him back.