M18CTID
Well-Known Member
And when we finish tenth, we'll sing this song again!!
Correct, the usual suspects disappeared for 3 games.We played alright. This forum is toxic when we lose. All the same moaners don't post when we win. Unlucky loss against a good Liverpool team
Something in that line up. Not sure about Toure there though
Our players not being played to their strengths. Chelsea players are and they look better and stronger then what they really are. Put Cahill instead of Stones and he would struggle. Put Costa for Kun ask him to do what we ask from Kun and he would struggle. We are very much like Spain were in world cup 2014. Tiki-taka only works with very good high pressing version and lots of pace. Without these its easy to defend against and not very hard to punish defensively.
Navas, Sterling, Kun , KDB they would be perfect for a counter attack team. They all like big places ahead of themsleves instead of it they have to play in a system that makes them face 2 opponents every times in very tight places sometimes without time to even turn and look.
Chelsea sometimes happily lets other teams have a bit of possession in return when they win it back they have actually time and place to make quick attacks. If we find Sterling, Kolarov, Navas with some free place on the wings and they can cross usually no one in the box maybe Kun and 3 defenders but thats it. Silva, KDB very far from action in these situations.
We dont do quick attacks lots of counter chances we have is when Kun or Sterling gets the ball at half way line. And obviously 2-3 opponents still on their own half still. Usually our player runs a bit and turn back waits for others to join and this 10-20-30 seconds more than enough to turn it into the usualy parked bus situation and we often play the bacpass so Otamendi, Stones start the attack and the sideways tiki-taka begins again.
Even Pool were happy to give us the possession in our half they did not press our defenders much until someone with the ball went over the halfway line.
Majority of our possession comes from the area between our box and the halfway line, we passed the ball a lot in that area without being pressed much, meaningless passes without any danger to create something. While we are passing there quite far from opponent box they have time to organize themselves, pick up any runner, mark more dangeorus players tightly upfront.
aguero, kdb, silva and sterling
Vs lallana, origi, mane and winaldum.
I would take our team / squad over theirs.
What I find most frustrating is that the club knew pellers was a stop gap whilst they waited for pep and with his best mate as DOF should have been building a squad for pep to take over and hit the ground running. Last season we wrote off as just waiting for him to arrive. Now some are writing this season off because they say the squad needs overhauling. Next season they will say the players are bedding in... he has a three year contract.
Haha! Maybe, but the trend is the same. We suffer on the break. After not making the most of our own chances.Or in Chelsea's case, go behind and allow themselves to get battered by us but somehow come out of it only 1-0 down - thanks in no small part to De Bruyne missing a chance that he sticks away 99 times out of 100 - and then punt a long ball up to Costa who turns Otamendi and slots it past Bravo, then score 2 more on the counter and cue a media wankfest about a Conte tactical masterclass!
The players don't press and harass the other players, something that happens to us nearly on a daily basis. Pep bangs on about second balls yet we never win one.
But how do you know he's not asking the players to do exactly that?
Ironic that even journeyman managers regularly do this to us. Burnley will be well up for it tomorrow.
This is where the "jam tomorrow" argument wears thin. Pulis and his ilk are doing this today with a fraction of our resources.
id have mane over navas
id have winaldum over fernando and now maybe yaya (not in the past )