I made myself re-watch the game this morning and despite being a little upset that we seemingly gave up after they scored the 3rd I can reflect a little better about our recent run.
The performance in the first half was really good - yes we should have had at least a 2 goal lead before they had a sniff of a chance and maybe with better finishing and more composure in the final third we could have been 3 or 4 up. But when you are short on confidence you find players snatching at chances. - Phil despite his great goal had another great chance but missed - like he did v Bournemouth. Similarly Bernardo and Savinho needed to calm themselves and make the keeper work more. Erling too hit a great chance straight to the keeper - these are the small margins and unfortunately we are on the wrong side of them at the moment.
Once they got their goal they upped their press and suddenly we were all over the place defensively - that is a team issue & all too familiar recently. I think Pep needs to revert to playing high energy players out wide who more importantly can keep control of the ball. Maybe fans will realise just how important Jack was when we were blowing teams away - at that time we had a choice of Bernardo or Phil on the right and they have both energy and ball control to stop counter attacks. Sadly Rico and Savinho don't do that to the same standard.
In the middle we need a fit Kev in there - his vision and ability to play Erling in much quicker is missed. Kova, Gundo, Lewis in the middle are so slow to play the ball to him. It's got to the point where even our Nordic meat shield is not bothering to make as many of those electric runs behind as he knows the ball will not come and by the time it does he's marked by 2 defenders.
I also don't like the trend of Manu waiting so long for teams to press him before making a pass - yes teams play deeper against us but any team that is well coached uses that extra time to ensure they are all in shape and that means we have to play back and sideways constantly without going anywhere - result is we have 72% possession but that does not relate into constant chances being created. Stop that Manu & Gundo!
Finally how many corners do we have that come to nothing - last night for example 11 to 1 yet apart from one header on target the other 10 lost us possession - same with throw ins we constantly lose the ball of throw it back to initiate a slow build up. When you have Doku, Savinho & Haaland up top they need the ball quicker to give them a chance to beat a single defender. Sounds easy but it actually is if you have a forward thinking mindset. Rico, Kyle and Josko need to work on that. Do the simple stuff well and then your extra talent can make the difference.
It's not all doom and gloom as maybe this will re-ignite Pep's passion. We all know the end of our current cycle is fast approaching and we need to go again - perhaps this is even the ideal time for the change to Hugo Viana who can put his stamp on recruitment. TB was largely amazing but I would say his recent transfer success rate was at best 60/40 - a more youthful director of football with new energy is what is needed right now.
If say we had managed to get 2 draws out of the last 3 matches many would have said - oh we are not needing any change and it's all the fault of too many games and injuries. Papering over stuff is dangerous and a club that stands still is ultimately one in decline - our club is so well run so I have to believe that this dip will actually turn out to be the best thing that has happened. We need a more balanced approach to recruiting midfielders in particular. We have 3 of our most important midfielders all north of 30 - where are the 24-26 year olds?
Apologies for such a lengthy post but sometimes I need to purge some thoughts to recover after an awful loss!
We will be back and last night may just lead to change of both the way we play and who we target so we will look back and be thankful for such an eye opening defeat. Keep the faith blues and have a good week.
