Why are we relying on Zouma as our creative playmaker. The midfielders and wingers KEEP on passing it to him when they're lost for an idea as to what to do.
Well I get the idea that we should rest players and we should have enough quality in our squad to get past the likes of West Ham at home. Especially a West Ham team in free fall and probably about to sack their manager. This was the most embarrassing performance of the season. From our point of view there was nothing good about this game and we have no excuses. Well maybe Reece James is our only player who played well today
Not great, and I don’t think Frank’s tactical switch did us any favors - that no striker set up wasn’t great. Not all that bad though. Reece’s performance a notable issue though.
The match stats We had 66% of the possession We had 9 corners to their 3 We had 6 shots on target to their 4 on target We had 0 fouls to their 16 What do the stats mean? Fcuck nose. Fcuck knows. We really need - NEED - a new striker. Hopefully we will get lucky with the appeal against the ban and be able to get a player in January. Giroud was awful today and Michy has been awful in our two games before that.
Willian's engine and full field movement and defense I think always makes an underappreciated positive difference; Pedro just does not have enough of it anymore especially in this system, and with out Tammy to press high (Giroud to slow to play the press we like, and Pedro not slow but not fast and physical enough), think he was needed. Also we need to resign Willian for a couple years before January; he wants to stay but may get fed up if he gets other offers. First we need to get a wing to replace Pedro and if/after we get that right, then we can worry about replacing Willian and he would still have some value, he is getting old but even if he loses a step in 2nd year added still will be quicker and faster than most. It will cost 60 million plus to properly replace and upgrade on Pedro, no sense doubling the cost and need prematurely Hopefully CHO gets back to better form and keeps getting better but until he clearly push Willian out of side, we can't risk losing him and it will show Lamp the Board backs his desires..
SHIT. I waited and then I double checked the result on the sports page and we STILL lost this game 1-0. One to nil. We lost 1-0 at home to West Fcucking Ham. Dropped 3 points at home. It was a striker issue. We had nothing. We even tried Pulisic as no.9. Many reasons why - but it was the fact that we didn't have Tammy. Not any other reason really. We need a striker. Michy proved against Citeh and his time against Valencia that he aint good enough. Giroud . . .Giroud a world cup player. But he is not good enough anymore. IF we do not have Tammy OR we need a player to come on for the last 20 mins in a game or challenge Tammy for a start then we NEED to buy a top class striker. Michy and Giroud ... neither would make the Citeh or Liverpool or Man United squad ...or Spurs or Arsenal. . . or Leicester squads . . .We are missing the squad depth in terms of a striker. Not tactics of Frank or our midfield. This is the transfer ban fcucking with us.
We’ve been on a good run, but this is a healthy reminder that top four is going to be a huge accomplishment if we can manage it. Things are going to get even more challenging now that we have to contend with a relaxed and smiling Jose at Tottenham and whatever happens at Arsenal. All our success has been essentially with the same line-up. This is the most rotation we’ve attempted in a while.
I agree. If someone had told us we'd be banned from signing anyone, would lose our most potent attacking threat and have to rely on a smattering of 'yoof' and some old farts left from the previous administration who were getting long in the tooth like Willian and Pedro, and would stand ANY chance of being in the top 4 we'd have snatched their hands off. If we end up outside the top four but in the top six I'll be disappointed but, in all honesty, I won't consider the season a bad one.
A big test for any squad is dealing with adversity. It's easy for a winning team to point to changing room harmony and alignment with the managers philosophy but that's put to the test properly when you lose a couple in a row in the league as we now have. Better teams than this have disintegrated almost overnight so the villa match will be a huge one now to get some confidence back. Have to stop the rot before it sets in and need to get results when the spine doesnt start (rudi, kante, tammy). Fingers crossed this was a blip and a needed wake up call that there is a lot of work ahead of the team as we enter the busy festive period