Conte is asked about Morata: "I think it is not a lucky period for him... Here today I think he had chances to score. But it is football, and I am very happy for his commitment.... for his effort for the team." Says these are the most important things."
I'd have thought sticking the ball in the net was pretty important for a striker as well but, what do I know?!
Costa went missing for half of last season. Morata has had a bad few weeks. The key thing is getting chances - he’ll put these away.
The fact that Moses is our starting RB in a game like this is embarrassing. Speaking of embarrassing, Bakayoko.
Moses has done a job but we clearly need more. Every time hazard surged forward he looked right and most of the time there was no-one available. Not Moses. Not the passenger. Not Morata. Hazard can't do it all. We needed a Pedro or Willian much much sooner as there were gaps all over the place. We were never going to keep a clean sheet today but we could have helped ourselves at the other end. It was worth a risk we didn't take. I would like to see bakayoko in those central attacking positions more and use his strength in the box but he would have to work harder to get there and I'm not seeing it. People criticize RLC for lack of work rate but I see him improving this part of his game at palace and the passenger going backwards. Often literally. And then he watches Kante cover double the ground to tackle back. When Alonso is our second best attacking option it speaks to bigger problems. Morata was dreadful but he is getting in those positions and I do think the goals from the ground will come more naturally before long. Costa was awful for much of last season. That Costa would have cost us 7 points, not gained them and that's the Costa we would have had, not the free scoring predator version. Starting striker is not our main concern, better wide players and more creativity in the middle is far more pressing.
I can't make my mind up whether to laugh or cry about this one! A point at the library is not a 'bad' result on the other hand I feel we should have won...........on the 'other' other hand we could easily have lost! Some of the forward play (lets be fair for both teams) was bloody marvellous, some of the defending not so good (due perhaps to the wonderful attacking play), both keepers......superb. I may not be able to decide if I am happy or not with the result but at the end of the day that was bloody marvellous entertainment!
Let's also remember that Cech is still one of the best GK's in the world. His placement, positioning, and reflexes were fantastic last night. It's not easy to get one past him no matter what the circumstances. I think Morata's ability to get into these kinds of spaces was great...I imagine Arsenal were paying a lot of attention to Hazard which opened Morata up a little bit. But the poor quality of others on the pitch - Bakayoko, Moses specifically, let the team down. Fabregas was tenacious last night. And no one has mentioned it and we're starting to take it for granted, but Christensen was unbelievable. Immense. Always in the right spot. Maybe stick Alonso up top and move Morata to left wing back.
They mentioned something in the commentary that I noticed, too... that Moses didn't ONCE try and take on the left side fullback. The first one that did was Frank and we scored a goal from it.
Please, this wasn't the first game Morata has done it. He has excellent movement but his finishing is just terrible. Been continuing since last 4-5 games. Let's not make it that it was because of Cech that he missed those chances.
He scored against Brighton two games ago and the winner against Bournemouth in Carabao Cup. 2 goals in 5 games. Actually, 2 goals in 4 games as he didn't play in the Everton league match since he was suspended. Yeah, he's getting a lot of chances and should have more, though. But you can't discount Cech. He gets paid too and his positioning was fantastic.
There was a gaping hole on the right. I thought we were playing a man down without Willian or Pedro over there. I felt we could've overtaken Arsenal's defense if we had a winger up there and taken off Bakayoko.
Moses had a few games at the beginning of last season, but has been awful since then. I don't know why it seems every attack HAS TO go thru him. It's almost like we force the ball over to him and nothing ever comes from it. His only decent ball in yesterday was the one Morata slid for and missed. I think Conte has seen enough, he has started going to Zappa sooner and sooner and yesterday did it in the 55th minute. I expect Zappa to start the next one
Moses also was injured this season so not sure that has anything to do with his mentality or physical ability. Not convinced we'll secure any major targets.
Why does that even matter? They're still goals. Thing is, strikers have off games. It happens. It's frustrating not scoring against Arsenal because we were spoiled by Drogba* for years. It's frustrating because 99% of the time, that Bellerin volley goes into the stands as mentioned. And let's not forget, new league for Alvaro. The talent is there. *Drogba had his fair share of off games.
Well the morning after the night before thinking about Morata and how many goals city scored against Arsenal. The thing is city attack in numbers Morata was on his own for most of those chances, if had at least one other player up there running through with him he either passes for a tap in or he has more chance to score as the keeper will be in two minds. With respect to Moses I can only think it is a case of the game looking very different from the stands than on TV. Often in games at the Bridge Moses is mostly in acres of space yet his team mates singularly refuse to pass to him. edit: Oh and as for taking on his man in the games at home Zappacosta has not tried that but Moses often does, although I admit when I was watching on TV last night the opposite seemed true so perhaps it is the distorting lens of the camera
It matters because every time it has come to his feet, I already knew he wasn't going to score. He is a good striker and will probably get better but my only point was he hasn't been great with finding the net with his feet since he joined us. Cech didn't do something incredible to save them as Brock pointed out in his initial post.
To your eye Cech didn't do anything incredible. That's what incredible GK's do. Cech did everything perfectly on that first breakaway and made Morata push that wide. Morata had a ton of time to think about it, which didn't help us, but Cech did everything he could. Still one of the world's best. If Hazard had done the same, we wouldn't be bothered.
It was somewhat reminiscent of a Peter Schmiechel performance to me. Came out closed down the angles (especially that first Morata miss and the Baka miss) and did what he needed to do. High quality goalkeeping (Morata still should have scored though ha).
I will agree to disagree. He did nothing a standard goalkeeper wouldn't do. Similar to the other Morata misses in other games.
Little late here, but obviously finishing is still a bit worrying. Not just from Morata either, Fabregas should’ve put his clear chance on target as well. Stoke was a nice blip, but almost all of our players seem to be low on confidence in front of goal on a pretty consistent basis this season. Match felt a little more disappointing than it should’ve given our somewhat comfortable position