So Foket likely to come in for Meunier. Thorgan Hazard for Eden Hazard. Chadli for De Bruyne. Not a great prospect considering that this is probably the most important game in our entire qualifying campaign.
I knew that we would never win this game, since that would have all but wrapped up this qualifying group for us and we never do ourselves any favors.
Poor from Martinez, we played a home game against a defensive minded team and our entire setup resembled a team looking to scrape a point. Chadli and Carrasco were pretty ineffective, Mertens and Lukaku invisible. Nainggolan looked short of confidence (unsurprisingly after being inexplicably dropped), and Witsel and Fellaini did what they're supposed to do, but there is no need to have both of them on the pitch in this sort of game, so they were pretty much redundant. Ciman was imo at fault for the goal; I find it quite frustrating that we are still playing him. He made mistakes against Gibraltar(!) and the Netherlands, only we weren't punished for them. Seems to be a reoccurring theme with all Belgian managers: no harm, no foul. I doubt this will be enough for Martinez to drop him however. We'll pay for it at some point.
We did pay for it already. Had we won this game, we were all but qualified already. Now we will probably have to fight for qualification until the final game.
That was pretty poor. We control the first hour of the game and then just give it away. Tielemans had a good game. We sort of lost control of the midfield after he went off.
I'm not too worried, but it has to be said that Russia's recent results haven't been great. So we should always beat them, even with a B-team.
Playing Fellaini Witsel should be grounds for termination as a Belgian NT coach. Tielemans -Dembele- Nainggolan is the way forward for this team if they want to win a tournament. Also need Vertinghen-Alderweireld-Meunier on the back 3 unless Kompany/Vermaelen are miraculously available.
Poor game, but it got the job done. A shame we didn't win at home against Greece, otherwise the job would be all but done already. Now we still need to win at least one of the away games to Greece and Bosnia.
I don't get how you can maintain Witsel at this point. I like the guy, but he is playing in the Chinese league and last night it started to show.
The annoying thing is that if Witsel had some more ambition, he could have improved his ability and he could have become a great centre mid. I guess if Hazard is fit, he'll come into the side, De Bruyne will drop back into the number 8 position (where Fellaini is), so Witsel may stay put, even though I'd put Tielemans, Dendoncker, Dembele, Nainggolan and Fellaini ahead of him.
That is a mystery indeed. He's a poor player, nowhere near good enough for international level. He was terrible at Club Bruges, average at Standard.