Well said. Yes, player errors. Committed by players put under perhaps excessive and unnecessary pressure by the system and lack of needed investment.
That’s my view, too. There’s a reason why we have a league table which rarely lies; it smoothes out the random results. Tactically, Slot just seems to be thrashing about. Worse, though in my view, is his squad management which is basically to flog his select players into the ground. The teams around us, Brentford and Everton for example—let that sink in— are keeping up with us with inferior players but probably better systems. Sigh … the season had started so very well, too.
I know. And it may not actually mean anything that turns out to be what we want to watch. I really can't reach a proper conclusion myself here. I just think the mix is only slightly off. Not as off as we sometimes postulate. Just too many little offs. Hence - the really good performances in bigger games where the other team comes out to play. So, therefore, in theory, those are always available for this team to slot into ... (even uncertain if pun here intended!!!) Bradley being missing is a problem- particularly with Frimpong in and out too. Salah is slightly past being the match-winner he was. And Gakpo is too predictable to be our main left winger (IMO). Playing in fear of Gomez and Konate hurting themselves bi-weekly isn't helpful either. Yet - I saw only a couple of games this year where we got a hiding, despite all the bad results. Most of those results could have been affected by the guys out there not making silly errors, etc.... Weird season
Not sure I'd agree there on the 2nd goal. Allison has already started to go and close him down here. If Allison doesn't go for it, the attacker can have a real crack at a rocket shot in this situation, so it's 50-50 whether you wanna let that happen. Depends on the player, maybe - if it's Sergio Aguero or Fernando Torres you are closing them down in this situation, I think. But by this point here he's already decided to close him down. Unstoppable Motion takes care of the rest, after that. This is one of those situations where I think they need a change of rules to allow for indirect free kick awards instead of some penalties for fouls in the box, because that end result of this particular ballet wouldn't have resulted in Nunez reaching that ball after his last touch. Of course Allison's oncoming (out of control) movement is what forces him into that touch - so there's all sorts of ways of looking at this....
When we talk about player errors costing us .... we have to focus on more than errors that blatantly/directly cost us goals. There's a whole other category of error that has cost us points this season - at the other end of the pitch. Nobody would ever have predicted that Mo's form would be so poor, after what he accomplished last season. In every game we've seen his errors in shooting, passing, beating defenders to create chances, decision-making - you name it. To say he's dropped off a cliff is not an exaggeration. He looks nothing whatsoever like the Mo Salah that has carried us to victory on myriad occasions. When a top striker loses form what they lose is their finishing - mistimed or misplaced shots - which doesn't detract from the other skills they deliver. But Mo is delivering nothing these days. This has nothing to do with Slot and I have a lot of sympathy for him on this issue. I've read opinions saying it's Slot's job to "fix Mo's form" which is simplistic bloody nonsense. What's he supposed to do - yell at him tell him to shoot straight, dribble better, run faster? He's between a rock and a hard place - drop the guy who we know can score goals like few others (cue huge uproar) or keep playing him waiting for things to click (cue another huge uproar). That leads to the system issue that also cannot be lain at Slot's door - the lack of a sub option game-changer for the RW. However, Slot's refusal to use options eg Chiesa / Rio / Cody is a big problem as is his refusal to regard almost anyone on the bench as more than an emergency option. Huge stubbornness that bites us game after game and obviously compounds as the season moves forward.
Yes, which is why I've turned into a 'Slot out' vote. He keeps playing the same system (maybe with minor tweaks) and the same players, hoping it'll eventually click (and if it does, eventually, the players will have been run into the ground by then). He waits way too long to make subs, and when he does, they seem desperate. Yes, injuries have limited his options. Yes, the club have given him no reinforcements. He had a week to prepare for City, and we got dominated, at home, the first half.
True but what makes it so frustrating - and really adds to the ambiguity - is that we dominated the majority of the second half. We've seen us do that very often including vs Arsenal. So we've seen that he and his coaches are very adept at coming up with solutions. Which means they are very good at their jobs. Of course, though -- that doesn't explain why we can be so Jekyll and Hyde in one game and why TF we fall asleep and give up late goals over and over. It's starting to be a pure glass half full/half empty thing: - is he making some poor player-selection decisions? Yes - are there a whole bunch of mitigating circumstances? Yes - has he shown the ability to integrate skilled players into the team? Yes - has he shown he can manage us to a title? Yes I think another factor is, a lot of fans are comparing his communications style and overall personality to Klopp. Understandable up to a point but totally unfair. Jurgen is unique and we'll never see his like again.
Probably beating a dead horse, but the ball was traveling too fast in front of Nunes at a bad angle that had Ali stayed home, Nunes would've forced a bad shot nowhere near goal. Like I said, I think Ali is likely done and we need other GK options.
I don't think he is done - but he's slipped a bit this year. That said - I wouldn't be surprised if he decided to move this summer on his own. He loves Brazil and may choose to go home.
He got Gravenberch to work last season. This season it's been less so - though Wirtz and Ekitike have started clicking.
I'd be inclined to agree, but I'm not sure anyone can pre-judge that he won't get to it in time and either (a) cut back to a by then wide open Erling Haaland or make that shot. Once Allison decides to move he's in for a pound, not a penny, is all I was saying. I wouldn;t blame him for that as an error. He did make an earlier error that he got away with against Marmoush though. But I've seen him do that even at his best.
As I've said earlier, I think probably Slot keeps his job if it looks like we have a chance of some European football next year (CL or Europa League). So if we stay somewhere in the top seven positions he's probably safe until the end of the season at least. As painful as losing to MC was, the bigger issue was that it dropped us further back from Chelsea, but I don't see either MU or Chelsea being able to maintain consistent wins for the rest of the season. Whether we can is basically going to determine whether Slot stays in his position for the rest of the season and into the beginning of next year or not. I think there are a couple of things that are contributing to our inability to repeat the performance this year that we had last year. My personal take is that some of these issues are player-driven (we simply don't have the same team we did last year), but that with the overall quality of the team a good managerial team should have done a better job with what we do have. Ultimately though - and what has been made clear by the FSG management - is that they are unlikely to make any decisions based on public clamor from the fans or media. 1) Last year we often had Diaz or Nunez in our offense who would track back and harry opponents at early stages when the ball was turned over. Now most of the time we have Gakpo on the left of attack, and he is renown for his spotty defensive work. Ekitike and Wirtz also are not as good at harassing in early stages of a counterattack. 2) We've often had to use Szoboszlai at RB and I think he is better at pressing in the midfield than Wirtz is. Wirtz is getting better, but Szobo seems to be a better "destroyer." This has had a knock-on effect of exposing McAllister and Gravenberch. Neither are actually statistically that much worse off on ball recovery numbers than last year (each are about ~1 less ball recovery/game than last year), but I think there are more cases where they are getting caught upfield more since they have to advance to cover behind Wirtz more than they did when Szobo was playing there. 3) TAA is really missed in his ability to play long balls up to Salah or Diaz (or Gakpo). Opposing defenses had to push up to try to stop him from picking them apart with pinpoint aerial passes to our attacking players. Wirtz was brought in to try to replace this production, but he does it from a different part of the field and this requires Gravenberch and McAllister to feed Wirtz more often, which I don't think is always working well. What ends up happening is that it seems to me that we get a lot more predictable with shorter, safer passes up the flanks. Whether this is by design or if it is because Gravenberch and McAllister are simply not able to hold and progress the ball as effectively as they need to for this system to work isn't clear to me. But I think this lack of speed in attack is bogging us down and making life very difficult during the offensive phase. I think it also ends up getting us sucked into much more progressed positioning, exacerbating our susceptibility to quick counters. 4) Salah is both isolated, and probably is also near - or at - the end of his peak as an elite wide offensive player. He's not seeing the ball often enough to overcome what, frankly, has always been an issue - his relative profligacy in possession and shots. I think this is a vicious cycle, when he's not seeing the ball a lot he just doesn't have the number of chances for things to go right. This probably makes him take even bigger risks, or try to dribble more than he normally would, exacerbating the problem. I also think there is a general loss of standards/effort in the side. I don't think they are being trained to the same level of fitness, which means physical and mental falloffs towards the ends of the two halves, and particularly towards the end of the second half. I also think we are seeing a general malaise as player and team confidence are sapped due to losing points/games in the same manner over and over again.
You missed the fact he has lost several yards of pace. Don't remember seeing him beat anyone for pace this year. If anything, defenders are running him down after a head start.
Another check mark for Alonso who demands more in terms of fitness and pressing as a team (which made him a bad fit for the players they have at RM).
I long for JK's Heavy Metal Football There are times in the last few games I've watched where we allow the opponents to break through our midfield while our forwards and midfielders simple jog back on D Where or where has our high press gone? Of course, with the injury record we have at the moment, I'd probably back off on the high press as well, but I do long for it
I don’t honestly disagree with any of your points other than the fact that I think Gakpo is markedly worse in defense than Diaz. It is possible that Salah has lost a step or two, but I think the larger problem is that he’s not being integrated into the offense as much as he was before. Is he as effective this year as he was last? Of course not. Is this all down to him losing pace? No. We’ve clearly set up to attack more to our left side, whereas before we were often attacking down the right and exploiting the left when we had opportunities there. Again, I think this is mostly due to TAA and him linking up with Salah well. Anyway, those are my thoughts.
Sure he has. It took Wirtz and Kerkez a while but no big surprise, we have seen a number of new players taking months to settle in (and that was with a lot fewer changes overall). Hugo and Frim have been excellent.