0-0 FT Considering the way we played a draw is good. On the positive side, we haven't lost a game yet.
William was a rock in the midfield IMO. Our two best players today. Poor game from Gelson, Acuna and Fernandes. Surprised we had any chances at all.
Just wondering why you wait until the 88th minute to make your second sub. JJ is a f*cking idiot. Decent result. Played way better second half.
Cagao could've been a lot worse, we played better in the 2nd half but Porto could've killed us off in the 1st. Can anyone remember us having a single shot on target?
Positives: Undefeated, still only 2 points behind, we have a 2 week break now. Negatives: Missed a chance to jump to 1st, poor showing today overall, players look very tired, key players won't rest because of internationals Here's the rest of our calendar for October: October 15th - Taça de Portugal - Oleiros vs. Sporting October 18th - Champions League - Juventus vs. Sporting October 22nd - Liga NOS - Sporting vs. Chaves October 27th - Liga NOS - Rio Ave vs. Sporting October 31st - Champions League - Sporting vs. Juventus
We crossed the ball to Dost many times the second half but he was too slow to get to it. Slimani would bury those. Much better player.
Forget the Champions League. No reason to exhaust ourselves. Podence needs minutes and he should've been the first dude off the bench today
Yeah although the league has to be the priority. Play Alan Ruiz in the CL, maybe he'll score a hat trick and a club will buy him for 30M lol We need to win the league. Period. Agreed, did he have a bust up with JJ or something? Kid doesn't play and he has talent. He had a couple bad games in the beginning but he's an impact sub.
Nah. I think JJ just has a homo erotic obsession with Cesar. It's clear Podence is better than dudes in our starting 11.
It’s funny you say that, cause I read you’re post about sending him down to B in favour of Gelson Dala earlier and thought to myself we should’ve taken that 20M offer in the summer lol
I been upset but I cooled off. Porto is peaking right now, they really can't play any better than they are right now. Conceicao is getting the best out of them. Meanwhile sporting is underperforming and still just 2 points behind. I think we have more upside and Porto will hit a rough patch eventually
Player ratings: Rui Patricio - MVP today. He gave us the point today. Saved everything he needed to, looked confident and secure and his anticipation was flawless. In such a big match he was the one to step up. 10/10 Piccini - Some good moments and bad ones; Brahimi was on fire it has to be said. Continues to lack offensive ability, he even gets in good crossing positions but then decides to pass to Gelson all the time - needs to improve drastically in that aspect. 6.5/10 Coates - Cleaned up his image after the last game. In fact the central defenders on both teams were really strong. 8/10 Mathieu - Was voted MOTM, although personally it should've been Rui, but defensively he was almost perfect. One criticism was a couple of bad passes to Jonathan on the left but against our best defender on the day. 9/10 Jonathan - 2nd half I was impressed with his work ethic; he was unlucky with some of the awful passes he got from Mathieu and Battaglia. 1st half though was awful - continues to have issues with positioning. He should have been loaned to a Portuguese team to gain experience, not Argentina. 6.5/10 William - Started in his natural role but with Battaglia's difficulties today he traded places with him as a #8; in the 2nd half he really carried the team forward. Needs to put in some shooting practice though. 8/10 Battaglia - One of my favourite new players this season... but today he was a disaster. He can be a great box-to-box but he needs to practice his passing. Even simple 2 metre passes were not working. He's like our version of Casemiro from Real Madrid - a workhorse but not technically gifted. 6/10 Gelson - *sigh* Gelson. I'm kind of hoping he doesn't play for the NT because he looks so out of form. His constant dribbling is starting to become irritating. He needs to start playing simple (a quick dribble inside and a shot from the edge of the area or a pass to Dost in the box). Against Barcelona I don't think he crossed once and in this game his first cross came in the 82nd minute.. Also I think JJ trying to make him into an Acuna type player - coming back to help on defense a lot - but this is hindering his play because he needs to stay forward and be the winger we all know he is. 6/10 Acuna - ran a lot and combative as usual, but offensively provided very little. Was truly awful on set pieces as well. He also looks so fatigued. Am I the only one who could see Acuna playing as a midfielder box-to-box? Kind of like how Enzo Perez turned out at Benfica... 6/10 Bruno Fernandes - another player I actually hope gets some rest over this int't break. He looks completely fatigued, JJ mentioned that vs. Barça he ran over 12 KM's, that takes its toll. Had a glorious chance in the 2nd half but skied it. He was correctly subbed off. 6/10 Dost - He didn't score again and didn't have a single opportunity, and yes he's not in form, but I think the issue is more a lack of support, when Gelson doesn't cross until the 82nd minute, when our full backs rarely cross then that tells you why Dost doesn't have chances. 6/10 Subs: Bruno Cesar - Came in for Bruno Fernandes who wasn't having a good game. I can actually accept Bruno Cesar playing centrally as we don't see so much of his limitations when he plays behind Dost. Still lacks quality for us in my opinion but the team did seem to improve a bit. 7/10 Podence - a sub I was hoping for but happened about 20 minutes too late. A player who can make an impact like he can when our team was starting to have a lot of space needed to come in earlier. Can't give him a rating as he came in at the 90th minute.
Conceicao already saying Porto will be campeao Seriously , we have a lot more upside than they do. They won't get any better. Doumbia was injured , bas dost hasn't hit form yet , Gelson martins has been sub par lately. You'd like to think we will improve at some point , but when you are playing barcelona and juventus every other week makes it a lot harder to rest players