FAKIN HELL I'm glad this thread is here so I don't have to bubble about in the waning light of the WHU away thread.
1. No Jan at left back. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but he didn't look so good to me last night. Decent on the ball and moving forward, but a bit of a serious liability when it comes to defending. Maybe BAE's had that famous falling out, who knows. But he has to start. Caulker to sit, then, perhaps? Though he's been doing superbly as well. And Dawson, much as I'm ready to send him to the glue factory, was also tremendous last night. AVB will probably melt all our heads with:
:llorisserious:
:walker:
:vert::baelol:
2. Parker, Parker, Parker. What to do. I've seen people congratulate him on his tenacity last night (I was rather among them), but maybe that's just because he looked like a bulldog out there, and all the Brits went all mushy-kneed. To me the issue is that he simply sits on the ball too much. He's relying on runs to move the ball, not ping-ping passing. As such, I imagine the speed at which we run our transition game is largely compromised. But who goes in his place? Hudd? No… Maybe…
Livermore
Jake's been our catalyst, after all. Or perhaps Carroll might fit? Or perhaps I'm overthinking it all and Parker will do fine.
3. Much as Livermore and Carroll electrified our play last night, Sigurðsson did so even more dramatically. We looked sloppy and clueless for a lot of the match, and it seemed to take a turn once Gylfi showed. This isn't to say that Holtby was why we looked sloppy. Who knows what happened. That said, despite my willingness to drop Parker, I'm not as inclined to drop our baby goose.
:lennon: :holtbytongue: :bale2:
:adelol:
I wish it was next Monday already. This match kills me every year, but luckily I have a machine built for me by Tesla, so I simply make a dupe right beforehand, and he just sits in the tub, chillaxing and reading, during the match. After the final whistle, he checks the score, tosses my corpse in the fireplace, and takes on my life.
As I wrote last night, we'll kill them if Holtby and Bale manage to put 20-yard bombs on target. Wenger won't be able to pull off a Churchill "Every man to his post" at halftime.