Wolves (A) - Saturday 11th November 12:30pm KO

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1882 said:
I almost would've been tempted (just for this game) to suggest they played a system that THEY felt comfortable with...
Just to get them through the match...

Rather than asking them to play some tippy tappy nonsense on the 6 yard line that NONE of them were capable of, or comfortable with!
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Dier and Davies playing their preferred football would be like watching the 3 stooges. Neither of them are good enough for a top half premier league team. I don't think either ever have been.
They're both far too reactive in matches. Actually, it's worse than that, as they don't even react in most cases. Back off, stand up, hope for the best.
They'll get blocks and deflections in, but they don't hunt the ball and they don't move to make tackles. They let opposition players come at them and even then it's probably less than 50/50 they'll try to make a tackle rather than just hope that being in the way is enough.
 
Are people now finally seeing it - that Conte/Mourinho were only part of the problem?
We have players who aren't comfortable on the ball and aren't brave when under pressure.
When under pressure a lot of them resort to instinct which is hoof the ball and sit in to defend.
 
1882 said:
So true...
It irritates the fuck out of me, but how often do you see Woolwich score, and THEN score again, moments later, to effectively try and kill a game off...

Liverpool did it the other day against Brentford...
Score, then score again, if ONLY to break their resolve...

We've rarely done that this season (away at Burnley maybe?)

But scoring early against both Chelsea and Wolves was an opportunity missed on both occasions....

Easy to say now, but we score twice against Chelsea and the rest of the game probably doesn't play out like it did....

And THEN we'd be going into the Wolves game on a high, and possibly not with as many injuries/suspensions as we brought on ourselves by NOT killing the game off on the Monday!

That Son 2nd goal disallowed against Chelsea was our sliding doors moment last week...

That stands, and we're 5 points clear of the pack going into the International week....

Fine fucking margins!
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💯- on the sliding doors moment. We lost our heads after 10mins Chelsea pressure at 1-0 up.

Different game with eleven on the pitch and winning. Maybe this, maybe that you might say but the ramifications of all that stemmed from the moments of madness are stark!

Wolves was equally galling. 89minutes 1-0 away from home. Just get the fucking win. It’s a different kind of criticism here. We actually had the personnel on the pitch to play pragmatically. While we all know Dier, Davies, PEH and Royal can’t play Ange’s system, I’d expect seasoned pro’s to know when to hit deep channel balls and when not to. It was crying out for it on Saturday. Get the 3pts, risk a telling off for not playing the managers way if necessary but take what was on offer. They should’ve known to do it and to have taken the initiative.

For what it’s worth I applaud the way tge manager has us playing and want that 95% of the time. On Saturday, it wasn’t working due to the players that had to come in.

The back to back losses - plus injuries and suspension - have really sucked the life, or at least feel good factor, out of the club.

I suppose we’ll see what the club, the manger and the players are made of in 2 weeks time
 
Matt1882 said:
That was just me semi-joking about the excuse Levy will use in January.


Was always my worry that an ultra attack every game would result in as many bad results as good ones.
But on the other hand, I didn't believe he could get an aggressive ultra attack out of the squad he arrived to. And Saturday was a glowing example of exactly that. They defaulted to coward mode immediately once Wolves started playing.




Nobody should "have to he a long term appointment"
You don't hire a total unknown and commit to keeping them regardless as to what is happening. If we'd said that about the likes of Ramos or AVB, and stuck with it, we'd have gone down.

This is not, in any way me saying he should be sacked after 2 losses, of course not. He can hardly be held accountable for 1 game finishing with 9 men and the other being a makeshift team missing most of its best players.




I can't agree with that. Natural talent hits thr ground running. We started the season with VdV, Udogie and Vicario as part of the back 5. Romero and Porro had only played in a 343 system before. Yet they all gelled immediately.
On the other hand, Dier and Davies, who are both bang average, wouldn't gel if they played all season. They'd probably get worse if anything.
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I wouldn't necessarily say that, if your attack is good enough to overwhelm most of the rest of the league then you'll get more good results than bad, save for the odd game where you batter them but fail to score and get done by a sucker punch.

Our problem with the approach is that our attack isn't strong enough to have as our sole plan, you take Maddison out and our plan is in tatters.

I'm still enraged every time my mind drifts back to the weekend and the absolute lunacy of thinking that Hojbjerg replacing Maddison was a remotely adequate solution to the problem.
 
1882 said:
So true...
It irritates the fuck out of me, but how often do you see Woolwich score, and THEN score again, moments later, to effectively try and kill a game off...

Liverpool did it the other day against Brentford...
Score, then score again, if ONLY to break their resolve...

We've rarely done that this season (away at Burnley maybe?)

But scoring early against both Chelsea and Wolves was an opportunity missed on both occasions....

Easy to say now, but we score twice against Chelsea and the rest of the game probably doesn't play out like it did....

And THEN we'd be going into the Wolves game on a high, and possibly not with as many injuries/suspensions as we brought on ourselves by NOT killing the game off on the Monday!

That Son 2nd goal disallowed against Chelsea was our sliding doors moment last week...

That stands, and we're 5 points clear of the pack going into the International week....

Fine fucking margins!
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The fine margins were about 3 inches as Son was offside when we scored the 2nd, would have completely changed the game and probably won it with ease but our game management from then on was just poor.

Anyway I'm not to downhearted, we're in our infancy, we will learn - People seem to forget we have a young core so we will learn to kill off matches and slow the game down when needed, we were pretty naïve in that Chelsea match and lost our composure and heads when it mattered but year we will learn from it.
 
Herclueless said:
I wouldn't necessarily say that, if your attack is good enough to overwhelm most of the rest of the league then you'll get more good results than bad, save for the odd game where you batter them but fail to score and get done by a sucker punch.

Our problem with the approach is that our attack isn't strong enough to have as our sole plan, you take Maddison out and our plan is in tatters.

I'm still enraged every time my mind drifts back to the weekend and the absolute lunacy of thinking that Hojbjerg replacing Maddison was a remotely adequate solution to the problem.
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The problem here though is that we have averaged just 2 goals per game. In the top 8, only 1 team has averaged less - a very poor Man United.
I was worried about this 2 goals per game thing weeks ago tbh. Given the level of dominance we saw in most games, "only" scoring 2, and often having to work hard for them (no goals at 90 minutes vs Sheff United for example) was a concerning trend.
 
Matt1882 said:
The problem here though is that we have averaged just 2 goals per game. In the top 8, only 1 team has averaged less - a very poor Man United.
I was worried about this 2 goals per game thing weeks ago tbh. Given the level of dominance we saw in most games, "only" scoring 2, and often having to work hard for them (no goals at 90 minutes vs Sheff United for example) was a concerning trend.
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Our attacking prowess was definitely being overstated at one point, the only game we really did some damage in was Burnley, and that we only actually won by 3 goals.

The football is nicer on the eye no doubt, but I was promised we'd be going for the throat until the final whistle, and am yet to really see this.
 
Shadydan said:
The two goals we gave away was the result of those players trying to play on the front foot tbf
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No it wasn’t. Dier tried a pass down the line that went out of play, so what? The ball goes out of play all the time. That means we have to concede from the throw in? We make a foul high up the pitch then let them take the free kick before we are set?
 
StripiestPilot said:
No it wasn’t. Dier tried a pass down the line that went out of play, so what? The ball goes out of play all the time. That means we have to concede from the throw in? We make a foul high up the pitch then let them take the free kick before we are set?
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Eh?

He was trying to play as opposed to hoofing it out :confused:
 
StripiestPilot said:
No it wasn’t. Dier tried a pass down the line that went out of play, so what? The ball goes out of play all the time. That means we have to concede from the throw in? We make a foul high up the pitch then let them take the free kick before we are set?
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I still just don't know why Dier didn't just keep hold of the ball and then pass back to Vicario when Wolves pressed. One of those things we take for granted when Romero is playing, I guess. The composure.
 
Starks said:
I still just don't know why Dier didn't just keep hold of the ball and then pass back to Vicario when Wolves pressed. One of those things we take for granted when Romero is playing, I guess. The composure.
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Cuti is calm as fuck on the ball.
 
Herclueless said:
Our attacking prowess was definitely being overstated at one point, the only game we really did some damage in was Burnley, and that we only actually won by 3 goals.

The football is nicer on the eye no doubt, but I was promised we'd be going for the throat until the final whistle, and am yet to really see this.
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In fairness, we went to the death Vs Sheff United and Liverpool because we needed a equaliser/winner
But even in those games, I felt like when there was a clear opportunity to really attack at pace on the break, we took 3 or 4 passes instead of 1 or 2 allowing the opposition (worst being Liverpools 9) to get back.
It may be that the players were too tired to play at that pace in the last 10-15 minutes, it's something I hadn't really considered until now. If it is the case, we need to look at training or look at pacing ourselves in matches. I thought we looked dead on our feet for the last 20 minutes against Wolves. Passes were sloppy, players weren't chasing down loose balls. It's why I predicted we'd throw it away 10 minutes before we threw it away.
 
Matt1882 said:
In fairness, we went to the death Vs Sheff United and Liverpool because we needed a equaliser/winner
But even in those games, I felt like when there was a clear opportunity to really attack at pace on the break, we took 3 or 4 passes instead of 1 or 2 allowing the opposition (worst being Liverpools 9) to get back.
It may be that the players were too tired to play at that pace in the last 10-15 minutes, it's something I hadn't really considered until now. If it is the case, we need to look at training or look at pacing ourselves in matches. I thought we looked dead on our feet for the last 20 minutes against Wolves. Passes were sloppy, players weren't chasing down loose balls. It's why I predicted we'd throw it away 10 minutes before we threw it away.
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We've looked knackered at the end of our last few games in my opinion.

We're one of the fittest teams in the league, perhaps even the fittest but incredibly it feels like we need to be fitter.

We've conceded in the last minute in our last three league games. Chelsea can probably be written off due to circumstance but Palace scored late and of course Wolves.

Though in all games we ended the game with our squad players on. Players who clearly aren't up to the level of the starters.

Got to remember we're still only one window and 12 games in. Promising signs are there but still so much room for improvement. It's almost a miracle that we are far ahead of where we should actually be.
 
StripiestPilot said:
But the ball went out of play for a throw, it’s not like we conceded from a counter attack.

The whole team just went to sleep, even if he hoofs it out we still have to defend the restart.
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Yeah that's down to Dier being shit and Kulu not dropping deep enough.

The point I was making was that you said we stopped playing on the front foot, well in that circumstance we tried to play instead of hoofing it clear.
 
1882 said:
So true...
It irritates the fuck out of me, but how often do you see Woolwich score, and THEN score again, moments later, to effectively try and kill a game off...

Liverpool did it the other day against Brentford...
Score, then score again, if ONLY to break their resolve...

We've rarely done that this season (away at Burnley maybe?)

But scoring early against both Chelsea and Wolves was an opportunity missed on both occasions....

Easy to say now, but we score twice against Chelsea and the rest of the game probably doesn't play out like it did....

And THEN we'd be going into the Wolves game on a high, and possibly not with as many injuries/suspensions as we brought on ourselves by NOT killing the game off on the Monday!

That Son 2nd goal disallowed against Chelsea was our sliding doors moment last week...

That stands, and we're 5 points clear of the pack going into the International week....

Fine fucking margins!
Click to expand...
I agree. This is why City, Liverpool and the other team from north london are always attacking and scoring goals, no matter what. They don´t score one goal and them keep waiting until the end of the match.
 
Starks said:
We've looked knackered at the end of our last few games in my opinion.

We're one of the fittest teams in the league, perhaps even the fittest but incredibly it feels like we need to be fitter.

We've conceded in the last minute in our last three league games. Chelsea can probably be written off due to circumstance but Palace scored late and of course Wolves.

Though in all games we ended the game with our squad players on. Players who clearly aren't up to the level of the starters.

Got to remember we're still only one window and 12 games in. Promising signs are there but still so much room for improvement. It's almost a miracle that we are far ahead of where we should actually be.
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We have lots of possession have a great creator in Maddison but sadly ,except for Son we have no other regular scorers. Dejan and Ricky are doing little amd Son even blows hot and cold. Johnson could be good but we need a STIKER…… Osimhen?…..if not Vlahovic…..Gimenez or Lautaro Martinez.
 
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