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carl_feedthegoat wrote:

stupot wrote:Kova was a liability yesterday- losing the ball for fun

I never said he wasn't , my gripe is subbing him off for Phillips was fuckign stupid......leaving an 80 million pound defender on the bench instead.

Genius move !

mr_nool wrote:

Beefymcfc wrote:

Blue Jam wrote:My perspective: we were beginning to fade (due to fatigue) towards the end of last season.
FA Cup and CL were good results but jot classic performances.
And were trying to settle in new players, dealing with injuries...
Sure, some could've played better.
4 league titles on the trot is asking a lot.

A lot of sense there and it’s been a really difficult few years where the team have stepped up. But thinking that we’re done after one game is a bit premature. So many star players missing will always take its toll but I expect them to dig in once again and be fighting for the title.

If we had won today, it would've been our best start to a league campaign since the 19th century, so not all too shabby. We do look leggy, but we have a lot of senior players out, so I expect things to get better when Pep can rotate more without a big drop in quality.

Philips is obviously not the answer, but he's also being used as some general scape goat. Kova lost the ball countless of times in very dangerous positions today and contributed very little going forward. Nunes didn't set the world on fire either. Philips didn't grab the game by the scruff of the neck when he came on, but he didn't do worse than those two (and please watch the second goal from several angles, if you want to blame him for it). I also remember a decent cross that actually found Haaland (one of the few today), so he wasn't totally useless.

For me Ake's lack of pace was a huge problem today. If he's at left back, Akanji (who is rapid) really needs to help cover him at counters.

Up front we were way to static and Erling basically became a waste of space since he was marked too hard, and since we didn't have enough movement to create spaces for him. Maybe this was a game for a false nine approach, but honestly, we lack players to pull that off right now (Pep isn't gonna bench Haaland for Bobb).

mr_nool wrote:

Beefymcfc wrote:

Blue Jam wrote:My perspective: we were beginning to fade (due to fatigue) towards the end of last season.
FA Cup and CL were good results but jot classic performances.
And were trying to settle in new players, dealing with injuries...
Sure, some could've played better.
4 league titles on the trot is asking a lot.

A lot of sense there and it’s been a really difficult few years where the team have stepped up. But thinking that we’re done after one game is a bit premature. So many star players missing will always take its toll but I expect them to dig in once again and be fighting for the title.

If we had won today, it would've been our best start to a league campaign since the 19th century, so not all too shabby. We do look leggy, but we have a lot of senior players out, so I expect things to get better when Pep can rotate more without a big drop in quality.

Philips is obviously not the answer, but he's also being used as some general scape goat. Kova lost the ball countless of times in very dangerous positions today and contributed very little going forward. Nunes didn't set the world on fire either. Philips didn't grab the game by the scruff of the neck when he came on, but he didn't do worse than those two (and please watch the second goal from several angles, if you want to blame him for it). I also remember a decent cross that actually found Haaland (one of the few today), so he wasn't totally useless.

For me Ake's lack of pace was a huge problem today. If he's at left back, Akanji (who is rapid) really needs to help cover him at counters.

Up front we were way to static and Erling basically became a waste of space since he was marked too hard, and since we didn't have enough movement to create spaces for him. Maybe this was a game for a false nine approach, but honestly, we lack players to pull that off right now (Pep isn't gonna bench Haaland for Bobb).

blues2win wrote:We knew Neto was quick before the match! If Ake was going to play LB he needed Grealish playing ahead of him to give defensive cover. Also Grealish retains the ball better than Doku. Really though Gvardiol should have started there or at least been brought on at half time. I get the impression that Kovacic was instructed to thread balls through to Haaland but it didn’t work and simply resulted in losing the ball. Nunes was actually OK in my view. A bit unlucky to be taken off.

carl_feedthegoat wrote:

blues2win wrote:We knew Neto was quick before the match! If Ake was going to play LB he needed Grealish playing ahead of him to give defensive cover. Also Grealish retains the ball better than Doku. Really though Gvardiol should have started there or at least been brought on at half time. I get the impression that Kovacic was instructed to thread balls through to Haaland but it didn’t work and simply resulted in losing the ball. Nunes was actually OK in my view. A bit unlucky to be taken off.

Grealish was abysmal , same as the other day when he came on - and in any case , it wasn't a game where we needed to keep possession , we needed to move the ball quickly and we were shit at it.
If we are going to slate Foden off then Grealish certainly deserves a worse slagging off as he was just as bad.

To be honest ,the whole fucking set up was shit and Ill blame PeP for this...still fuming about his shit sub that he made , why the fuck he never brought on our 80 million pound new fuckign defender , Ill never understand.

Beefymcfc wrote:Shit Happens