Teams have been doing that from before this season, its nothing new. The team failing to defend correctly is. That’s not all on Mo.
One of Mo’s points was that the team’s issues were pretty similar with or without him in the team. The last match looked better partly because we packed more midfielders into the team. It remains to be seen if it is a winning formula, or whether it can be adapted to allow Mo a role in the side. It does suggest that we are probably getting only 2-3 of Mo, Gakpo, Isak, Ekitike and Wirz into any given starting line up, if that’s our game plan going forwards.
Yes, why would you let a few kids play together with some squad players to get some match experience? They’re probably really happy that he said that publicly.
The performance of the team has been dropping since January. In my opinion it was TAA and Salah that pulled us over the line. Their exploits and effort to win us points was incredible.
To say Salah hasn’t been performing for a year is nonsense. He really wanted it last season and putting all our woes on Salah is revisionist nonsense.
Our fall off is disappointing however we have been discussing this. That Salah went public over grievances he has, disappointing all of us doesn’t mean we should try and demean what he has done and achieved for the club. It’s dishonest!
I really doubt that’s how Salah is thinking. I mean, we can all speculate on how anyone else thinks but that is frankly ridiculous.
Salah just might be thinking that he can contribute to the team, that he still has something else in the tank. He might feel that he is the scapegoat for poor performances. He might look at Cody and wonder how he is still being selected.
I normally respect your arguments, but I find this disingenuous to one of our best players. In fact, there is a pile of negative stuff about Salah that is out if order. Not you, but in general. He fucked up with his tantrum. But he is human and mistakes are made.
Maybe that is what happened and why he’s upset (and not just because he was benched, because he wasn’t really performing atm). But then personally I’d also have a few questions if the club had done transfers with the sole focus of playing to the strengths and weaknesses of one 33 yr old player. He’s a legend, but that wouldn’t really feel like a future proof plan either.
Salah is getting the blame, but we saw an entire team drop off.
Loses to Fulham, Newcastle, Chelsea, Brighton. Draws to Arsenal and Palace. We had the league wrapped up by March. That coincides when Slot started to experiment with the squad, and formations. (see games against Chelsea and Arsenal as examples of us experimenting)
Salah has been “underperforming” the same length of time the entire team has been.
I agree, but there are different ways to transition. As a club we have done too much too soon. In an alternative scenario, we could have had a front three, the same as last year. Only changing Darwin out. With the number 9 either being the tip of the front three with Ekitike, or inverted with Writz. Then manage Salahs time bedding in Ngumoha/using Chiesa.
Perhaps he should have said nothing publicly about it at all, then there would be nothing to “interpret”. And I certainly hope that all the other players, apart from these 13 fit senior players, aren’t giving it any thought either.
Overly simplistic. The entire attacking structure isn’t working. It’s not like we’re feeding Salah chance after chance and he’s squandering them à la Nunez. Other than Dom pretty much the whole team has been more or less suspect in their performances. Some significantly worse than others.
It’s more the defensive structure that has been letting us down since pre-season, in different defensive phases. From pressing, to defensive transition, to set-pieces. Attacking wise (even if it’s not all working well, part of it is all connected), we still create a fair amount. But we can’t leak like we’ve been, it’s just not sustainable.
When he spoke about it in the press conference he said “happy” in terms of it being a relief to have fewer games to worry about. He said it was never good to lose games and he did point out that he gave time to the other players in the last League Cup game against Crystal Palace.
He didn’t mention the FA Cup at this point, but it is likely that he will utilise the squad or that.
Much of this discussion has spoken of Salah’s form being purely down to his own shortcomings, and something Slot has just had to deal with rather than having any control over himself.
Only one of our forwards has played at an acceptable level this season, and Slot has dropped him at times too!
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