Oh no…
“They weren’t boos. It was the away fans praising their side saying boournley”
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Fell asleep midway through the first, had a reasonably competitive chess battle on Chess.com throughout the second. I can count on the fingers of both hands the amount of games missed in the past decade. To show how disengaged I was, I can remember the goals and not much else.
Bournemouth next, someone said? If you’d told me it’s Oxford United I would have taken a look, shrugged and carried on. Reaching record levels of apathy now in my own personal journey of following the Club for over three decades.
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Slot, good enough to detect the problem of low blocks, just not good enough to actually solve the problem. We have the players to do it.
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At some point, it’s down to the players. Especially if we have them.
Many games this season where I had an issue with some of our decisions, but today the performance was largely there for us to get a ‘normal’ win by a couple of goals and go home.
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There seems to be a sense of inevitability with the direction this is headed, especially with Alonso now available.
I don’t envy Slot. There’s a dead man walking aspect to it all.
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Just listening to Redmen TV and agree with what ‘Ste’ said in that he can understand, whether he agrees or not with people wanting Slot out.
In the end the results aren’t good enough, although unlike most I enjoyed our 1st half today we looked cohesive had a plan and we created.
There is a but and that is he just doesn’t seem to be able to get 90 minutes out of the team and we let poor teams back in to games.
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Question is, if we went for Xabi, does the style change much?
What may change is better organisation and more belief.
I’d love to know what Flo and Frimmy think in relation to what they thick of Xabi compared to Arne.
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There’s another question that is just as important, which is whether Alonso would want the job in the first place. Not just him, any coach worth his salt would probably pause for a minute to think whether he can get a side this unbalanced playing well quickly enough to secure CL football next season.
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When you say “a side this unbalanced” what do you mean. I’ve seen a lot more scrutiny on the job we did in the summer as the weeks of this poor run have gone on but I’m not quite seeing it as starkly as others.
Not replacing Diaz and expecting Ngumoha to step up was a concern I had and one I think we can all see now was too lofty an expectation on the kid. I’d have also been really happy with the Guehi deal but still felt we had four centre backs for the season.
For me, there are holes in the squad that have been exposed this season but injuries and a relatively poor academy group have hampered us (how do we not have anything resembling an option for CB or striker coming through the ranks?) more than the balance of what we have.
I can’t get past the team being weaker than the sum of its parts. Top keeper, international level centre backs, four quality full backs, a title winning midfield group that we added one of the best young players in the world to and quality all across the frontline. But one or two aside everyone is playing below their level and collectively they look shambolic at times, irrespective of who is in the team.
So what’s the imbalance do you think that would make a top manager pause instead of looking at that group and believing they could get more from them? And if there is an imbalance is that on Slot, Hughes or both?
And just for clarity, because this is the internet after all and emotions are high right now, this is genuine curiosity from one poster to another. I really don’t want it to be but I’m beginning to find it hard to think it’s anything more than a manager failing to get a tune out of a very expensively assembled squad of quality footballers who are nearly all under performing and have been for some time now.
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The areas for me is a great ball playing CB and a defensive minded CM, in the mould Endo but better in mobility and on the ball
But we have the same CB group as last season, minus Quansah who didn’t really play much, and Gravenberch who was PL young player of the year last season.
Have teams changed their way of playing us so much in 12 months that these options are now critical to the team performing better than it is? Isn’t Virgil a ball playing CB and wasn’t Gravenberch recently talking in an interview about being given more freedom?
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The decision in the summer to reduce the attacking numbers by 1 in the sale of Diaz was negligence on its own. But then to top it off have Rio far too young and Chiesa as the options is a sacking offence for Slot and Hughes.
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Yup every time I look at our team sheet I go yes, that can do it and as the weeks have dragged on I’ve thought why isn’t it.
There are alarming issues such as CB which could be an issue however if the club was to remove Slot tomorrow I would assume that issue might be looked at.
Evidently they’ve spotted a massive CB issue in relation to the youth set up, bringing three lads in
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Virgil is better at the long switches than playing through on the floor and we have a vulnerability in midfield especially with Macca being off form.
I did think Quansah was good on the ball but lost confidence with a few errors.
I would like to see us go with a double pivot in midfield, just to control the centre of the pitch more.
Its a 19 point swing with Arsenal in 17 games.
If we expected Ngumoha to step up, I bet it was nowhere near to replace Diaz.
I don’t think we can really expect Ngumoha to step up, if he’s part of the first team, training with them regularly… it’s up to him to prove he can step up and push people out of the way. Still very young of course.
I’m actually alright if we judged we can go with Ngumoha as our 6th forward, but the way our summer went with uncertainty right until the end, there we were with also Chiesa at the 5th.
Let’s not forget that last season our best attack was Salah, Gakpo and Diaz. Diaz played up top and also on the left.
I’d say the club hoped Gakpo would turn a pretty good last season (not the whole of it, because he started the season behind Diaz on the left) into at least maintaining that and kicking onto a new and more consistent level. They agreed a new 5-year deal.
So Gakpo was in fact the first replacement for Diaz on the left and one or two (question for the club, this) strikers should’ve been an upgrade on everything we had in that position last season.
It’s absolutely possible that Gakpo took it a bit lightly, Diaz leaving, Ngumoha one of the alternatives for his position and getting a brand new contract. I find Cody as someone who needs to be provoked and challenged in order to bring the best out of him.
There are other players also, for me it was clear from the start that Wirtz isn’t necessarily only a central #10 player, but can play off the sides coming inside. Some journalists spoke about Ekitike off the left and Slot mentioned it as a possibility, but we’ve seen very little of it.
I mean, if we use general terms like top players, international level, quality, title winning, best young players in the world, quality all across, very expensively assembled squad of quality footballers… yeah, some of it is true.
But what are we saying with it? It’s not the full story.
Would it be the first time that a club with a squad of top, international, quality, title winning experience, coupled with some of the best young players in the world, full of quality, very expensive turned out to be, yes exactly, not balanced enough?
Absolutely not. We’ve seen it many times.
I’d say we do have a pretty good 22, but I’m yet to see what’s our idea for the 11 regularly enough.
There are different, good and less good ways to build a good 22 and 11. It’s possible that last summer everything we threw on a pile (not just new players, but keeping some of our current ones) turned out to be too much. At least for this season.
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Just got a text from my mate that a Wilson Cox LFC on Twitter/X has posted that Slot was called into a meeting this evening that had gone on for a while, and following it is an all FSG meeting including Michael Edwards. Also, that Xabi Alonso has said that he would be happy to take the job.
No verification, but same source that I get my lineups from.
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