I didn’t vote, as I’m still undecided. During the first half yesterday, I’d have voted Slot out. But eventually, we did just enough to get the win at a difficult ground for us.
At the end of the day, fsg will have set a minimal achievement for this season (which probably is CL qualification, they can’t ask for much more given the upheaval Jota’s death brought upon the squad).
If Slot can achieve that minimal target and keep most players behind him, he’ll stay put.
I think it’s fair to say that the team was clearly an absolute shambles in the first half on Saturday. Whatever Slot did to get them ready in the run up didn’t work.
But it’s also fair to say that he had a really good half time. We were much improved in the second 45 and arguably should have won by two or three at the end - the chances for Jones and Ekitike were really high value and should have been scored.
That first half cannot happen again. I’ll put down to rustiness from not playing for a week (people automatically assume that a team coming off a rest will also be better, but benefits are more usually felt down the line. We always look better in a two game a week rhythm)
We were crap at the start of the second half and this continued for most of it. I didn’t see any improvement and couldn’t believe he waited until 75mins to make changes. In fairness we kept going at the end and the subs did make an impact
That’s not strictly true. We did improve in terms of possession (See the BBC momentum chart linked). However, we only started to get the ball into dangerous positions after the subs.
Yeah the change in possession was apparent immediately from the second hlaf kick off, but we didnt do much more with it. And I think it’s an open question on how much of that was us earning the increase in possession vs them letting us have a bit more time on the ball
Also, Anderson coming off after fatigue set in. We scored 0 goals against Forest while he was on the pitch in both games. It’s incredible how our midfield and attack look like boys playing against men whenever the opposition starts posing a physical threat like Anderson and Sangare did yesterday.
That said, I don’t know what’s going on with the first half of the games this season. Off the top of my head, Crystal Palace, Newcastle at home, Forest yesterday - it’s like the lads are competing in how to play as badly as possible within the first 45 minutes.
I find that mutually exclusive. That being said, I do think he knows football, he just doesn’t know how to fix us or has the stubbornness of Amorim.
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Must learn to read what the polls are about before responding to other’s posts!
Sure however you can not sack an entire squad.
Also the manager always shares the blame. He is responsible for squad cohesion, will and anything else really.
The thing is we seem the same each match now. Poor to terrible 1st half. Holding on. Which is the opposite to what we were doing at the beginning of the season when we ran and ran for nothing. Now we do nothing and get nowhere.
2nd half there’s some half time adjustments that get us level pegging. Our superior ability sometimes pulling us over the line.
It’s like we do no coaching during the week. Wait for half time, holding on to our squeaky bums, make some coaching decisions and hope that’s enough.
Our squad is good enough to go into most EPL games with a clear plan to dominate. What we’re doing is to try and conserve ourselves for the second half (and I feel the numbers are showing this).