Clearly, the midweek game took a toll. Apart from the usual problem areas that was a slow, laboured performance by a team that didn’t look like it had much in the tank. Hopefully, these early struggles will go away once fitness levels improve, but until then Iraola needs to be braver. Gravenberch can’t be getting 60 minutes when he’s so poor, and neither should Wirtz. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world to see Nyoni and even Koumas, especially since the team was crying for some fresh legs and energy.
Another accomplished performance by Jacquet, probably the best from the first XI. Also liked Isak’s overall game, despite the fact that he was starved for service. On the other hand, Gravenberch was unplayable, and not in a good way. Tsimikas was also very, very poor. Wirtz looked tired to me, but he still ought to have done better. Szoboszlai was the worst player in the first half but improved considerably in the second.
All in all, not good enough and whereas in the first couple of games we came back to rescue a point, this one feels like 2 points dropped. 3 draws in 4 games aren’t going to cut it.
Jacquet and Araujo cleaning up the mess by our midfield pivot. More on that later.
Munoz looks lively.
Frimpong looks decent in his cameo…
Macca looks like the player we had in Klopp’s last season.
Concerning :
Wirtz still looks poor physically in this team and league. When he comes in deep, he is useless.
Isak looks very starved of service until the last 10 minutes of the game. Needs to make more runs behind the last defender instead of trying to get the ball to feet all the time.
Gakpo looks not very comfortable at RW
Subs were 10 minutes too late. Iraola needs to be braver!
Barcola needs to take more shots when our CF is heavily marked.
Tsimikas very very rusty…Will need more time to get up to speed.
Downright bad :
Szoboszlai. Wasn’t doing much offensively or defensively. His inability to pass at the right time, inability to make switches quickly is dragging the whole team down.The number of duels he won today must be in the single digits. His set pieces today were very poor today. His long shots are non-existent. The only time he had some effect on the game was at the right, getting crosses in and that’s it.
His recovery speed today was poor as well. Needed to get hooked but there were folks worse than him.
Gravenberch. Winning slightly more duels than Szobo in the first half is the only thing he has over his midfield partner today. The rest was fucking shit. The position he took in the match was a cowardly one where it was so bad that he wasn’t a passing option for a lot of times from the CBs.
His passes were terrible. He couldn’t do long switches, he couldn’t even get the short ones right. His challenges on the ball were pathetic both on the ground and air. A shorter Macca was way way more useful challenging for the ball than Gravenberch today and it showed.
The arrival of a more defensively focused CM/DM would definitely spell the end for Gravenberch’s career with us. Hopefully, our new SD is a master salesman who can spin gold out of straw.
The thing I found frustrating today was that we fell into last season mode. The way we started basically neutered our front 4. We gained “control” and after that we built slowly and the opposition were basically thankful we did do. Sometimes I think we set up, like last season, to get to their third and trust for the magic to happen - it is lazy. Teams realise this and back themselves to not get broken down. We get to their third, the game becomes compressed and busyness of the last third, simply in bodies, makes it almost impossible for our group to get the job done…
We have to have a bit more guile and we simply haven’t the midfield or the tactics (so far) for that.
Everyone seems to have a bogie player or two and mine right now are Dom and VVD. They are trying to “lead” but always end up slowing the game down and we are into 10 min of “control”.
Anyway, we did not loose, did not conceed and are unbeaten…
disappointing with the way our lads played. Tsimikas committed too many fouls playing the man, rather than the ball. Defo, need reinforcements as we seem to have many light-footed players. Only positive from the game was keeping a clean sheet
I’m not sure what to make of Flo. He was very prominent lots of running and closing down but not necessarily tackling. Either his passes are just a bit off or his teammates are a bit too slow to the spot, or sometimes he does take a bit too long to release the ball
Szobo and Grav had a couple of mares. Grav’s turning trick was largely nullified by tripling down on him at times and Fulham were confident they’d win the ball because he really can’t pass out of pressure.
As @Notasuperfan said, Szobo can’t pass out of central midfield. He has the ability but neither the vision nor timing nor does he make the correct passing choices.
Both of them were constantly out of position and it’s thanks to Jacquet and Araujo and Ali that we didn’t concede
Macca’s passing ability from a CM position stuck out like a sore thumb. In our current squad, he has to start as many games as possible.
Another observation I saw is that once Macca comes on, Szobo starts to make more switches and push the ball forward in the only way he knows with the comfort in the knowledge that he has Macca to clean up after him.
With Gravenberch as his partner, Szobo looks terrified to even make a switch to the other side of the pitch.
On Wirtz I know what you mean. He´s not necessarily slow at running but his speed of play seems slow. Passes underhit or a bit too long to release as you said. He needs to be sharp and fluid.
I remember the period Klopp started with. Consider it. It’s a work in progress.
I think a lot of you have lost the sense of support, as most of the analysis is just nick picking. Macallister back next game and when he doesn’t play well, drop him and bring Grav back and repeat.
Doesn’t seem to be from most of the posts here, plenty of daft statements about how poor we are. We aren’t. We’ve shown that. It’s about getting it back to week in week out.