Stated my position on the centre backs in the Who Would You Buy thread.
But there are too many injury prone players at the club full stop, and a mix of our style of play, the schedule in England, and refs allowing our players to get kicked to fuck means we need to have a think.
The selfish smaller clubs voting against the five subs rule hasn’t helped either, but poetic justice will be when England have missing players and a fatigued squad come the summer. Really looking forward to seeing the pain on England supporters faces when the nation yet again achieves fuck all.
For me, Fabinho is one of four midfielders we’d have rotating in midfield during the run in, along with Thiago, Hendo and Gini. The quality of our midfield has gone up a level since Oxlade was one of the key men, Keita is always injured, Jones still has a lot to learn to be able to be used week in week out, and Milner isn’t week in week out nowadays.
Problem is that now we’re left with Fabinho and two young centre backs for central defence.
Up top we suffered badly for Jota’s absence at Fulham and today. He added quality when we weren’t bang on, and secured the points for us against tight defences and we really miss him.
We simply have to upgrade Matip or Gomez to a top quality centre back who can stay fit.
We’ve got what we deserved.
Our defense is getting much stick here on. I think more to blame is our midfield and attacking department.
What comforts me is the hunting pack has also dropped points, bar City
I fear that mentality issue is creeping back in when we play lower placed teams. I still fail to see how we get a wonderful result against Spurs to drop points at home against a struggling opposition. Especially since we scored in the 12th minute.
Don’t see it as a mentality issue, think its more to do with a lack of creativity, today our midfield was rather poor, no urgency, lacked incisive passes and too predictable.
I’ve no issue with a lot of that, and I could not agree more that we are carrying too many players who are too injury prone.
But on Fabinho, I do disagree.
If you look at the set up we faced today, that’s going to be typical for about ten home games a season and a fair few away games.
Today Fabinho spent most of his time patrolling an area of the pitch where you’d expect a Defensive Midfielder to normally be. That’s how deep West Brom sat, and how high we were. So what’s the point of playing Fabinho in midfield? He isn’t going to do much on the edge of the West Brom box, which is where our midfield spent most of their time, unless it’s the one game a season he decides to twat a 25 yarder in.
I get it against the more adventurous teams who do have some intent to play through midfield. But in games like today, even if we’ve got all our players available, I’d have still played Fabinho in defence and got another creative midfielder on the pitch. Naby or Thiago would have made a big difference. We’d have gained little by playing Fab in midfield and having another specialist Centre Back on the pitch.
Not just that it was a very professional performance from WBA from start to finish. I think it might have been another story had we gone 2-0 up however we didn’t and they kept their discipline and nerve as well as a much more attractive performance in the second half.
I think Fat Sam and Sammy Lee know what they are about with the players they have. Still they will be going down at the end of the season.
Maybe our players need to get in the refs face a bit more. Utd probably surround the ref and at least force him to have a look. Fabinho just walked off like it was fine.
Thought the same at the time. The amount of soft fouls the ref gave against us but not blowing for this surprised me until I realised it was Kevin Friend reffing the game.
A more snide character than Fab may well have gone down to emphasise the contact and the impact it had on him jumping but some players are too nice for their own good.
I’m over it, and feeling upbeat. The result stands and all we can do is look ahead. I’m not super-fanning, just putting it in its proper place. We had chances and just didn’t take them. They kept it close and nicked a scruffy, scrappy goal. It happens to literally every side at some point. They even managed to do the same thing to take points off City. Fair play to them. Sam Allardyce was hired for a specific reason to do specifically this, and it happened to us.
In a way its a silver lining that Curtis struggled throughout and made some really bad mistakes because IMO thats part of what helps players grow and evolve. He will be better from this. I thought The Boss waited a little long to pull him, however. And I’m not looking to stir up trouble but the one thing I will disagree with from the match thread was the critique of Bobby. I thought Bobby played a really strong game and I don’t at all get the critique. There was at least 7 times (that I counted) he was making runs in between their defenders and our midfield wouldn’t pull the trigger or someone sailed the ball over his head. I thought Bobby was one of our better players all match. (JMO) Mo on the other hand was a little troubling. Not a critique, more an observation but he didn’t seem particularly interested. Very little guile or work rate.
I would expect our boys to bounce back strong against Newcastle. And it’s nice it’s in 3 days time.
Have you seen how easy the Spurs players go to ground? Even Martin Tyler was on the verge of accusing Kane of diving tonight, but couldn’t quite say it. Fabinho probably should’ve hit the deck but he didn’t and so the decision went against us.
The goal was entirely the fault of Curtis Jones, if he sends the ball down the line, they don’t get the resulting corner and don’t score.
Only threat down the flanks came from Robbo. 3 or 4 times in the first half he got behind them but even those crosses have become predictable. It’s always flashed across the 6 yard box, the first one last night was great but Salah was too slow to react.
I’d like to see him cut a couple back to that area between the penalty spot and 18 yard line and have Hendo, Gini or whoever get on the end of them.
But we signed Thiago, who was supposed to take over from Fab as the best DM in the league, giving us plenty of options. No one could have accounted for that cunt Richarlison almost breaking his leg. Or our 2 first choice CB’s being out for the season. We’ve handled it exceptionally up until now though. Still top of the league, CL group etc…
So fucking frustrating. Brighton, Fulham, West Brom. The team is being complacent against “lesser” teams. Can’t believe 6-4-0 Allardyce tactics worked against THIS team. Embarrassing.
