Leak goals one is a penalty.
I agree that we need to tighten up defensively, but I would also caution against reading too much into this. It is a pre season game, Virgil was probably still a bit ill, and the whole team went down a few gears in the season half - because the result doesn’t matter and we play on Friday.
Do you think Fofana can help bridge the gap in our wide areas? Salah and Gakpo aside, we only have Rio, since Slot just isn’t using Chiesa. I’m cautious of having Rio essentially take up Diaz’s minutes, and be the back-up winger. An injury to Gakpo, and we’re left with Rio. A decent option to bridge the gap will be helpful.
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Right now, the bench isn’t strong enough. I don’t think it will stay like that. Either we are getting non public messages from NCU that Isak is available or we are working on a permanent or loan deal in the background.
I think we’d all be very surprised if we went into the season with Ngumoha as first forward change.
Crystal palace could have had another pen too and possibly scored another couple on top. We were far too open and Graven-performative-birth will be needed for Newcastle onwards.
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Cause his wife gave birth and he had to spend time with her and miss our last preseason friendly Like WTF, totally woke man.
We should have had another 3 possibly 4. As Slot said numerous times last year its you will give up chances its how you deal with them.
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I don’t want to pick on Slot after his unexpected exploits last season, but the dismissive way he treats certain players who are still a part of this squad gets on my nerves too. That can’t be good for team-spirit in the medium and long term.
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We missed a few chances, Ekitike 2 Mo 1 and Wirtz 1. The bench was the worry with a couple of kids he didn’t want to use and Chiesa who is never fit.
I’m looking forward to our relegation battle after reading this thread.
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I know I put a tenner on us to go down with lowest points tally ever.
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Unless I am forgetting someone we are only missing 3 players (Bradley, Gomez and Gravenberch) yet resorted to placing 3 players on the bench there probably isn’t much of an expectation for their collective contribution (one likely to leave before the window ends) and 2 senior players who are both expected to leave.
For the amount of business we’ve done we’re looking a little short with less than a week before our first real game and I’m surprised, even a little confused on how we’ve gone about the summer even if individually I like every deal we’ve done and am excited about the new guys. And the worst part of that is I have now become what I mock fans of other clubs for behaving like “if we just add a LB, a RB, a CB, a DM, a 10, a striker and maybe a RW we’ll be able to challenge for the title this year.” Im sure Hughes has this under control, but it’s very hazy looking from the outside right now.
I didn’t get to watch the game but I gather it was a bitty performance and one that got worse as the game went on. I think important context is we are still probably a week behind where we’d planned to be as a result of the Jota situation. The top teams are very really fully cooked by the Charity Shield these days and often still arent quite there by opening day. We seem to maybe be another half a week away from even that trajectory which is pretty understandable.
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Its the sales of Diaz and Nunez which make no sense at the minute topped with Jota. The Nunez sale was always the most likely but to let him and Diaz leave without one arrival is bordering on stupid if not reckless.
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And this is why the working class have left the Dem party
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But enough about the game, have we signed anyone since?
We’ve signed Hugo that’s pretty much a straight swap for Nunez. With the addition of Wirtz I’m not sure that we are particularly down regarding his departure. Diaz I’ll give you, saying that the fact our 3rd choice CB is a guy you might get 2 months from and our 4th is emergency break glass. I’m more concerned there.
Yeah but 3 have gone out 1 in. It was clear yesterday Slot had no other option for through the middle or to spell Gakpo.
You can look at individual roles, but on a broader sense unless something drastic happens with Harvey and/or Chiesa we had a bench with just 2 players expected to be challenging to start a significant number of games (not counting Endo as he seems appreciated if only viewed as a situational option). Even with the most positive outlooks for the 3 guys who missed out, that is still only 5. You can cover some gaps with multi functional players, but your ability to do that is limited when you’re starting with so few players.
Maybe the situation with Harvry and/or Chiesa is different than it seems from the outside. Maybe Slot has a lot more of an expectation for Trey and/or Rio than we’re imagining. It’s really difficult to see enough of those situations being the case to leave us anything better than 2 players short at the moment.
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Im going to keep saying this till the number situation improves the sale of Diaz made no sense what so ever. Him im the squad yesterday makes all the difference he either started on the left and goes central or he comes on through the middle. If he had been a bit part left winger fair enough but he wasn’t.
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