Konate Salah MacAllister Bradley and Wirtz to some level had shocker of the game. Isak as well but can cut some slack for him as this is still his preseason. I don’t think Kerkez and Grav played badly overall except the two goals that can be to some level be put on them. But those two weren’t the only at fault for those goals. We just couldn’t defend.. neither in open play nor set pieces. We just have lot of other managers a game to analyze how to carve us open so easily.
I think Slot got the second set of subs wrong. How many times did Szoboslai kept changing his position. When he went to RB was the best spell we had. Salah should have been off but we know he can always be a threat and so never gets subbed. I was fuming at Frimpong. He was playing exactly as bad as lot of players before.
A game to forget for us as fans but hope the players do not. Really wanted to give Palace a thrashing after the Guehi Glasner saga but instead they had it going there at again and their decision to keep hold of him seemed good for them.
I had a shite stream and stopped watching after 50-55 minutes or so. There was no sign of improvement at that point, and it seems that not much changed after that. Oh well, we weren’t going to go throughout the season without experiencing hiccups along the way. Let’s hope that Slot and his lads will take the lesson on board, and move on.
Edit: Chiesa scores again. How about trusting him to start a game? He at least puts his heart out on the pitch when he’s out there, unlike others.
Re-edit: we’re losing our ability to defend on set pieces. It’s a concerning trend.
He won’t bring Salah off, not when there is a need to score a goal.
But he is going to have to at some point. Mo was fucking awful today, and he did more harm than good. I don’t think Henderson is getting to the Szoboszai shot that he swings a foot at, and that VAR was tight.
I agree with you about Szoboszlai - he should have been left at Right back and Frimpong should have come on for Salah.
KICK UP THE ARSE time…start scoring in the 1st half…and 2 or 3 up to 70mins…then put up the defences…and low nothing thru…stop relying on last minute gasp goals…
Very interested to see how our numbers are when Salah is at AFCON. Look, you always feel he’s a threat but it isn’t the first time he’s shanked a cross into the crowd, been easily bullied off the ball or duffed a pass back and got it wrong this season.
Today’s performance was fucking woeful but nobody should be surprised. We have been fucking shite since February bar the odd decent half.
We’ve got away with it through pieces of individual brilliance or Ali bailing us out.
There is zero cohesion to our play. The defence is all over the place, the midfield can’t control games and the attack is a group of individuals doing their own thing.
The new full-backs have been dogshit and the less said about Wirtz the better.
AS has his work cut out trying to mould this lot into a football team before it’s too late, scabbing last minute winners wont last forever.
We are not Leverkusen and we should not be playing like them. Wirtz is a AM in our system, shafting him to the left wing is damaging for us in two ways. He always drifts to the middle,leaving Kerkez up against two men and prevents Kerkez from giving us proper width. When Gakpo came on, we suddenly had width with Kerkez crossing into the box and that stretched Palace. Start anyone but Wirtz on the LW and we are winning that. Time to trash that stupid experiment into the bin. It is as bloody daft as having TAA being a CM back then with us.
Bradley. Bradley has unfortunately had a terrible game with us. Not a starter tbh at our level but a great impact sub. Should have started Frimpong or Szobo at RB and get subbed with Bradley. Their “corner” and subsequent goal came from him failing to shepherd the opposition FB or winger wider.
Macca. Macca looks out of sorts all day. His intensity is all gone. Passing is off as well. Needs to have a proper conditioning before he comes back to us.
Konate. Fucking nightmare of a game. Within a span of 3 minutes, he fucked up twice. One by not marking Ismaila Sarr for the goal, two by giving the ball away, leading to a dangerous chance.
The sub for Konate and Macca is baffling as fuck. You need fucking energy and the ability to beat the opposition press at the centre of the pitch to prevent their breakaway. And Slot puts on a Jones-Szobo axis over there rather than a Szobo- Gravenberch or an Endo-Szobo axis?No fucking wonder, we get overrun all the fucking time after being out of position and concede that stupid throw in.
Salah. Whoever that brokered that idea of Salah being wider than usual to accomodate the inverting FB ought to be slapped a couple of times. Salah is fucking dangerous in and around the fucking box which led to his revival last season. Inverting an RB who cannot cross or finish to save his fucking life and make salah so wide is a capital offence. We have a full-back who is more than willing to go wide, why not use him?!
Szoboslai is one player that has played excellently every single game and both at RB and midfield. Alongside Grav and Alisson. Chiesa has also proven he deserves a start now. We’ll see. This actually could be Slot’s real test just like after Forest to get back to winning ways and comfortably with some good performances. Think he will get it rectified surely though.
Mo hasn’t done a tap so far this season. He hasn’t looked dangerous or put any opposition player to the kosh. If he’s not doing either of those things then we’ve been carrying him. Carrying a player is barely a step up from being a man down. He should be taken out and given a bit of a break allowing us to play with all players contributing to the game.
He’s our very own Ronaldo, banging the odd penalty in, couple of assists and the very odd flash of what made him great.
And like Ronaldo he looks undroppable.
I would say he is used wrongly. Last season, he was phenomenal. Looking at his heat map last season and this season, you will see something very different. Last season, he was much much narrower, in and around the box with an overlapping runner. This season, he seems to be playing like Klopp’s final season with us to accomodate an inverted FB in Bradley…
