Poor game so far. Many errors on both sides, not many passes stringed together, no side manages to really dominate the other one.
Nonetheless, Chelsea look the better team so far and we are slightly lucky to still be at eyes height with them (excellent save from Allisson on at least one occasion). Towards the end of the half though, we have looked slightly better, so hopefully our lads can build on it. But we are terribly harmless upfront. Our three forwards haven’t really kicked on so far.
Bottom-line, one can easily understand why both teams are currently in a mid-table position.
We’re playing with a smaller team today. so struggling at defending set pieces.
Due to this, Gakpo has important defensive responsibility at corners and free kicks. He is not doing much helping out by heading out and attacking wise.
As each match passes it becomes clearer and clearer to me that THAT team…the one we all fell in love with…was a great deal more than the sum of its parts.
It just had that chemistry of those players together doing insane things that the vast majority of teams simply could not handle.
Age, loss of passion, fatigue…whatever is behind the decline, thank God we have a manager that has been able to concoct that magic formula on more than one occasion, at Dortmund and Liverpool.
Ball comes off what looks like Cucurella for a corner, a goal kick is given, and Gakpo who knows what has happened just submissively runs away with just a microshrug which is hard to see.
He needs to get more involved in all aspects of the game to make things happen.
Let’s hope he comes out transforned int he second half.
