Both issues are in play. We’ve scored goals overall, but we’ve been helped with a very soft Europa campaign - I think 17 goals in the group stage against barely championship level sides and another 11 in the first KO round against a side of a quality we just wouldn’t see in a CL campaign. You see the odd game in the league where we’ve run up a number, or were forced to to bail out a leaky defense, but in lots of games where we dropped points the defining characteristic of the performance would be profligacy in front of goal. Luton, both Utd games, City and Arsenal were all games where we spurned either a collection of good chances or had one catastrophically bad miss. I’d argue the first Utd game was the only one of those you can put down to 1 of those days with the other 8 points being pissed away with a series of terrible finishing and decision making that you should not be seeing more than 1 time per season, let alone multiple times in the same game.
We’ve seen several times defensive sloppiness reopen a game we thought was already won, so maybe this effect is less important than it seems, but you also have to ask how much of our defensive jitteriness can be put down to growing anxiety of pissing away so many chances to put a game to bed. Sure, a good team shouldnt get rattled in that way, but a good team shouldnt be passing up so many chances either.
Its not a problem with creativity it is actually putting those good chances away which is an issue when you look at our goals scored compared to our XG, which we are underperforming massively compared to the 2 above us
Totally agree, we all get upset at easy chances missed but it is compounded because we know we have been particularly lax defensively and always look like conceeding.
Weird how our best defensive displays have come when we have been down to 9 or 10 men.
Assuming that Salah goes. And one of Diaz / Nunez.
We’ll be needing to get some pace down the wings.
Danns and Koumas should be getting some game time too even if they aren’t regular starters.
I’ll be looking at something like this. I’m assuming that Diaz goes along with Salah and not Nunez. And possible positions too , someone like Nunez can play in RW and CF.
LW
Jota
Gakpo
Koumas
CF
Danns
Jota
Nunez
RW
Doak
Nunez
Clearly need a Salah replacement and a replacement for Diaz if he does end up leaving.
But that said we do have one proven goalscorer in Jota even if he’s injury prone. A talented , hardworking player in Gakpo who’ll only improve with age and experience.
Then Nunez who if he performs anywhere close his xG tally would be a 25 goal a season striker.
Chances for the likes of Danns, Doak and Koumas to further press their claims to the first team squad come preseason.
