Definitely has it in his locker but seems to panic too much at times which results in his more aimless hoofs. Hopefully if he plays much next season he'll either not need to go as direct or have more time to play his long balls.
Well hopefully that might mean that he will have more time on the ball in the Chump then and therefore he should be more than adequate for the team this season.
Yes - and we had someone to control it, cross well and find some one running into the area to finish the move off . A very rare event !
He looks like he's running through treacle at the best of times, but he's getting utterly humiliated by Haaland. Good thing he hopefully won't be playing for us much more and if he does it won't be against someone of his calibre.
The bad news is we inexplicably gave him a 4 year deal in the summer of 2019 so while he won't be playing he'll be able to suckle the teat until 2023.
Yeah but think about all the loan fees we can earn from the league 1&2 teams over next 3 years. Big profits.....
Shocking performance from every Northern Ireland player. Granted Haaland is world class but Cathcart really struggled, particularly for pace. As things stand our defence is still a huge weak point. Any pace and Kabasele, Dawson and Cathcart will be badly exposed.
Yup watched the game tonight and he was shocking in a three. But tbh Northern Ireland made Norway look good. Haaland and Sorloth run the back three ragged. As @lowerrous said he looked terribly slow and way of the pace of the game. He even managed to get in a fight with the post second half. A bad night all round and it's not looking promising for him.
I think he may have reached the point where he's rapidly declining as a player. He's been poor for a while now. Pearson didn't use him at all, and he's an ex-central defender himself, so should know what he's looking for in that area at least. If we play three at the back, for me it's Dawson, Wilmot and Kabs, but they are not ideal. I need to see a bit more of Sierralta before considering him a first choice starter, but I'd have Cathcart at the back of the queue right now.
Going by tonight's performance he won't be getting anywhere near the starting lineup. He was really that bad. I didn't see the Romania game so can't comment on that performance but he looks shot to pieces.
He was actually pretty solid against Romania. I think it is all down to pace that is causing his decline. Play him against a slower team and he would be fine, but play him against a fast striker (and give him no decent defenders alongside him) and then he will be found out.
Big night for Craig and @nornironhorn as the Green And White Army face a huge play-off tie against Bosnia. Bosnia did the double over NI in the Nations League so they're up against it, with their nearest and dearest or Slovakia the potential opponents in the play-off final
He was excellent all game (although not quite as good as Evans). His performance level is very dependent on who he plays beside. Put him beside a top PL player like Evans and he is still a midtable PL level player. Put him beside a youngster (like NI's last match) or someone like Dawson/Kabasele/Mariappa and then he's a Championship level player. I've been saying it for years when our CB options were poor that putting a good CB in beside him would make all the difference but sadly we never signed one! Glad we have avoided the playoff with ROI (although I have no doubt we would have beaten them) as it would have brought a lot of unnecessary hassle from non football fans.
Enjoy tonight, responsibly of course, it's a schoolnight! The Irish side in me is disappointed that the Republic lost, they had plenty of good chances, it was almost inevitable they'd lose the shootout, although you're right that it means there's no potential for nonsense. He's been fine for us all season whatever the partnership (think he was exposed a bit for the Reading goal at the weekend before he unfortunately deflected it in), if we persist with a back 3, he more than likely keeps his place if/when WTE comes in the team, it's almost certainly Kabasele or Wilmot who will make way. Dunno who plays if it's a back 4, they're all pretty good at this level
The Irish are a strange one, on paper they have a decent team (much better than us) but they've underperformed since Euro 2016 really. Mick didn't help things and not sure if the new manager is going to bring about much change but I guess he needs more time to have any impact!
To be fair though I think Northern Ireland will lose to Slovakia, they got lucky against Bosnia who are not in the top 50 in The FIFA rankings the other night and were beaten 5-1 by Norway in recent times. Maybe its just luck of the draw.
Went off injured (and was bloody replaced by someone who plays for Sunderland) when it was still 1-1. Mistakes from both Evans and Flanagan led to the second goal. Slovakia were just as poor as NI so he didn't really have much to do tonight. Injury hopefully not too serious.
