You can hardly expect him to contend with the owner of one of the most effective hair transplants in sport, in fairness.
Nonsense. I reckon he could be kept out of the team by a kitten given his completely passive and introverted demeanour. It’s no good having all the talent if you don’t back yourself to use it.
tbf to sarr he scored the winner for us in the last game and the game before that (pen). he deserves a pass today as he was only back from international duty 2 days ago. A fair few Premier league teams would just rest them players. He's not a 'natural finisher' either as he is really a winger so I would expect some misses.
Haha, hopefully I'm considerably more attractive than any of the poor souls Troy's dipped his wick in. My views on Troy are based on his impact on the club which I view as being extremely negative. He shouldnt have been on the pitch today. Yet there he was, doing fook all and turning victory into a draw with his incredible talismanic powers. Im amazed anyone at the club is still drinking the Troy Deeney Kool Aid, but apparantly they are. Unfortunately for Troy and us, in the championship no points are awarded for talking out of your ar$e.
Yeah I would feel sorry for him if he didn't just pass the ball fifteen yards ahead of Sema straight off the pitch. Or that other game (Wycombe?) where he went across to take a corner after five minutes and managed to outswing it so far it went out of the box. Or the countless times he gets the ball and you think he's going to pass it, nope takes another touch, it's ok he's going to pass it now, nope turns the other way, what about now? Nope he's still got it, now he's either been brushed off the ball like a small child, had his pass intercepted or played in off the pitch. He's like one of those kids that was great in the playground and utter tripe on a proper eleven a side pitch.
Also, the curse of Watford has hit Troost-Ekong. Every video of him before we signed him was him striding forward out of defence or playing really progressive passes. He's been here two months and he's resorted to hoofing it out for goal kicks.
God Hughes would have made a difference in there, can do a bit of everything really. Chalobah has been very up and down this season, and this was one of his worst performances of the season. Disappointed not to see any of Garner, sure he's not a panacea, but he couldn't have been any worse, could he?
Yes, but I'm not just basing it on this match and this miss - he's done it several times, and as you say, the previous winner was a penalty so that doesn't really factor into the equation. He needs to be able to not only finish better than that, but more fundamentally pick where he is going to attempt the finish more intelligently. He just bangs it essentially directly in front of where his eyes are facing, and that is more often than not the worst and most easily covered area.
I felt we needed an extra man in midfield at half time but was shocked that it was Quina and not Garner. Chalobah is getting a lot of stick but Capoue was poor after the resumption and has not,one or two glorious balls apart,improved since. As much as I thought Doucoure was overrated he did give us energy and tempo. We are so pedestrian and negative. Madness to sit back against a very poor and porous QPR back line.
Yep, you could create a really impressive "lowlights" reel of Sarr missing chance after chance or picking the wrong option. But I suppose you could say at least he's getting in the right positions even if you might expect more from someone you paid £30m+ for. The thing that is really disappointing is that he has no idea how to take a player on. If the ball is played ahead of him and he's already up to speed, then great. But if he gets it to feet and some Championship clogger stands off him, he's got no idea what to do and generally just passes it backwards. Even before our goal today, he had a chance to run with half of the pitch ahead of him and one defender. He did nothing, just ambled forwards at half speed and tried to hit an impossible pass. He's been a desperately disappointing signing. Seems like a nice kid and great that he hasn't kicked off but how anyone thought he was what we needed last season is beyond me.
It pains me to admit this but I fear you may be correct. Vanity signing and possibly overhyped,especially after the Liverpool game. Hopefully the quick turn around from the return from Africa was to blame but I'm not convinced of this.
The previous match wasn't a penalty it was an open play winner. And a very tidy finish too. He's best on the wing anyway as I said. Wingers do score but they do miss too. Sterling has shown his ineffectiveness as a striker when Man City had strikers injured, he is better out left. I'd rather have had a front 3 all game today with him out right. Mentally he probably knows he is the best player in the team so may put pressure on himself and occasionally make wrong decisions on the pitch. He's only human.
What's really disappointing is that he's inadvertently found himself in an incredible, almost free-hit, of a position to show off his talent and essentially make himself look like Messi/Ronaldo/Salah/Whoever else you like - he's the most expensive player ever to play in this division, he's played multiple seasons in both the French and English top divisions already, and he's 22 - not 17. He should be tearing this division up like no one who's ever been in it - he should be taking on his defender 20 times a match and creating something every time - he's playing against players who are largely not anywhere near his supposed level, week-in, week-out. And yet it doesn't seem to have either inspired him or allowed him to take the handbrake off and play with any freedom or enjoyment at all. He looks fraught and wound up and scared to do anything lest he fail, and that's somewhat seen in the way he freaks out claiming very spurious handball or fouls several times each game. It's not a good harbinger at all for his career, and it really should be a coach's number one priority to be unlocking whatever is in him to bring that talent out - so far, nobody seems to have bothered to do anything about it.
Mentality is part of it though. We paid over £30m for him, we can't afford for him to be a delicate little flower. If he's like that, we should never have smashed our transfer record to pieces and left ourselves unable to strengthen other areas of the team. Deulofeu is a far, far better footballer and lower to mid table Premier League is about his level. I'd be amazed if Sarr ever plays for a top team.
That second half goes along with Wycombe and Barnsley as another horror show. We offered nothing, conceded an equaliser, got lucky with some missed chances and should have conceded a penalty for certain. Ivic sat there and watched it for 50 minutes, choosing not to make any changes. He can go.
Yeah, whatever mate, you know exactly what I'm saying, I'm referencing your own post then - the previous winner, rather than the previous game. If we've really already got to the point of waving away issues like this with 'well he's only human' then we might as well all give up now. As a human, he is a professional footballer, and supposedly a particularly good one. This is something that it is both in his interest and that his career somewhat depends on to recognise and improve upon.
Bit of a basketball game before half time, could easily have been 3-3. Strange changes at half time, Deeney and Quina didnt do much and not sure what shape we were trying to play. Lucky to get away with a point in the end but a point on the road is nothing to be sniffed at I suppose. The lack of crowds is having a massive effect on most games from the PL downwards from what I can see. Was nice to see Lloyd in the studio, hope his carer was looked after as they made him look smart.
Tbf poor Craig can’t say what he really thinks* and is just being diplomatic. Thought he had a good game amongst a pile of mediocrity, and worse (Quina). King Ken didn’t live up to his name today. Very lucky with a point and again just painful to watch. * “WTF is Ivic trying to do, I’m confused, we’re all confused. We should be pressing in 2H not sitting back, changing formation, confusing us even more and not changing anything when it’s not working and there’s a 5 sub option. FFS you Serbian negative tosser...”
Deulofeu is injured. My point wasn't about comparing footballers. Without Sarr in the team this season do you think we would've been in positions 2-6 in the league? No is the answer. The transfer window can be blamed if you like, not Sarr.
Will there ever be a point where we aren't all forced by a poster like you to contend with this idiotic, disingenuous strawman when analysing a match that criticising a particular player in any way is automatically analogous to 'blaming' them for every failing that the team and club has as a whole?
We should be first with him in the team, that's the point. No other team is playing with a £30m forward and yet he's contributing less than a whole bunch of Championship standard players. By virtue of price tag and reputation he should be the best player in the league. He's probably not even in the top 20 so far. He's been outshone by £2m Ken Sema, a limited footballer getting the best out of his ability.
By my estimations he's had one absolute shocker against Bournemouth, the rest he's been at worst 'anonymous' and 'safe', but sometimes very bright. Regardless, if Chalobah is having a mare (Capoue too, albeit he's at least shown he can do better), why not at least get Garner on and see if he can do better?
You weren't analysing the match though if you had then fair enough. But you made the following comment.. "He should be tearing this division up like no one who's ever been in it - he should be taking on his defender 20 times a match and creating something every time - he's playing against players who are largely not anywhere near his supposed level, week-in, week-out." That is criticising the overall contribution. I replied with some reasonable comments in defence of the player.
We’ve now gone 7 games without a clean sheet, so I disagree that we look better defensively. We’ve scored 3 goals in 540 minutes of away league action this season. In addition, we only managed one each per match against two lower opposition clubs in the cup. Our leading scorer this season has 3 goals, not including a penalty. So we aren’t ripping things up at the other end of the pitch either. A lot of our play is dull and boring. That was bearable when we were sneaking 1-0 wins, but now we aren’t even doing that. Sarr looks average. Capoue looks average. Hughes seems constantly injured. The impressive Ngakia can’t get a start. The midfield gets changed every week, so there’s little hope of partnerships being built. You’d not put money on any of our strikers hitting double figures. Today’s starting line-up and great start raised all our hopes. A front three roast to capitalise on an early goal. But instead by half-time the Serbian Southgate returned to type. Back to the ultra defensive topics, back to trying to hang on to a narrow lead despite a recent lack of clean sheets, and in the end only Foster and their wastefulness got us even a point. Opportunity is being wasted. It’s sad to see.
Ivic not happy with the players - be the end of him soon then. TBH We did show energy and "passion" first half. If anything his subs and change of formation stopped our flow.
