Definitely lots of positives today. We were literally 3 players away from being a very good team today. Unfortunately those players were our centre backs and our left back....and that's why we are always going to concede goals at the moment.
I haven't seen it but the WTE error sounds so bad, could it be that there was a call from Bachmann to leave it so he ducked?
That would be impossible, because Maddison was between him and WTE, so he’d have to either be blind or clinically insane to have made such a shout. It also happened a couple of yards outside the box, so the ball was a long way from Bachmann. Edit: judge for yourself:
By definition they are now backups, given that they are not our top CBs. The point of backups is that they're needed when the best players are injured. We are currently in a situation where our best players are injured, so we need to play the backups. It's impossible for the top players to be injured and then to not play a player who isn't a "backup", unless you plan to not play with a full team. It's true that we should have gone in to the start of the season with at least one other CB, but they did finally make some effort in bringing in Nkoulou - but he obviously wasn't signed with the expectation that he'd be injured after only a few games.
Cathcart has been playing this season when others have been fit. I’m not sure what the point of the rest of your post was because it was obvious I wasn’t suggesting we play with less than 11 players. The CB’s at this club, at this point, as a unit of players are not good enough, whatever order you want to put them in. Same goes for the full-backs. Sierralta and Nkoulou COULD (and probably will) make us much better - but we need them fit first, and selected together second. But we will still be desperate for quality reinforcements even in this instance as it’s being laid painfully bare right now that even a mild injury list will mean we are pushing water up a hill defensively.
Sierralta has barely played at PL level, Nkolou was picked up on a free in desperation. You’re reaching.
The defending was really not good, and I'm not saying anything contrary to that. But nobody, in all these posts, has mentioned that the players who were there to take advantage of it were Maddison and Vardy. Maddison is a very good player when on form and Vardy is one of the best on-the-shoulder-of-the-last-defender attackers I have ever seen, if not actually the best.
Bachmann seemed to say to Troost something along the lines of "what are you doing?" So I don't think there was a call from Dan.
Have no fear. They will continue to defend the indefensible. It's in their nature. If anyone would defend us going into this season with the defensive and goalkeeping options we have now, then they are already beyond hope.
But realistically, why is this relevant? We all know who we were playing - this logic goes down the road of 'they're a better team/have better players than us on paper, so we must therefore accept losing to them'. And Maddison being 'a very good player when on form' is reaching enough - it's not like it was bloody Neymar scorpion kicking it into the goal. It was an incredibly simple run and finish, offered up to him on a plate. It might as well have been Jonny fuccking Evans in the same position.
Problem is Vardy would have only been playing off the shoulder of WTE, if WTE was 9ft wide. There was acres of space between them. And Maddison didn’t need to be on form at all for what he did today. The good things he did were gift wrapped for him.
If there was no call from Bachmann the WTE should be out of the team, pronto. The club should play this video to him over and over again. Perhaps he is not very bright and thought the 'no heading' rule was already in effect. He should come out to the fans and tell us what on earth he was doing? Let him him justify his sheer incompetence in the art of defending. Awful to watch. You don't see this in U10's football.
The combination of Troost,Bachmann and snowy conditions is a like watching Laurel and Hardy in a cream pie shenanigans sketch.
They’ve been in fairly bad form recently though, their last league win was back in October against Brentford. Maddison has only just got back into the team after being out for a long time due to poor form. As usual, we made them look good.
No surprises today. We can score for fun. But we cannot defend. We have quality upfront. We have none at the back with Nkoulou and Sierralta out. Winning games outscoring the opposition regularly is hard. Especially when you concede gifts. Priority in January is to find some centrebacks. Ranieri knows the market. I'm pretty sure he can find the replacements for Cathcart. WTE nice lad but out of his depth in the PL. I cannot for the life of me figure out how he makes Rohr's Nigerian side. Although they are pretty bare in that department which explains his call ups. Dennis is an absolute gem and he will be off in the summer. His metrics are off the chart.
Could it be that Maddison called Ekong to leave. It wouldn't be the first time it has happened. In that position you would always try it, Good defenders or even bad defenders would rarely fall for it. Says a lot about Ekong, maybe his coach at Spurs was right
I wish we had Cristian Romero in our defence. WTE is Championship level material. Makes far too many errors for him not to be caught out in the PL.
It’s possible, although you’d hope he’d be able to distinguish Maddison’s voice from Bachmanns booming Austrian accent.
Highlights of today were 1- Good first half , picking up from Utd performance with high energy pressing, forcing the opposition to play in their own half. 2- Watching Dennis sit Schmeichal down and then dink him in one move. Double humiliation for The Medium to Large Dane. 3- Playing non stop "Spot The Ball"competition as combination of poor stream quality and dire weather conditions meant the ony way to follow the play was to watch for the tracks in the the snow where the ball had been. 4- Playing the the Laurel and Hardy theme tune in my head every time Troost or Bachmann went near the ball.
Even if Maddison had called it, Troost should have known the ball was dropping on his head a few yards short of the area. Just get rid of it especially on a blustery day.
I think if Maddison had called it then WTE would’ve been making a big deal out of it, it was clearly just a catastrophic and inexcusable error, we don’t need to try and find excuses for it because he does this thing regularly so it’s not like it’s totally unbelievable that he could do it.