Another thing I noticed yesterday was how little we defend the flanks. Our full backs look exposed and isolated when we come up against 3 forwards because our wide cover is Dennis and Cucho. I think we need 2 disciplined holding midfield to cut out runners and allow the centre backs move wider to support the full backs, or just go to 442. When West Ham worked out the way through us they got in down either flank in the space of 2 minutes and simply passed it in to a free scoring position. At best we're 1 v 1 at full back. If we play a high push, then accept the risk but if we sit off, you've got to be able to plug the gaps.
Or we try to defend the wide areas but are just caught out so often due to lack of pace or being out of position?
Watched the lowlights, just to try to understand what the hell went wrong. I don't think West Ham actually played all that well, but we just allowed them to pass the ball without pressure, did not track runs and were not committed enough. That is shown throughout the match. First goal. Nice play from Bowen, gets the ball with two players in close attendance, but he still manages to spot a pass which lets in Soucek. We have two players standing still, ball watching in front of Antonio. Neither Kucka or Sierralta see the run Soucek is making behind Sissoko. It's just basic stuff. Sierralta has to react to that and come across to meet Soucek far quicker. Sissoko is poor here too, as he is facing the ball with no awareness of the run Soucek is making behind him. Sierralta does try to come across but it's far too late. His starting position was all wrong. He doesn't need to be that close to Cathcart to begin with. This is why Soucek had time to hit a first time shot low at Bachmann, who did very little to save the shot. It didn't go into the corner of the net and is something I feel he should have got a lot closer to. Second goal. Kiko loses the ball far too cheaply, but it's still a long way to our goal at this point. The ball is played to Antonio who outpaces Sierralta far too easily. Cathcart comes over to try to box in Antonio and Sierralta takes a more central position, but is marking no one, just empty space around him. West Ham have TWO players free the the D of the penalty area. No midfielder has tracked the run of wither player. Benrahma is at full stretch but makes a good connection and fires the ball goalward. Soucek was right behind also unmarked. Tufan makes a half-hearted token run but is not close to either player. No one else around. Masina is standing right in front of his own keeper and deflects the ball past him. Again Sierralta has switched off, way too deep marking no one. Masina is also in a terrible position marking no one, apart from unsighting his own keeper. Disallowed goal. This was ridiculous how much space West Ham had on our righthand side. We had four players sucked into the middle of the area and West Ham had two players wide and totally unmarked. Kucka completely out of position. Soucek has time to flash in a low cross. Cathcart tries to intercept but only lifts the ball into the air and Bowen volley's home with an impressive finish. It was an unusual bit of VAR for that not to stand because of an earlier foul on Dennis. It was technically correct, but I've not seen that type of VAR interference before. Usually it's ignored as the referee was right on top of it and VAR usually takes the view that it must be an ok challenge, but again our positioning was all over the place. Bowen was left unmarked at the back post. Third goal. My god, we're so bad, never more illustrated by this one. A simple goal kick goes to Masina. He just ducks and runs upfield. It's an inexplicable action. This allows Antonio the freedom to chase the ball and cross it. He dinks it over but there's no immediate danger as Kucka takes a glance at who is behind him. Sees no one is close so chests it back to Bachmann. Bachmann is of course stuck to his line, but I give a lot of credit to Bowen here. He chases a lost cause and gets in between the ball and Bachmann, engineering a foul. Had Bachmann got something on the ball he'd have got away with it, but he missed the ball completely and went into the side of Bowen. That was a bit unlucky to give a penalty as I though it was soft, but it was purely down to the idiocy of Masina why the move came about. That goal was purely on him. Fourth goal. Another pathetic one. Bowen receives a chipped pass on the edge of our penalty area. Sierralta stands him up with his hands behind his back. Bowen skips past him with ridiculous ease, as if he wasn't there. Kucka and Bachmann are drewn to the ball, Vlasic takes a step back and has acres of space to slot into an empty net after Bowen's simple pass. Summmary. We are f&cking sh!t.
If not January, certainly in the Summer. Won't be long before either Dennis or his agent start to make their intentions clear and who can blame him. Absolutely gutting considering he's our best striker since Marlon King.
I think next month we will have chance to offload Sarr (if that's an option) to the highest bidder. Even if we get 25M for him, that's enough for at least a competent RB and and CB at 12M a pop. I am however clutching at straws, but surely, even by his low vision standards of the problems in our squad, Gino must act now to save our status. All will be (a little) forgiven if he is able to plug some of our holes, because we have a competent enough forward line and our midfield is not the worst. If he sits on his hands and "makes do" then whatever small respect he has from supporters will dwindle away. Relegation again will hit hard and we have 20 games left to prevent that from happening. Sacking Claudio due to his own mistakes in recruitment will not go down well. Uncle C is far from perfect himself, but he is the most capable manager of getting a competent squad organized and ready to fight for our place.
Very true about KISS! In any sport you have to earn the right to play. Look at the mess our batters made in Australia. Look at Djokovic. Has made himself the most successful player by playing the percentages,up the middle,avoid the lines. It does help being a phenomenal athlete but basics. One would have thought an ability to pass to a team mate was helpful but clearly not the skill set of almost all of our players.
Excellent analysis. On the disallowed goal, I agree the VAR intervention was unusual but it’s exactly what should have happened to disallow the goal at Arsenal.
Watching that jabroni Masina leave the ball and start running up the pitch is superb entertainment. You just don't get that at other Premier League grounds.
Seems it would have been far more cost effective to pay those two (certainly Hughes) the little bit more they were after rathe than gamble on the player market.
It genuinely looks like an NPC in a video game stuck glitching in a predetermined movement pattern. Shameful.
Masina is a kretin, no two ways about it. He runs around like a headless chicken most of the time and it’s amazing he gets away with it as much as he does. In many ways he’s worse than WTE, because he does such idiotic things, I think WTE does the same but because his brain melts under the pressure, with Masina it’s like he actively makes these idiotic decisions. There was a point in the first half that he raced from his position almost to the halfway line to try and tackle one of their defenders, commendable but entirely idiotic and not his job at all, he just hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing.
Haha, I remember/remember noting this at the time. If I recall correctly the worst thing was the tackle either didn't even work, or happen at all, so they just played straight around him and kept moving up the pitch whilst our left back inexplicably found himself as one of our most advanced players somewhere around the centre circle as an opposition attack built a head of steam.
Exactly that and exactly how it panned out, just a completely bizarre thought process. I often make a point to just watch him for short periods and he really is utterly clueless. Just like Kiko, he helps highlight the gulf between PL and championship when he managed to be in the championship team of the season.
One more thing I noticed. There was a flying lunge from Diop in the rookery GT corner that took out Dennis. Potentially deemed as dangerous (not in my view as he won the ball, but we've seen them given as red). No grumble whatsoever from either the crowd or the players. The disallowed goal, not one complaint about it to the ref. We were quite ready to restart again. Bachman was moaning about a foul throw before the 4th but nobody joined him and to be fair it was far too late (it was a foul throw too). I'll give them one pass here because of the covid mess we've been in, but we need to start fighting our own corner a lot more. Going back to Arsenal away, imagine any top club going there and having Arsenal score from a ball kicked out for injury? Man City or Liverpool would have crowded the ref and started a ruck with the Arsenal players - do you know why? Because they want to win. We too often amble around in meek acceptance of our fate.
Yep, all comes down to mentality of the squad. The players don't have to have a scrap on the pitch to show they care but once in a while it would be nice for some of them to show a bit of passion. I don't even see any of them getting stuck into each other, someone like Holebas would be screaming at this bunch. Right before he'd have a lie down on the pitch and let the opposition run through on goal bless him.
Their goals were very soft. Foster in for Bachmann could have prevented goals 1 and 3. Any awareness of runners prevents the equaliser. Good communication amongst the defenders prevents the fourth. It's a simple game.
This has been the way for years. It comes from the rancid culture of the club. All the players know they are just trading pieces in the Pozzo empire, they know the manager gets sacked at least once a season and they know that there is zero team spirit. When there is a bad decision it’s just time to shrug shoulders and go through the next set of motions. Everyone is just out for themselves.
Agree with this. Plus I took something else from the Diop/Dennis incident too. Diop gets a sniff of a chance to (completely fairly in my view) win the ball aggressively and wipe out an opponent for ‘free’ and takes it gleefully. Yet in the first half in a similar-ish place when a similar-ish opportunity presented itself for one of our players defending against them he wussed out. Did the minimum possible standing tackle.
Testing positive for Covid last night was more craic than watching that shower of gutless sh1te. Fully aware of the limitations of our squad, be it through poor recruitment hampered by a weak financial standing, but the lack of effort, aggression or intent in our play is most disappointing. We will rarely find ourselves in a game this season where we surpass the oppositions in terms of quality, so we need to be tough, aggressive and outwork other teams to scrape the points required to stay up, anything less and we'll get thumped by average enough teams like we've already seem a few times this season (Leeds, Brentford, West Ham). We seem very fragile mentally, they need a good start in games, with the crowd behind them to even start believing they can get something from a game, once we go behind it seems all hope is lost and performances nose dive. I said it a few weeks ago, there's no hiding place for the recruitment team, Stevie Wonder can see where we need to invest in the squad, and if nothing is done about it, they deserve all the criticism they'll rightfully get. As others have said, some form of communication from the top would be nice. If they're aware of the issues, but their hands are tied financially then they'd buy themselves some slack by letting the fans know, although I know in the modern age of football, that may weaken the clubs position in negotiations with other clubs so will likely never happen.
I was wondering earlier if the fans would ever start protesting against the owners if this continues for another 2 or 3 seasons. Someone always counter argues "We were nearly bankrupt when the Pozzo's took over" which is correct, albeit a decade ago now. A new bar has been set and times have changed. We can't keep acting as if we are lucky to still exist as a club otherwise we will never achieve anything.
If what continues? I’m not being obtuse, I get frustrated like everyone. But Adam Masina being a crap defender doesn’t exactly feel like existential, club in danger, man the barricades type material.
We didn't even need to though. They were both contracted for this season. Would have bought us some time, if nothing else. Gino's view is that players are purely assets. Since, with only months left, Hughes and Chalobah would no longer hold any trading value, they were driven out. The fact that even as players winding down their contracts, they might have improved our team was never a factor to Gino.
The ownership putting the needs of our first team as a tertiary concern behind player trading and Udinese. No other fanbase would accept key decisions time and time again against the interests of the team.
Gino isn’t alone, I’ve heard of other owner/Chairman describe their players as assets. I’ve no idea really which would make best financial sense. In the long run and i do believe on the balance of things, they would have improved our team.
This goes back to the point that Pozzo contracts are one year shorter than they are announced to be. I don’t know of another club that behaves this way regarding players. And if the player doesn’t want to immediately sign a new deal before that final year, they are cast as the bad guy and the dribbling hordes lap it up.
This is a very good point. I've been thinking this for years, it's not new. I don't want us to end up like Bournemouth, but you have to fight fire with fire. Sissoko strikes me as a leader-by-example, polite and statesman-like. But you do need the ability to turn on the outrage and pressure the referee at times. And picking the times to do it is a skill, too. Somebody (I don't know, a coach, say) needs to take Dennis (and Sarr) aside and tell them the story of the little boy who cries 'wolf': Every time somebody tackles you successfully is not the time to roll around on the floor. Look like you are trying to keep on your feet before falling down, don't fling yourself down theatrically. And when you have been genuinely fouled - then go for it. And at the same time all his team-mates should start shouting and screaming, all at once. Pressure the ref, but convincingly. But this requires passion, intelligence and coaching.
High level sport is all about the extra 1 or 2 percentage points, and at the moment that entire side of the game is one we don’t even bother with.
