Ok I’m going to buck the trend of the last few pages and declare I’m not Ange out yet, albeit my patience is now starting to wear a little thin and I can understand why people are ready to move on.
Here are a few of my thoughts:-
- The inconsistency is just baffling and so frustrating. 1 point from Leicester, Palace and Ipswich; it’s mental. Imagine where we would be right now and the feel around the place with 9/9 in those. Ange has to find a greater level of consistency otherwise he won’t be here much longer.
- Obviously we cannot keep a clean sheet for love nor money and that seems to be the root of many of our issues. Whilst there are systemic problems within that, the biggest for me is that we are far too keen to try to win the ball back. That’s all well and good when we’re pressing in the offensive 3rd, you need to take gambles, but when the ball makes its way into our half we need to be thinking more about how we stop the opposition scoring, and less about how we win the ball back.
- The second goal yesterday was an evidence of this, Ipswich had made their way into our half, Bentancur needs to know that the high percentage play to stop them scoring is to stay on his feet and usher the guy wide. He’s so keen to win the ball back that he lunges, missing the tackle and allows a 3 on 2 down our right side. Romero’s tracking shoddy too but the Bentancur reference is consistent throughout some of the goals we’ve conceded this season.
- We’ve seen 3 or 4 of those this season from Romero already, and Udogie has been culpable too (turned by Bowen trying to nick the ball). When the opposition make their way into our half we have to think about how we stop them scoring, not how we create a counter.
- The main reason I’m not yet Ange out is because when it clicks it does look glorious. Utd first half perhaps the best example. The million dollar question is can we find some consistency? It’s getting harder to believe we will.
- I said this last season, I said it in the summer and I’ll say it every week until it changes - our forward line isn’t very good and lacks an elite level player within it. Son has occasional flashes but isn’t that anymore at all, Solanke is ok and works really hard but he’s not a game changer, Odebert and Moore are very young and Werner and Johnson offer zero technically. Juxtapose those front line players with what Salah / Saka in particular offer. They impact the game and they make defenders wary for the full 90 mins. Our wide players are very easy to mark and stop impacting the game if you don’t allow space behind. Solanke has been decent thus far and his work ethic is top notch, but he should have scored 2 yesterday. He’s never going to be world class in his position.
- Our transfers, particularly in the forward areas have been shit. Lots of money spent (on the face of it) but generally for mid-level players without high wage demands. Someone on here the other day was saying “where are all the people that wanted Chiesa”. He forgot that the 2 names fans really wanted were Neto and Gyokeres, who have both been excellent this season.
- I don’t yet think Ange has actually played his best XI (or my best XI might be more appropriate). I’d like to see Biss and Bentancur CM personally but Ange seems to see them as interchangeable 6’s.
- Perhaps my biggest concern is that it feels like we’ve had a soft schedule so far. Only 2 of the traditional top 6 played (including the worst of those) and only 2 of the current top 7. This was the time to put some distance between us and the pack.
It’s a young team with a lot of gaps and there have been signs that when it works it looks great which is why I’m not at sacking point yet, but it does have to get better and quickly.
COYS. Going to to be a long couple of weeks!
