Aurier with a typical brain fart cost us the goal so will always get more criticism than a nothing performance by reguilonPeople digging out Aurier. Reggie miles worse today. Been a shell of himself since coming back from injury
How does Ndombele & Lamela not get on the pitch
Unfuckingbelievable
Aurier with a typical brain fart cost us the goal so will always get more criticism than a nothing performance by reguilon
Sorry - Missed ReggieLloris 8 - Very good
Serge 4 - Why foul Sterling, ridiculous. Unfortunately makes these decisions regularly and for that reason should be moved on
Toby 8 - Great blocks. Very composed
Eric 7 - Good game
PEH 5 - Unable to move the ball forward and squandered our best offensive move and then bizarrely blaming Reggie?
Winks 4 - Doesn't play forward passes except for a few floaty cross field passes that get intercepted. Unsure what he brings to the side?
Lo Celso 7 - I thought he played well. He was tenacious and was the 1st player who managed to play some neat forward passes to get us in the game. Crazy to sub him?
Lucas 7 - Played positively looking to break forward and was unlucky to be brought down a number of times when past the defender. Unsure why he was subbed?
Son 3 - Unsure I've seen him play so badly or with such little confidence. Should have been braver and taken people on. Definately should have been subbed
Kane 7 - Nothing was created for him, however thought he was v good in possession retaining and moving the ball on
Sissoko 3 - Why Why Why bring him on at all. If we are looking to win the match surely N'Dombele or Lamela come on ahead of him. Failed to jump for the goal which isn't the 1st time
Bale 5 - With the midfield behind him there was absolutely no service
Dele not enough time
Bergwijn not enough time
Mason 3 - Not brave enough. I think he killed our chances by giving us a Sissoko, PEH, Winks midfield when he had better options available.
Aurier with a typical brain fart cost us the goal so will always get more criticism than a nothing performance by reguilon
Well...we did. Hojbjerg. So no, it couldn't have. It's a header from 3 yards out, once you have that happen you're asking to concede. It was a stupid foul from Aurier, piss poor defending from Sissoko, and to a lesser extent that perennial weakness Hugo has with dealing w crosses near him.The goal could have been easily prevented as we had a man on the line in the corner where it went
I genuinely don't think Winks is any better than Ndombele defensively, though. Winks is bang average defensively and all he does is cover passing lanes. Can't be bothered to look up stats, but I bet Ndombele makes more defensive contributions than Winks, along with being a far better offensively. Sure, Ndombele has been dodgy recently, but even on a bad day he makes stuff happen. Winks never does.I feel the negativity in the match thread as well as what's in the Ratings thread so far are abit overblow.
We lost to the beat team in the country by 1-0. Our form has been so bad we got Mourinho sacked about a week ago.
A defeat was an expected outcome. Need to put things into perspective.
Lloris and the entire backline did well. Toby was outstanding and deserved at least an 8; my MOTM.
Our defensive shape looked good throughout, and like @Bulletspur had said, Sterling did skin Aurier a few times but that's part and parcel of being up against a better player; but I still think he did well overall.
I think Mason actually did ok in this department; the defence is set up correctly, and the game-plan was obvious: essentially we park the bus aka Mourinho and hope that we can hurt them on the counter. This relied on keeping the score-line level, because the moment you are down by 1-0 you would have to 'come out'; and for this reason he stuck with more defensive-minded midfielders (Winks + Sissoko) over Ndombele. It made sense. Ndombele has been in bad form and if he loses the ball in midfield, it would be difficult to recover.
On the flip side of the coin, we offered essentially nothing going forward. Lucas was the only one who showed for the ball, as he always does. Son was awful, Kane was better but in the end we barely created anything.
However I think our impotency up front was to be expected; Mason couldn't be expected to improve us up front when Mourinho has failed over the entire season.
Move on from this.