It really is too early in the season to start throwing the toys out of the pram so Frank and the team have to stay calm, identify what went wrong, learn from the mistakes and improve next time. I think it could take some time. Obviously Silva and Alonso's mistakes were key to the result but we were always going to struggle early in the season with so changes anyway. Those two mistakes can be worked upon and eradicated. Alonso's by playing Chilwell and Silva's by politely pointing out to him that he needs to be fully awake when in possession. It wasn't even a high press that caused him to lose the ball. It was him being surprised and not being ready to release the ball. I don't think fitness comes into that and hopefully that was the wake up call he needs to get up to speed. Before it happened I thought he looked like an old Rolls Royce gliding around at the back and he looked to have plenty of time on the ball, but WBA spotted this and decided to target him. He will have to pay a bit more respect to the pace of the Premier League or get dropped. Its early and he has time to prove his worth.

To take some positives from whats going I would say Havertz's intelligence and awareness is showing through. His link play with Tammy against Barnsley and CHO in this match is proving fruitful. He's showing already that he's a team player. Team goals are so important and if the likes of CHO, Pulisic and to a lesser degree Werner know the ball is moving in and around Havertz they will feel the freedom to make runs. We have looked a bit static up front in recent years. 

I'm not sure if Werner's best position is within a packed attack. His pace seems to be his best quality so running in behind defences in a counter attacking style maybe best for him. I thought he looked a bit confused with WBA's packed defense. CHO took his goal really well and showed his quality. That is just what he needed and it looks like having a player of Havertz quality and similar age along side him is giving him something to compete with. If Havertz, Tammy and CHO team up we could have a seriously good front line on our hands. I know Giroud is quality but he's at the end of his career and has proven he can make an impact as a substitute. 

The young guns did well last season and they scored all three goals on Saturday. We will have a seriously great attack on our hands if the likes and Havertz and Werner integrate.

On 27/09/2020 at 04:51, TrueBlueSeaFC87 said:

My biggest complaint is with us constantly playing sideways and backwards.  When I play pick up football I NEVER think about passing backwards (almost to a flaw).  How can professional footballers be so afraid to play foward?

This is the main problem we're having that will not get fixed because Frank is insistent on it. I don't have the stats for it but I'm pretty sure our CBs, FBs, GKs have more possession on the ball than any of our forwards.

We have a good set of forwards but it's so frustrating to see them have to wait every time for the ball only to see our defenders passing among themselves like it's a training session.

If we look back at the last time we made changes on mass and not only got in new first team players but also had a new Management team in 2004/05 in our first 9 league games our results were as follows:

Games: 9

Goals Scored: 8

Goals Conceded: 2

Wins: 6

Losses: 1

Draws: 2

Taking into account that we didn't lose for the rest of the season in the league and only drew a further 6 games I would say that was a bit of a slow start especially when you consider the heights that team reached. I know we seem to be shipping goals left right and center currently but on the flipside we've put 3 past a team which played with 10 men behind the ball and erased a 3 goal deficit, things hopefully can only get better once we get a fully fit squad which has had time to understand each others movement and are singing from the same hymn sheet. 

I think there are many good signs. Much of the passing is fast and slick already. The tempo is good. But the defensive errors will kill us. Zouma should have started. The second goal was by far the worst. As bad as Alonso’s header was it would mostly not lead to a goal. Silva’s mistake was just terrible and terrible for morale. Won’t want anymore of them. 

As awful as the first half was to endure (aside from a few chances that should have been put away), it was nice in the second half to actually feel confident we could get something out of the game despite going behind...and even by 3.....been a while since I last had that feeling.

On 28/09/2020 at 00:13, Strider6003 said:

Personally would like to see the ball kicked up field a few times to vary the play, we seem to readable to the opposition. 

It's not that simple though. Long balls for the sake of variation are low % chances. They're predictable (because the player needs to telegraph his intention with a huge backswing...) and easy to defend. The point of the U/V shape of passing is to drag players forward so that a long ball becomes a viable option.

Long-ball is actually the issue here. We don't pass diagonally enough in midfield and wewe don't have a centre-back pushing forward, or DM dropping, meaning we are constantly man-marked and rarely create the overload of numbers to achieve this. 

 

 

Chelsea 25/1 for the title now. Grab it while you can. Three games in and the gutter press are proclaiming Liverpool already.

38 minutes ago, Stretford Ender said:

Chelsea 25/1 for the title now. Grab it while you can. Three games in and the gutter press are proclaiming Liverpool already.

Tempting but betting on your own team is madness.