38 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

The first half performance was fine as we grew into the game. Again we conceded in the first 10 mins like last week and again we kicked into gear.

But the second half the closed off the passing lanes and we couldn't get in behind them any more. So why continually try that route, especially when they fully retreated into their box.

We once again have a situation where there isn't a single player that seems either capable or willing to have a shot with power from outside the box. The second half was so predictable from us going forward.

Because there are no other option. 

1st half we had carney doing the between the line thing. The only other player that we have left who can do this was Sterling. But if you ask him to do that you will lose his mazy run furthermore you can tell he was gassed at the end. 

If you want shot from distance the only who is capable to take shot from distance is Gallagher but poch took him out. 

 

 

 

Problem is a lack of identity and structure in my opinion. Even first half most of our best attacks came from individual brilliance from Sterling. 

I really don't get what Pochettino is trying to do here. Playing with 4 at the back all pre-season only to switch to 3 at the first two game and having your top scorer (?) in Maatsen benched and Chilwell playing left wing in attack. The subs in the second half destroyed all rythm as well. Stupid to throw Caicedo in like that while trailing. Really disappointed in Jackson too. Low on awareness having the opposing defenders steal the ball away when he should be holding it up. Also think our players stupidly tries to play off him too much. resulting with him playing with his back to the goal almost the whole game. 

Thought Mudryk had a good cameo (bad miss though). At the very least he always tries getting at the defender, not playing the ball backwards. He's getting slandered for his output but I really feel that he's never getting match fit. Should be getting a run of 5-10 games. 

42 minutes ago, coombsie said:

Bob, not sure what point you are making ??? OK so we have come back from a goal down twice, but sill only have ONE point to show for it.

Coming back from 1-0 is extemely difficult. It showed that we don't really have mental problem, we have goal scoring problem though 

10 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Coming back from 1-0 is extemely difficult. It showed that we don't really have mental problem, we have goal scoring problem though 

Good shout. I do think Jackson has already shown he’s a good striker. I fully accept he has to turn it into goals. Stating the obvious,again, I fully accept 😀

7 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

This has been my biggest fear too. The majority of them have under 100 appearances to their name. Usually you do that with a few players at most, but nearly all of our players had under 100 appearances when we bought them. They don't have the know-how when it comes to many things about the game, and I fear that they won't be able to drag themselves out of trouble when things get tough. None of them have experienced it and had anybody around them to show them how to get out of it. 

Individually, most of them are good players, but they are players that would look better slowly being integrated into an already settled team with experienced players, but we are telling them all to play together now and play against Premier League teams. This is so dangerous, I don't think I have ever seen anything like it at this level. You're basically telling players a year or two out of academy teams to go and play against teams stacked full of players full of years of experience at the highest level. It doesn't matter that those clubs have players that are less talented with a football, they have the know-how, the experience, a greater undestanding of the game as a whole.

Good shout. 

29 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Coming back from 1-0 is extemely difficult. It showed that we don't really have mental problem, we have goal scoring problem though 

Completely agree re; the lack of goals. We seem happy to spend £100 + million on multiple midfielders, but not on what actually wins games - GOALS 🤥

A bad result, but maybe a good learning curve for Poch to keep away from playing 3 at the back.

After Chuk's goal I genuinely believed we were going to take the 3 points. Is it very disappointing, yes, am I going to judge the rest of our season on that, no.

It is easy to let negativity creep in as we saw it so many times last season, but once the team settles the results will come.

13 minutes ago, coombsie said:

Completely agree re; the lack of goals. We seem happy to spend £100 + million on multiple midfielders, but not on what actually wins games - GOALS 🤥

We have or had Nkunku. 

 

 

44 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Because there are no other option. 

1st half we had carney doing the between the line thing. The only other player that we have left who can do this was Sterling. But if you ask him to do that you will lose his mazy run furthermore you can tell he was gassed at the end. 

If you want shot from distance the only who is capable to take shot from distance is Gallagher but poch took him out. 

 

 

 

And therein lies the issue. If we have spent nearly a billion and there is only one player capable of shooting from outside the box, a player that we may well sell in the next two weeks, then in game 2 we have pretty much shown every mid and lower table team how to get a result and possibly beat us. Sheffield Utd, Wolves,  Nottingham Forest, Everton, Palace. Groundhog day.

It is getting to a point where we must score first and I the first 10 mins in order to try to open games up onto an even footing. Instead, due to inexperience we do the opposite as we can settle and start halves.

1 hour ago, coombsie said:

We cannot ignore the fact that this game hinged on the shockingly poor penalty miss. Until then, their early goal aside, we had literally demolished them. 75% possession, some VERY good football, Sterling, Jackson, Cukwuemeka and Chilwell all superb, we were in the ascendancy. Then Enzo fluffs his lines and the heads drop. Had we gone in 2-1 up, the half time team talk would have been upbeat, the players coming out with a spring in their step. Instead, we clearly feared what was about to happen, sat back, let them have more of the ball and sorry, but the substitutions were poor and at poor times. The players and Poch, have got to learn and quickly.  My biggest concern is the real lack of experience that we have. Buying 19, 20, 21 year olds is good for the future, but the time is NOW, and apart from Silva and Chilwell we still have no real leadership, especially when things are going wrong.

Spain missed a penalty but it didn’t stop them. Poor effort to bottle it after a setback. Character is to show resilience. I expect better. 

8 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

This has been my biggest fear too. The majority of them have under 100 appearances to their name. Usually you do that with a few players at most, but nearly all of our players had under 100 appearances when we bought them. They don't have the know-how when it comes to many things about the game, and I fear that they won't be able to drag themselves out of trouble when things get tough. None of them have experienced it and had anybody around them to show them how to get out of it. 

Individually, most of them are good players, but they are players that would look better slowly being integrated into an already settled team with experienced players, but we are telling them all to play together now and play against Premier League teams. This is so dangerous, I don't think I have ever seen anything like it at this level. You're basically telling players a year or two out of academy teams to go and play against teams stacked full of players full of years of experience at the highest level. It doesn't matter that those clubs have players that are less talented with a football, they have the know-how, the experience, a greater undestanding of the game as a whole.

Spot on Scott. Many years ago Neil Bath gave an interview whereby he explained his thinking about academy players and the importance of gaining experience of a minimum 100 games before being thrown into the cauldron of Premier League football. Normally you would ease these young players in, have experienced players guiding them on the pitch when they have made a poor decision. Yesterday we witnessed a World Cup winner floundering, he hasn’t suddenly become a bad player in the second half, he is a young inexperienced player who is still learning the game despite of the overpriced fee we paid which carries its own pressure. This team is in serious need of a run of three or four wins( the next games are very doable) to install a winning feeling amongst the group, other than that it could be a very long season with player’s regressing.

Positives:

We absolutely dominated the game first half

Chucky's fantastic finish

Raheem's performance

 

Negatives

Missed a pen

Gave away a pen

Error on a set piece

Substitutions didn't work

Caicedo had a shocker

 

Collectively we turned what should have been a victory into a defeat. But we've got an entirely new team, new system, new manager. It will take time. But I think the first half performance is a huge positive.

This is a big set back at the start of the season. We should handle that game better. But again, the premier league is difficult, we all know that. In the past, with that first half performance, we will be okay.

We need to be consistent. We should have continued that first half performance in the second half. However, we are still building the team, so maybe we can be patient with the team.

I wasn't happy that many people were over angry with Enzo that he lost his penalty. If our rivals are trying to pull Enzo down, we the fans should not try to pull him down. If we keep pulling all the best players in the world down, there would be no good players in the world again.

Lionel Messi has missed a penalty before. Christiano Ronaldo has missed a penalty before, Lampard has missed a penalty before. When a player misses a penalty, the team continues, and keep working hard.

If you have played football before, you will know that any player can miss a penalty.

First half we were fast dynamic and all over them they simply could cope...

Second half, either they changed something or we did, we then started playing tippy tappy around the half way line and paid the price.

And if that's the best Caicedo can do, we've wasted our money again.

Would Lukaku have helped us in the first half? I think he'd still be at the half way line when Sterling was putting the ball in the box for someone to slot home.

 

Disappointed as i am to lose, i thought we were on top for most of the game, we should have had our penalty retaken for infringement into the box, if that goes in we probably go on to win.

We should accept without James in the team we need to go to a back four and start playing with someone to partner Jackson and take advantage of the work Jackson does. But injuries are killing that idea, we need Broj and Nuk back.

As good as pre-season was, it's easy to forget just how poor we were for pretty much the entirety of last season. We could, and perhaps should have won yesterday. On another day it's 2-1 to us at HT and we control the game 2nd half.
Goes to show this side is still a work in progress, what's most frustrating is the way these injuries keep stifling us.

I think we need have a little patience we are still bringing in players and need to  respect Pochettino will address the issues.

Although under new owners we again seem to be bringing in new players when the season has already kicked off, which does rather reduce the effectiveness of pre-season training.

9 hours ago, I am a CPA said:

There's no team I hate more than Wet Spam.

I never bet on matches but I was so tempted to bet on Ward Prowse and Paqueta scoring/assisting, it was just so obvious those were going to happen.

Watch any other Wet Spam match and you'll never see them play the way they do against us. Areola never saving a penalty before saving Enzo's, Antonio only scoring 5 league goals last season but scoring a belter. There's some curse upon the club I'm convinced.

Also why is Emerson always angry and hyped up when he plays against us? Mate you couldn't hack it at Chelsea and the only reason you're a professional footballer is because you're left footed, you would be flipping burgers if you were right footed. Scrub of a player.

F*ck Wet Spam.

I don’t really hate them as much as I do other teams as Liverpool or Spurs, but I find them a bit pathetic. They do love to wear their replica shirts and yesterday I saw a guy with a “winners” 23 replica shirt!! As if that conference league cup was worth anything!! As I say, they are a bit pathetic.

12 hours ago, Argo said:

We're struggling for goals enough without giving the opponents an extra centre half 

Your solutions? Spend another 500 m and buy more attackers + 9 ? With all this spending maybe we woud try for Saudi license to be amongst the big spenders.

13 minutes ago, strider6004 said:

I think we need have a little patience we are still bringing in players and need to  respect Pochettino will address the issues.

Although under new owners we again seem to be bringing in new players when the season has already kicked off, which does rather reduce the effectiveness of pre-season training.

You talk as if it's easy to get players. Every single club in the world is competing with us. So, no team wants to sell players to another team. 

It's difficult to get players. It takes a lot of work. That is why I keep telling fans not to pull the ones they have down. Develop them, let them become better. 

Edited August 21, 20232 yr by hephzibah

What is completely different to last season is I want to see us play. I can't wait for the GameDay. We are an exciting side to watch. I love to see Enzo doing his thing and releasing beautiful passes to attackers and controlling things. Jackson's runs are so dangerous as well. Colwill's style is also a bit unique which is exciting to see. 

We have to give this side some time. We can't expect to win every match against brilliant sides who know a trick or two.

People here seem to catch on the media narrative where we are the 1 bn Euro team. We know better what we are trying to do. Let's focus on that and don't think about what someone has cost. 

Could not watch the match unfortunately, but I had a look at the live stats at HT and thought we were going to win it eventually.

Even when West Ham were 2-1 up they had a 0.6 xG overall and 25% possession over the whole match...

I mean how the hell did it end up 3-1 in the end? 

What I wish for is that with the integration of Caicedo and Lavia into the starting line-up, we will ditch the horrific three at the back formation in favour of a 4-3-3 and Pochettino must not repeat the mistakes of last seasons' Chelsea managers and chop and change the formation every week.

Get Caicedo and Lavia in the midfield, get Mudryk on the left, Sterling/Madueke on the right, get Silva on the bench and use the same formation for 6, 7, 8 matches in a row.

Sanchez

Gusto-Disasi-Colwill-Chilwell

Enzo-Lavia-Caicedo

Sterling/Madueke-Jackson-Mudryk

Midfield is made of steel and players who work really hard, they give enough protection for the full backs and wingers to work their magic. It's time we use the speed of Mudryk and Madueke in our favour and have the full backs bomb forward more often.

Lots of good sentiments this morning, in the cold light of day we knew this is work in progress, a young inexperienced side etc etc. 

however it had to be against those bastards ! I am getting dogs abuse this morning ! 

36 minutes ago, andy said:

Lots of good sentiments this morning, in the cold light of day we knew this is work in progress, a young inexperienced side etc etc. 

however it had to be against those bastards ! I am getting dogs abuse this morning ! 

I didn't like the result against Westham especially because in that first half, I didn't even know the likes of Benrahma, Bowen, Antonio, Pacqueta and James ward Prowse (apart from his dead ball) were on the pitch.

They are not as good as us, we all know that and that is why you have to win your matches. The media and some football fans can be thoughtless at times, so you don't allow people to pull you down.

Edited August 21, 20232 yr by hephzibah

Hopefully the only good that can come out of the game yesterday is if Guardiola watched it and thought. "No way can we sign this Paqueta. Limited ability, cheat and very much up himself. No we cannot buy him because this guy is a c**t"