7 minutes ago, loz said:

It would  be utterly pointless replacing Poch. The next manager would be in the same position. Inheriting a disjointed squad with far too many bang average players.

I can't remotely agree with the claim its a squad of talented individuals. (Depending on the standard you are looking for).

Jackson, Broja, Mudryk, Cucurella, and Sanchez are a long way from talented if we are remotely ever interested in rebuilding to be a top 6 club. 

Sterling and Gallagher slightly better players but far too inconsistent.  

If we hadn't pissed so much money up the wall already I'd have seven of them at the exit door in the summer. However unfortunately we can't replace that number of players and we will get a pittance back for them

 

I'd throw Enzo, Madueke, and DIsasi in there too.

Just now, Swerved said:

I'd throw Enzo, Madueke, and DIsasi in there too.

I'm willing to give Enzo more time but do accept he is nowhere near living up to expectations. He has talent but isn't showing it. The ones I listed will never be good enough.

Missed nearly all the of match so I can’t even analyse the match properly but I’m not surprised we lost TBH.

We have the attacking talent of a team around 15th in the league, so that’s roughly where we’ll end up.

Unless the board do something about it in January.

We’ve got a team that would run away with the U23’s league IMO.

But promoting all of that U23’s team together,all at once, and expecting it to compete for a top 4 spot is the equivalent of what we’ve done.

Unbelievably naive from the board.

 

Edited December 10, 20232 yr by 2211

Im pretty confident that we will tear the Championship a new one next season

15 minutes ago, loz said:

It would  be utterly pointless replacing Poch. The next manager would be in the same position. Inheriting a disjointed squad with far too many bang average players.

I can't remotely agree with the claim its a squad of talented individuals. (Depending on the standard you are looking for).

Jackson, Broja, Mudryk, Cucurella, and Sanchez are a long way from talented if we are remotely ever interested in rebuilding to be a top 6 club. 

Sterling and Gallagher slightly better players but far too inconsistent.  

If we hadn't pissed so much money up the wall already I'd have seven of them at the exit door in the summer. However unfortunately we can't replace that number of players and we will get a pittance back for them

 

When you say bang average you mean bang average in our team. Most of the players we have bought are massive talents or already shown their level even though Young. Put each and every one into a functioning team and you know why we bought them for the money we did. 

This is why a master plan which has long terms goals is key. If Pochettino had 70% of the players available that were injured I feel we might be right up there in the CL spots. 

We can't force things short term.

Injuries have definitely derailed any plans and ideas Poch had, no doubt.

The thing that worries me is the lack of style on the pitch, despite the injuries. At least a certain structure should be visible, which sadly just isn’t there. 

It was not realistic to expect us to light the world ablaze immediately, but in 4 months we have not seen even a glimpse of an idea of how we want to play. 

Shame, really. Hope Poch manages to sort it out.

Edited December 10, 20232 yr by dR3

1 minute ago, dR3 said:

Injuries have definitely derailed any plans and ideas Poch had, no doubt.

The thing that worries me is the lack of style on the pitch, despite the injuries. At least a certain structure should be visible, which sadly just isn’t there. 

It was not realistic to expect us to light the world ablaze immediately, but in 4 months we have not seen even a glimpse of an idea of how we want to play. 

Shame, really. Hope Poch manages to sort it out.

I think we have a pretty clear system. High pressing, high block, build from the back and have most of the possession. We just need consistency with players and results.

5 minutes ago, evissy said:

I think we have a pretty clear system. High pressing, high block, build from the back and have most of the possession. We just need consistency with players and results.

But wouldn’t you agree that those terms too vague? Poch’s stamp is what’s missing, every manager implements these systems in their own way, which is what I meant by certain structure/idea. 

Yes we dominate possession and build from the back, but to me it looks like just going through the motions without a clear goal in mind. 

About the high press, we do not look like a unit at all when trying to win the ball back, it’s every man for himself at the moment. 

25 minutes ago, evissy said:

When you say bang average you mean bang average in our team. Most of the players we have bought are massive talents or already shown their level even though Young. Put each and every one into a functioning team and you know why we bought them for the money we did. 

This is why a master plan which has long terms goals is key. If Pochettino had 70% of the players available that were injured I feel we might be right up there in the CL spots. 

We can't force things short term.

That's stretching it. Mudryk had scored a handful of goals in the Ukranian league. Jackson drifed around in Spain before Villareal were reach to punt him to Bournemouth for £20m.  We panic bought Enzo abd Caciedo for crazy money.. Cucurella ill admit  I rated at Brighton but we still massively over paid for him.

 

Let's face it we are up there with Chinese takeaways and carwash companies when it comes to suspect money laundering 

2 hours ago, Jackbuchanan said:

All the attacks, all the possession, no goals, they score with their only chances. Standard Chelsea since we lost Tuchel.

 

a big fan of him but this is really bad

 

Another thing, how comes every youth/new player scores there first goal against us?

15 minutes ago, loz said:

That's stretching it. Mudryk had scored a handful of goals in the Ukranian league. Jackson drifed around in Spain before Villareal were reach to punt him to Bournemouth for £20m.  We panic bought Enzo abd Caciedo for crazy money.. Cucurella ill admit  I rated at Brighton but we still massively over paid for him.

 

Let's face it we are up there with Chinese takeaways and carwash companies when it comes to suspect money laundering 

I agree. You could maybe make the argument about Enzo, Cucurella and Caicedo. But the most of the rest have been bought for large sums on potential alone. Mudryk barely had a season for Shakhtar for example. Most of the South American players remind me of those that we used to sign back in Roman's days - Nathan, Kennedy etc. Maybe we will get lucky and 1 or 2 will work out, but basing the entire transfer policy around this strategy is lunacy. Even the resale value is questionable because if they don't become stars we are unlikely to even get the transfer fee back. 

Inexperienced, project, young, injuries, potential, improvement, journey.

Third best team in West London, £1 billion, 12th, FFP investigation, absolutely sh*t.

good rant from Younes

For my money there were some bright spots today.

I actually thought the defence did quite well and looked mobile. Disasi and Badiashile were fine without Silva, the goals scored were not down to them and the distribution was ok although a bit laboured but I could excuse that for first time out. 

Mudryck also did ok, although its true the final ball could still be better, but he consistently created space and he and Cucurella worked well together

The problem was basically Broja and midfield. Enzo, Caicedo and Gallagher just aren't running the midfield, and particularly without the ball. Enzo does ok with the ball but he's obviously playing too far forward, he is so not an attacking midfielder. But his main problem is he's useless without the ball.  Gallagher doesn't do enough in attack either.   Palmer didn't look anything like  a winger he's always playing inside like a no 10, so all the attach was down the left or trying to get Broja into space down the right. Broja in this game was worse than Jackson.  We have a midfield that can't score goals, cant create much for the attack and the midfield is not much good defensively.

Edited December 10, 20232 yr by ozboy

3 minutes ago, ozboy said:

 

I actually thought the defence did quite well and looked mobile. Disasi and Badiashile were fine without Silva, the goals scored were not down to them and the distribution was ok although a bit laboured but I could excuse that for first time out. 

 

The first goal was entirely on the defence. Badiashielle firstly loses his man in behind him, then after Sanchez makes the save, he just stands there instead of getting behind the keeper and onto the line, like quality defenders would have done. Disasi did his best go let their attackers in behind as well.

2 hours ago, Gonoir Beniashile said:

I thought Mudryk was very good today. 

Shows how much our standards have dropped.

Well. The clown show rolls on. Whoever thought it was a good idea to go into this season with Jackson and Broja as our strike force needs to be sacked, especially once it became clear how serious Nkunku’s injury was. We’ve got a chance to rectify it in the coming window, but it’s all a bit late as the damage has already been done. 

Replace Poch Now and the reasons for doing it are

1 New ideas 

2 new backroom coaches that are not pochs family and are skilled in here field defence attack set piece  etc

3 Players are given a fresh outlook and a chance to play the position they are for

4 show the board how things should be done 

5 build a spine in the team something we dont have at present

 

 

Edited December 10, 20232 yr by dellaw
adding

1 hour ago, Zeta said:

The first goal was entirely on the defence. Badiashielle firstly loses his man in behind him, then after Sanchez makes the save, he just stands there instead of getting behind the keeper and onto the line, like quality defenders would have done. Disasi did his best go let their attackers in behind as well.

I will rewatch that. For me admittedly very early in the morning here in Sydney it was Conor losing the ball in midfield leaving lots of space after which it gets hard. As for getting onto the line, maybe so, but I don't think many would have been in position after a save in that moment. But I'll watch it again.

Another predictable and inevitable lose, and Everton didn't have to play out of their skins to do it. This is fast becoming a repeat of last season, everyone looked lost on the field, manager looked helpless, injuries keep piling up, a few more expensive wonder kids to come next month, big boss man loses his sh1t, and we could have another former Chelsea great to bail us out of ruins his management career. Poch made some good changes for the game, Broja was good and gave a much better performance than Jackson, Mudryk tried hard but can't cover lack of skills with effort and pace, defence was solid until that moment. The 200M plus midfield didn't work, the first goal was another case of running through our midfield with either Caicedo or Enzo got close to make a tackle. I don't care what the stats say, but Enzo has no shooting ability, him going higher on the field is worse than Kante playing as a 10. Jackson came on and straight away losing possession, even getting a bench spot is being kind to him.

We won't have a fully fit team. Lavia and Nkunku are the second coming of Christ apparently, but let's be real when they come back 2 more will take their place on the medical table. 

I am getting more and more confused with Poch's tactics every matchweek. WHAT IS THE PLAN? This doesn't look like a properly coached side. 

Well, what do we do now that it turns out Broja is even more useless than Jackson? Even if we bring in a striker in the transfer window how long do we give them to settle into the side? If it’s Toney he’s not played in months. And anyone outside the Premier League is going to need time to adapt. By which time the season will be almost over and we’ll likely be stuck in mid table mediocrity, assuming we don’t collapse into the relegation zone. 

Watched Barcelona Girona just now. Some wonderful football and tactics from Girona. All of Girona players worth less than one Enzo. Hungry, technical, good structure. The highest player worth around 22 mil euros.  We should take a close look at their left-back Michael number 3.  Worth 15 mil Euros but would be an upgrade on anything we have.

3 hours ago, evissy said:

I think we have a pretty clear system. High pressing, high block, build from the back and have most of the possession. We just need consistency with players and results.

Where do you actually see this high pressing? We've seen some early in the season but in the last couple of games it's been non-existent for most of the time.

Today it was the same script all over again, not for a single moment I thought we were going to score. Same, predictable attacking patterns with no individual quality to rely on either. We complain all the time about our attackers not finishing chances yet today we created zero, and it's not for the first time. Not to mention 14 (!?) goals conceded over the last 5 games, of course the worst record in the league. That probably deserves a whole topic.

What I see here is a mediocre team, stacked with inexperienced players of limited potential, that lacks leadership and most importantly, hunger and desire to represent this club. I genuinely expect nothing but that at this point as realistically we don't have much to play for this season. And it's the manager's responsibility. The same manager who stubbornly insists on a style of play that doesn't work, puts players out of positions and doesn't seem to have a plan B.

I wonder how do you expect us to find consistency? Next week it's Sheffield who've got Wilder back, so be sure they're gonna commit to it and fight for every single ball. It has all the makings of another frustrating afternoon. After that it's three games in six days, with a paper thin squad, and I wouldn't bet against even more players getting sidelined.