Loved the way he stood up Ben White, made him look like an idiot, and then whipped in a perfect cross to the back post. Haven't seen wing-play like that since Hazard/Pedro, and in general that sort of play has well and truly died in the EPL.

 

Another good performance. Has quality and is a team player. 

Really battling performance on an otherwise horrible afternoon.

Neto gets a pass for me. He was defending more than Gusto the entire match. Iwobi and Robinson ran riot on that left hand side the way Gusto was vacating his position. 

I don't understand why the f**k he does that when it's Cucurella who inverts. 

I still think he is better on the left.

15 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Neto gets a pass for me. He was defending more than Gusto the entire match. Iwobi and Robinson ran riot on that left hand side the way Gusto was vacating his position. 

I don't understand why the f**k he does that when it's Cucurella who inverts. 

I'll take it a bit further. I don't understand why Maresca builds attacking plays around the two players in the squad who are probably the least likely to score, and similarly expects to concede fewer goals by having his specialist defenders AWOL further up field than the wingers !

Probably Pep's fault, or perhaps some "clever" stuff in a FIFA coaching badges text book ... 🙂 

6 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

I'll take it a bit further. I don't understand why Maresca builds attacking plays around the two players in the squad who are probably the least likely to score, and similarly expects to concede fewer goals by having his specialist defenders AWOL further up field than the wingers !

Probably Pep's fault, or perhaps some "clever" stuff in a FIFA coaching badges text book ... 🙂 

Its been working well since the end of last season, for Spain in the Euros, and we’re second at the moment so, not too shabby so far this season. Today is more down to general attitude by players (and plans didn’t work out today and didn’t change things), but we were winning until the 80th minute. We don’t know how to kill games and I think that’s down to players rather than just tactics.

3 minutes ago, RMH said:

Its been working well since the end of last season, for Spain in the Euros, and we’re second at the moment so, not too shabby so far this season. Today is more down to general attitude by players (and plans didn’t work out today and didn’t change things), but we were winning until the 80th minute. We don’t know how to kill games and I think that’s down to players rather than just tactics.

Inverting into midfield is one thing, but expecting them to be #10s advancing into the box into goal-scoring positions is a bit of a stretch of their abilities in my book.

1 minute ago, Sexyfootball said:

Inverting into midfield is one thing, but expecting them to be #10s advancing into the box into goal-scoring positions is a bit of a stretch of their abilities in my book.

I’d agree with you but Cucurella had a great opportunity to score the second with a header. Obviously you’d prefer an attacking player to have that chance, but I’m not sure if Jackson would have scored that header. And, he only got yhe chance because of the overloading Maresca is creating. I’m not sure what’s to complain about when we’re second or higher up than we expected. It may be found out at some point but so far it’s creating a lot of chances that we’re just missing. Get those chances in and we’d be flying.

He's a very hard worker so he gets a pass but he had more in his locker at Wolves no? In attack he's been predictable and quite poor for most of the season.

Good player, but 1 goal and 2 assists in 15 matches? Yeesh.

Great squad player being forced to start due to lack of alternatives and/or stubbornness by the manager. 

6 minutes ago, Remodez said:

Great squad player being forced to start due to lack of alternatives and/or stubbornness by the manager. 

I don't think we've paid £51.3m for him to be a squad player ... 

Really does need to start delivering. Thought he'd turned the corner but after hard work, doesnt offer very much. Hudson Odoi has better stats this term. The money we have spent and players we've jettisoned.. Yikes. Honestly starting to think had we utilised and retained some of the players we've let go in the summer, we might well be pushing Liverpool a lot closer to the the top spot and have money left over to spend on areas we really need to. 

29 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

I don't think we've paid £51.3m for him to be a squad player ... 

And yet that's what he will be cause he is not good enough to be a starter long term.

52 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

I don't think we've paid £51.3m for him to be a squad player ... 

Problem is the club doesn’t want to pay big salaries for quality. The club would rather pay him £160k/w, and Sancho £100k/w instead of paying an Olise £220k/w. You then end up with him on 1 goal and 2 assists, and Sancho on 2 goals and 3 assists. You get what you pay for.

4 hours ago, ducavis said:

Problem is the club doesn’t want to pay big salaries for quality. The club would rather pay him £160k/w, and Sancho £100k/w instead of paying an Olise £220k/w. You then end up with him on 1 goal and 2 assists, and Sancho on 2 goals and 3 assists. You get what you pay for.

Because we aren’t playing Champions League football. 

4 hours ago, ducavis said:

Problem is the club doesn’t want to pay big salaries for quality. The club would rather pay him £160k/w, and Sancho £100k/w instead of paying an Olise £220k/w. You then end up with him on 1 goal and 2 assists, and Sancho on 2 goals and 3 assists. You get what you pay for.

Olise on £220k a week is way too much anyway. Im glad they didn't pay that. 

I feel for our wingers sometimes, they play so wide get very little support from full backs and get doubled up on when they get the ball. Kinda pointless crossing because we dont have many anyone good in the air and then people just judge them on g/a. Neto was playing as a RB yesterday anyway. 

Having said that Neto diving around on the floor for Fulham first goal pretending Iwobi elbowed him was so annoying, get up i knew he was faking it, embarrassing. 

15 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

Having said that Neto diving around on the floor for Fulham first goal pretending Iwobi elbowed him was so annoying, get up i knew he was faking it, embarrassing. 

It looked to me like Neto tried to take out Iwobi with a professional foul, made a mess of it, and then rolled around on the floor, the penny having dropped that he was already on a yellow and didn't want to get sent off, hence trying to distract the referee from the body chop he tried to do.

 

Reminded me when Alonso faked that head injury against United in 2018. 

7 hours ago, Gordon Bennett said:

Good player, but 1 goal and 2 assists in 15 matches? Yeesh.

That is abysmal.

2 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

It looked to me like Neto tried to take out Iwobi with a professional foul, made a mess of it, and then rolled around on the floor, the penny having dropped that he was already on a yellow and didn't want to get sent off, hence trying to distract the referee from the body chop he tried to do.

 

That was my exact read on it too. Would have been excellent sh*thousing had it not resulted in us losing the game.

2 bad results and we're back to our attackers are all sh*t and the manager doesn't know what he's doing. Can't say I'm surprised tbh.

2 hours ago, timetowaste said:

2 bad results and we're back to our attackers are all sh*t and the manager doesn't know what he's doing. Can't say I'm surprised tbh.

No one has said Maresca is clueless in this thread, and the reality is we are a one man team. If Palmer is out for a considerable period of time, we are screwed.

Surely you don’t think having 2 wingers with 2 goals and 3 assists, and 1 goal 2 assists halfway through the season is good enough.

Edited December 28, 20241 yr by ducavis