At half time I was so bored and depressed I was in half a mind to switch it off. The team looked totally disinterested and there was no urgency.

It was great to see an improvement in the second half with very good goals from Joao Pedro. I still think we were slow and lacked penetrative passes, other than Palmer's great through ball for the third goal.

Delighted to see us show some bottle and come back to win it. I'm still not sold on the football, but can't really expect Rosenior to effectively change our style quickly.

Said when he was appointed, immediate respect if he includes Santos in the team to partner Caicedo in a pivot. Maresca allowing Enzo this brazen free role where he had zero positional discipline is what made everything so imbalanced.

He's also doing well managing the second half despite the poor quality we have on the bench thanks to the sporting directors.

I guess that i am in a minority but i really didn't feel that it was that bad last night.

I'm always going to have a problem with the fairy Gusto on the pitch, but i thought that we started brightly and found a lot of space between the lines, including time to collect the ball.

This team will always be hamstrung with their lack of pride in their own personal touch and control of the ball. For a player to not be able to take a single active touch from a pass when not under pressure, taking 2 or sometimes 3 touches, is criminal and should be seized upon. Listen to Terry and the standards expected by Mourinho. But there was still space for the players to receive the ball and advance on the opposition, leading to the free kick and resulting penalty.

They were left with long punts into Hojlund but i felt that Fofana was dealing with him well, even though i didn't like the number of 1 v 1s that we were finding ourselves in.

I also felt that Neto was bloody awful and Fernandez was non existent in the central areas which allowed Napoli to take the space and exert pressure on us. Cucurella kept getting caught between doing his job and covering the job that Neto wasn't doing. However @GarnachoCheese called it during the game. Cucurella's form is going under the radar at the moment but there are questions coming.

I don't even really blame Fofana for the equaliser tbh. For me, Caicedo loses the ball and it is immediately pushed to 20 yards from our goal. I think that Fofana takes a position to cover the space and block off Vergara and i genuinely think that he is not expecting Caicedo to lunge from side on to try and retrieve the ball. Vergara rides the challenges, but Fofana is wrong footed and the guy is then able to use momentum to roll him and get a shot off.

Second goal is a sh*t show, but the changes that Rosenior made were all productive. I even felt that the Estevao substitution made sense. Gittens left me scratching my head as i probably would have done Garnacho then instead.

But generally i didn't think it was that bad. I dread to think what kind of horses arse Maresca would have made of this game. May have won but it would have been eye watering, brain dead keep ball.

I felt like he got away with one yesterday and we were fortunate to get the result that we got.

Trying to match Conte with WB System is just suicide (We of all fans should know), plus only having a singular Natural CB start the game was bizarre. I felt changes should've been made to the system at HT but he waited until the 58th Minute to get Chalobah on and hook Gusto.

Bringing on Gittens and Garnacho with both occupying the left flank felt a little disjointed and resulted in subbing a sub (Which wont help Gittens with his confidence). Thankfully a dodgy Pen and a screamer helped us secure the 3 points in the end.

He is a young Manager and we've seen our fair share of horror shows in Management from Maresca, the only thing we can hope for is that he learns from his mistakes and keeps improving.

Agree with all of the above @WhiteWall .

When they perform like they did last night, Neto and Gusto are a waste of time having them on the pitch. Neither offered anything.

Was frustrating when Napoli got on top, bearing in mind the number of players they were missing. Glad a fit KDB and Billy Gilmour weren't on the pitch as it could have been a different story. But at times, they still opened us up at will. In contrast, we did our usual painful passing backwards and sideways and HT couldn't come soon enough.

Thankfully LR reacted and Palmer helped change the game (TBH, anyone would have been an improvement on Neto) and then the other changes also helped (always good to see Gusto exit the pitch). Even applauded bringing on Badiashile to combat the late aerial threat of Lukaku. Had to be Gittens or Garnacho to come off as both are too light-weight and it nearly cost us with Garnacho losing the ball on the edge of our box. But all in all, a decent(ish) performance and result.

Just want to see us passing the ball better with a lot more purpose. The return to fitness of Palmer plus Santos and hopefully Lavia can only help with that.

Edited January 29Jan 29 by Nibs

He is still inexperienced and will make mistakes. But at least he is willing to change it up when he sees something is not working. I am sure there will be some inconsistent performances and results but he has picked up some good results and seems to be getting much better output from Joao Pedro among others.

We would of lost the Napoli match if £land Pep was in charge.

He is quite good at game management, I’ll give him that.

But stop starting games with stinkers.

I don’t want to see Garnacho, Badiashille or Delap again for a long time.

There is no way he is picking these starting line ups, I refuse to believe it at this point. There is no way he would be doing exactly the same thing Maresca was doing unless he was getting instructed to do it. Somebody else is having a say. My opinion of Rosenior will go up massively he tells them to f**k off. What are the owners going to do? sack him?

Probably won't last but I'm happy enough collecting wins.

Don't want to sour the feeling just yet

54 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

There is no way he is picking these starting line ups, I refuse to believe it at this point. There is no way he would be doing exactly the same thing Maresca was doing unless he was getting instructed to do it. Somebody else is having a say. My opinion of Rosenior will go up massively he tells them to f**k off. What are the owners going to do? sack him?

Me too out he will also be out of a job sharpestly too haha

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

There is no way he is picking these starting line ups, I refuse to believe it at this point. There is no way he would be doing exactly the same thing Maresca was doing unless he was getting instructed to do it. Somebody else is having a say. My opinion of Rosenior will go up massively he tells them to f**k off. What are the owners going to do? sack him?

If you are right, and it makes sense that you are, then tonight's game has to be the clearest indication that they are wrong and he is right. So fck off and let him do his job.

Ok Liam - whatever you are thinking for the next game, just pick your best 11 from the start. Napoli and West Ham were fun, but don't make it so complicated!

If it is Egbhali dictating the lineups the best thing Liam could do is start as he’s instructed to and then make the relevant substitutions 30 seconds into the match.

It would send a very clear message to the fans and get everyone on side against the common enemy.

Napoli and West Ham are not world beaters. The selection errors need to stop or we will get punished. Better teams will be out of sight by half time. LR needs to learn quickly or we will suffer the consequences. We have been fortunate so far.

He needs to stop pissing about with the lineups unless he’s the blueco puppet most think he is. We aren’t coming back from two behind every game, and that first half was the worst I’ve seen in years.

The starting line ups leave a lot to be desired. Whoever is behind it whether it's the coach or someone else, they need to stop putting the team's chances at risk.

On the results alone, Rosenior has done well so far. Most importantly, he has accumulated 9 points out of a possible 9 in the Premier League.

Edited February 1Feb 1 by Jezz

Maybe I'm naive but I genuinely think this tinkering is Rosenior trying to keep players fit given we have a semi final on Tuesday and we played Napoli on Wednesday.

I've said before that right now I'm happy to just stagger across the line and focus on playing style and what have you next season.

That being said, that first half was complete dog sh*t and I hope I never have to witness us playing like that again at home to a team like West Ham.

Interesting interview after the game. He said at half time tactics went out the window and it became about personality and quality. I don’t know if that is exciting or terrifying, but there is more ability there than we often get to see.

A positive is the immediate form he’s been able to get out of J Pedro, Enzo, Santos, James, Estevao (could argue the latter two had ok form also). Imagine if he actually improves players. Be good if he can get Caicedo and Palmer back to their respective levels.

On to the next game. Lots of emotion in the club right now, and LR will need all his EQ to keep this lot balanced.

I hope LR now understands the fact we have known for a long time: Badiashile, Gittens and Garnacho just aren't PL level players.

3 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Interesting interview after the game. He said at half time tactics went out the window and it became about personality and quality. I don’t know if that is exciting or terrifying, but there is more ability there than we often get to see.

A positive is the immediate form he’s been able to get out of J Pedro, Enzo, Santos, James, Estevao (could argue the latter two had ok form also). Imagine if he actually improves players. Be good if he can get Caicedo and Palmer back to their respective levels.

On to the next game. Lots of emotion in the club right now, and LR will need all his EQ to keep this lot balanced.

Well that tells me everything, that the tactics these players have been playing for the past 2 years is hurting them, not improving them. Build the tactics around the players you have, don't force them into a way of playing they are clearly not comfortable with.

2 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Well that tells me everything, that the tactics these players have been playing for the past 2 years is hurting them, not improving them. Build the tactics around the players you have, don't force them into a way of playing they are clearly not comfortable with.

Given nothing seems to have changed in the style of play from Maresca to Rosenior, I think we probably have to point fingers at the club again. Style of play is usually decided by directors of football, so that there is continuity if the manager/coach changes.

Hopefully Liam is the one who will win the internal battle and get S&W deservedly sacked

6 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Interesting interview after the game. He said at half time tactics went out the window and it became about personality and quality. I don’t know if that is exciting or terrifying, but there is more ability there than we often get to see.

A positive is the immediate form he’s been able to get out of J Pedro, Enzo, Santos, James, Estevao (could argue the latter two had ok form also). Imagine if he actually improves players. Be good if he can get Caicedo and Palmer back to their respective levels.

On to the next game. Lots of emotion in the club right now, and LR will need all his EQ to keep this lot balanced.

So, if the first half was him trying to implement his tactics, he is just following Maresca’s cookbook or basically following someone else’s (SDs or Egbahlis) orders. And, if that is how he wants the team to play, we’re set for another borefest of a coach.

7 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Interesting interview after the game. He said at half time tactics went out the window and it became about personality and quality. I don’t know if that is exciting or terrifying, but there is more ability there than we often get to see.

A positive is the immediate form he’s been able to get out of J Pedro, Enzo, Santos, James, Estevao (could argue the latter two had ok form also). Imagine if he actually improves players. Be good if he can get Caicedo and Palmer back to their respective levels.

On to the next game. Lots of emotion in the club right now, and LR will need all his EQ to keep this lot balanced.

Tactics went out the window? Tosh. The second half saw the changes that fixed the original selection balls up.