21 Apr 2024 12:25:19
Yesterday felt like De Ja Vu again at Wembley.
I think our last 7 visits to Wembley we have been the better team created the majority of chances and ended up losing.
Interestingly out of our last 7 visits we have only scored 1 goal and that was against Arsenal back in the 2020 FA Cup final.
It is evident that we need a proven goal scorer to put our glorious opportunities that we create away.
I think our overall performance yesterday was actually really good and the players need to take a lot from it.
A few shout outs from yesterday thought Chalobah was quality I would like to see him and Colwill next year. Id much rather we keep him and look to move out Badashille and Disasi. Gusto just his usual quality self. Caceido played well. Palmer had a good game as well created chances and was a handful.
I know Jackson is coming in for criticism and rightfully so as he missed 4 good chances but in fairness to the lad he works his socks off and is a menace up top. I next year would like to see him off the left, Mudryk playing in 10 and Palmer on the right with a new striker up top.
I think the only mistake Poch made yesterday was starting Gallagher at left midfield and not in the middle with Caceido especially after their performance against Everton. Enzo offered nothing and isn't the right fit for our side and should have been pulled off earlier. (I do rate his desire and commitment playing through an injury and I hope he proves me wrong) .
All in all we have a really good young squad who are improving as the season goes on. Due to their inexperience there will be freak results and games we should win that we don't. With time the players will get better at closing out games and being more composed when big moments come in matches. I think a bit of fine tuning in the summer with a few good additions and few exits we have the potential to be right up there and compete with the best.
KTBFFH.
21 Apr 2024 12:42:14
whitey. I agree with virtually every part of your post including playing Gallagher on the left but to be fair he worked hard and did his job well enough in support of Cucarella.
21 Apr 2024 12:50:57
whitey, I keep saying Enzo is being asked to play to deep. If the club do decide to sell Gallagher I think he will play in that role.
21 Apr 2024 13:06:24
100% agree with your whole post Whitey. The decision to play Conor on the left wing sums up Poch. Why change the side that demolished Everton? Conor and Moises should have played central and Enzo left on the bench. 3 things cost us yesterday, the above decision from Poch to change a winning team, the ref not giving a stonewall penalty and Jackson.
21 Apr 2024 13:50:37
Yeah agree Tom Im not too sure what his best position is. Earlier on in the season we played him as a 10 and it didn’t really work out either.
Exactly that G8 someone once said to me never change a winning team. If we keep changing the first 11 how can we build any sort of consistency.
21 Apr 2024 14:47:01
Thanks G8 your post said exactly what I'd been thinking. Changing things from Monday night was a v big mistake if IMHO most importantly dampening the attacking threat of CP as a number 10 with CG and MC breaking up threats as number 6s and Mudryk offering pace on opposite dide to NM. Either he or NM able to offer support on attack and CP tucked in behind.
CP has been our main attacking threat yet was v quiet yesterday and Far too seldom especially in second half offering a threat. with Jackson on other hand sometimes too isolated on our counters. Or so it seemed to me.
21 Apr 2024 15:11:38
In a feelings sense it seems obvious that you wouldn't change the side that thrashed Everton, but come on guys. Everton and City barely even seem to be playing the same sport. Poch was absolutely right to – do you really think you can afford to play Mudryk on the left against a better side like City? He simply doesn't defend 90% of the time. Seems to have no idea where the passing lanes are, nor how to block them. Against City that's a HUGE deal, because they'll simply funnel everything down that side. Cucurella isn't good enough defensively to be able to deal with it. We created 21 chances before Mudryk came on, and finished 0. How many chances did we create in the 20 minutes after Mudryk came on? (This being a Mudryk with fresh legs. )
21 Apr 2024 15:59:49
EdW you may have a point but didn't you think that CP pretty anonymous if especially in second half and he is our most likely finsiher of chances? The question for me was how could you get him into those positions far more often than we/ Poch did last night?
21 Apr 2024 16:20:21
Totally disagree with you Edw but that is why this is a banter page.
21 Apr 2024 16:29:44
Gallagher didn’t create a lot but he did his job better than Mudryk would or could ever do it. His support of Cucarella was good tactics by Poch.
Teams will be changed depending on the opposition but this season with us it’s been predominantly come about because of injuries.
21 Apr 2024 16:52:19
JBS, yes, I absolutely agree with you RE: CP (who seemed to also be carrying a bit of an injury from the start) . It might, in hindsight, have been better to just go for it with Gallagher sitting with Caicedo in midfield. Enzo is clearly injured – playing with a sports hernia isn't ideal. Then again, we could easily have gone down a number of goals in that scenario without Conor's workrate covering Cucu.
(As an aside, something I've not seen mentioned in these discussions, but for me we should have been a goal up by the time City scored from the Grealish handball – nailed on for me as he clearly moved his hand towards the ball. Don't see why a movement down towards it is seen as less of a handball than a movement up towards it. Reminds me of the one that Soucek got away with against us last season, all because referees appear to have no common sense. Why VAR didn't tell the ref to go have a look there I can't fathom. )
G8, I respect your opinion when I read your posts so I'd be interested to hear where you disagree. I've seen Mudryk put in the effort defensively in a couple of games, and thought he was getting better at it for a while there, but it certainly doesn't come naturally to him (and he didn't do it when he came on in this game) . We created zero decent chances after his introduction to my eyes (partly that's Ben Chilwell's fault for not playing in Sterling) and I couldn't tell where on the pitch he was even playing. He only received the ball once or twice. I'm not one for writing players off – confidence is a huge part of the game, and his is clearly not there right now – but he doesn't seem to be a natural footballer despite his speed, and that free kick with the last kick of the game was. well, the less said the better really. I guess what you can argue is that he plays better from the start than he does as a sub? Curious to hear your thoughts.
21 Apr 2024 17:35:01
EdW, I thought it was a definite pen. I couldn’t understand if they were checking for handball why it wasn’t then given as a corner. I guess there is probably a rule about why they couldn’t give the corner at least.
I mentioned ages ago how Enzo has been carrying an injury that needs careful management. I think he should be applauded for putting the surgery off to support his team.
21 Apr 2024 17:45:05
It’s putting ball in the net and if palmer isn’t there we have nobody.
21 Apr 2024 19:21:54
This is me relying on memory and I’m not comparing Jackson and Drogba’s playing styles.
If I remember correctly Drogba in his first two seasons scored roughly 1 goal every 2.5 games. As things stand today and with 7 games to go this season I think, Jackson is scoring 1 goal every 3 games.
I personally think a top goalscoer should be looking at 1 goal every 2 games as a career average.
I have no idea what Drogba’s or any of our other strikers goals per game ratio was at 22. I would guess that Anelkas was pretty awesome.
21 Apr 2024 20:27:57
Edw, I'm old school and a firm believer in keeping a winning team together. Conor is not a left winger and never will be, it was foolhardy to play him there. Against Everton he bossed the midfield with Moises, why on earth would you change that to accommodate Enzo who is carrying an injury? crazy decision making by Poch. Enzo should of been left out. The central pairing should of been Conor and Moises. If he wanted to leave Mudryk out, fine, but don't move Conor out of his best position to do. If he didn't want to trust Mudryk and wanted cover for MC then play Chilly there. As for Mudryk I think he was part of the reason Palmer bossed Everton, they were very wary of his pace and it just gave Conor a little more room and time. I also think Mudryk is a confidence player, you are part of a 6 nil win and then get dropped! He has always performed better when he starts than as an impact sub. Anyway, we all see things differently and we will never know if we would of won if Poch had kept the same team.
21 Apr 2024 22:07:57
Hi G8, I think I'm with you on most of those points to be fair, and my hope before the match had been that he'd keep the same team together from the 6—0, but I guess I can see why he made the changes is all.
It was noticeable how much better we played with Gallagher and Caicedo in the centre against Everton – Enzo clearly isn't fit.
Big difference, and perhaps part of Poch's thinking, is that in the Everton game Mudryk was against Young and Coleman, whereas he'd have been up against Walker in this game, who, let's be fair, would likely have him on toast. You'd also then have Foden isolated against Cucurella, which isn't what you want. I don't know – if we'd have taken our chances people would be saying Poch got the tactics spot on, but as you say, the player you want those chances falling to right now is Palmer and he wasn't in the game in the same way as against Everton, in big part due to those changes.
The criticism is definitely valid. We've really struggled to find a good team chemistry/ balance in our starting 11 this season, lots of chopping and changing, and so when you dismantle a team, even if it's Everton (though a Sean Dyche team rarely gets dismantled like that) you should probably just keep the same lineup, injuries permitting. Perhaps that caution which made him put Gallagher out left is the 'loser' tag that Poch gets hit with. At the same time we had more than enough chances to kill that game – creating 21 chances against City is no mean feat – and it's on the players that at least one of those didn't go in. Plus a penalty that was nailed on in my view – scandalous that the ref wasn't sent to the monitor for that.
22 Apr 2024 09:01:15
I thought Poch got it spot on. He had to play Gallagher on the left because of the walking liability behind him. Gallagher's pressing won us the ball in City's half on numerous occasions and if Jackson could have taken one of a million chances, who knows?
Unfortunately, our world record fee left back had clearly decided he didn't fancy another trip to Wembley this season, setting his stall out early by passing directly to Alvarez in our box and sealed the deal by leaving Silva unmarked at the back post for absolutely no reason. Brilliant.