You sound worried, and I am too! All the positives are exactly that but don’t win you much. The worry for me is that the qualities that win things are the very things we’re missing right now: solid defence and strength in depth. I hope you have Dan Kennett on again soon. I’m looking forward to hearing the two of you reviewing the current situation.
Yeah but I’m still very conscious that we haven’t actually started playing meaningful games yet. Mac and Grav haven’t played together. It could easily be a case of starting the season and looking great from the off. Tough to call right now.
While calling Bournemouth tricky is a fair assessment, I feel that game in particular will be a good time to play them.
Huijsen has gone and Zabarnyi is following suit, so they will have a new centre back partnership against our fluid attack, (as well as a new left back and keeper) and we beat them twice last season.
Chances are they will score at Anfield as the attacking side of their game should still be functioning well, combined with our awkward looking defending, but if they stop us scoring multiple times I will be surprised.
Likewise probably not a bad time to go Newcastle either, certainly not an easy game by any means, but I suspect we will want to put the Carabao Cup defeat to bed and (depending on their result against Villa), they might have a big downer summer to contend with.
The Arsenal game concerns me most timing wise. Obviously it’s a very tough game anyway, but the timing of it this season probably suits them more than us.
Our left had an ambiguous game. Offensively we had the most success on that side, but at the same time we were the most vulnerable there. We were unable to restrict Munoz as receiver and Wharton as distributor. Munoz all game had space and time on the ball, our line must have been uncharacteristically bad positioned. Gakpo being Munoz’ designated tracker looks to be a bad matchup and going forward might not be a good strategic role for him when we come up against flying fullbacks.
We controlled Eze well, but in turn Wharton was unmatched. Who of Szobo or Wirtz should have picked him up?
Spot on Josh! One more thing I’ll add is our defensive set pieces - I don’t know what your thoughts are here, but our first 11 looks very small in comparison to the PL elite. Teams like Arsenal & Newcastle are surely going to target that on corners, and I’m not sure we have a solution available.
True! But Frimpong, Kerkez, Wirtz, and Macca are. My concern is mainly around how Newcastle were able to target Macca in the Carabao Cup final, and how repeatable that might be against full backs who aren’t exactly going to win their aerials + midfielders who are primarily technicians.
You sound worried, and I am too! All the positives are exactly that but don’t win you much. The worry for me is that the qualities that win things are the very things we’re missing right now: solid defence and strength in depth. I hope you have Dan Kennett on again soon. I’m looking forward to hearing the two of you reviewing the current situation.
Yeah but I’m still very conscious that we haven’t actually started playing meaningful games yet. Mac and Grav haven’t played together. It could easily be a case of starting the season and looking great from the off. Tough to call right now.
While calling Bournemouth tricky is a fair assessment, I feel that game in particular will be a good time to play them.
Huijsen has gone and Zabarnyi is following suit, so they will have a new centre back partnership against our fluid attack, (as well as a new left back and keeper) and we beat them twice last season.
Chances are they will score at Anfield as the attacking side of their game should still be functioning well, combined with our awkward looking defending, but if they stop us scoring multiple times I will be surprised.
Likewise probably not a bad time to go Newcastle either, certainly not an easy game by any means, but I suspect we will want to put the Carabao Cup defeat to bed and (depending on their result against Villa), they might have a big downer summer to contend with.
The Arsenal game concerns me most timing wise. Obviously it’s a very tough game anyway, but the timing of it this season probably suits them more than us.
Our left had an ambiguous game. Offensively we had the most success on that side, but at the same time we were the most vulnerable there. We were unable to restrict Munoz as receiver and Wharton as distributor. Munoz all game had space and time on the ball, our line must have been uncharacteristically bad positioned. Gakpo being Munoz’ designated tracker looks to be a bad matchup and going forward might not be a good strategic role for him when we come up against flying fullbacks.
We controlled Eze well, but in turn Wharton was unmatched. Who of Szobo or Wirtz should have picked him up?
Spot on Josh! One more thing I’ll add is our defensive set pieces - I don’t know what your thoughts are here, but our first 11 looks very small in comparison to the PL elite. Teams like Arsenal & Newcastle are surely going to target that on corners, and I’m not sure we have a solution available.
True! But Frimpong, Kerkez, Wirtz, and Macca are. My concern is mainly around how Newcastle were able to target Macca in the Carabao Cup final, and how repeatable that might be against full backs who aren’t exactly going to win their aerials + midfielders who are primarily technicians.
Sorry but, Virgil, Ibu, Ryan, Cody and Hugo, are not at all small...!! The opposite, i'd say.