Amen. He had every right to be pissed off, he was brilliant and with Niasse he was forming a great partnership. As per usual, we make a negative change and we go backwards. By making this change we: a) pissed him off b) went backwards and could have thrown it away like you say c) took away his chance of scoring which would have done wonders for his confidence People were arguing he could have been injured, but he could easily get injured in training this week, so is he not going to train this week? I, personally of course, didn't get it either.
Football's an emotional game, I don't think he did anything wrong, I was happy he was pissed off, he had every right. My face was the same, couldn't believe it.
I think it was the right decision. Extra man in midfield to see out the game. How many times have opponents done it to us and it worked?
How many times did Bruce do it though in our last Premier League season when we were winning and ended up with Aluko up front on his own for the last 15 minutes. More often than not we ended up shipping a goal because we couldn't hold the ball up and ended up just sitting back and inviting the opposition onto us. One the contributors to our relegation. Sometimes it works, but it's also been proven not to work. The best form of defence is attack, and that doesn't mean you have to be taking unnecessary risks and rushing forward but if you keep a presence up the other end of the pitch and keep hold of the ball better in the oppositions half then it makes it more difficult for the opposition to score.
Well technically yes. But the point I'm making is we invited pressure and gave them the opportunity to have a fair bit of the ball deep in our half because we couldn't retain possession up top. When that happens it increases the chances of players making more costly mistakes or giving fouls away nearer our box.
you have a lot better chance of holding on to the ball with 5 in midfield than 4 whereas whether you have two up front or one doesn't make too much of a difference. Neither Hernandez or Niasse are good at holding the ball up and will lose the ball. If you have five in midfield and four in defence you can more easily pass to a free man. If there's 30 minutes to go I would agree with you but not with 8 minutes to go. Bruce would change things as soon as we got ahead.
Well that depends on the type of players you have in there, If there's one thing Meyler is good at it's giving the ball away! With 2 strikers you stop teams playing how they want as they don't have time to bring the ball out of defence and into midfield without anyone challenging them. It hands the impetuous to the opposition in my opinion. I don't necessarily mean Hernandez and Niasse as hold up strikers but in terms of if you hoof the ball up and there's 2 strikers up top you've got a greater chance of either winning the ball or forcing the opposition into a hurried clearance. Not just one running around like a headless chicken as the other team pass it round them comfortably.
No, but he could have kept doing what he had started doing really well with Niasse. He clearly thought he had enough in the tank, so why not. Going defensive, as we did, can work, I agree, but it didn't, did it? Instead of looking for the third we went onto the back foot and shipped a goal. Pudding Proof Of.
There's something wrong if a player who isn't injured isn't pi$$ed off when he gets the shepherd's hook. Its called human nature..
