It did first couple of games, but it's actually very easy to stop. We were switching play well the first few times, but effective man marking out wide nullifies it easily and we had Kolasinac/Natiland-Miles staying wide, leaving 3 CB's to mark Rondon and no other attackers. We were comfortably outplayed and Rafa was comfortably out-thought. We should have had more midfielders tonight and gone 4-5-1. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Lets face it, we were **** tonight. Rafa will always keep our heads above water, we have a squad which is about 5 points better off than it should be. Our system works well to a certain extent. However, we are so limited because we dont have good enough players for e.g. we only have 2 ball playing cbs and 1 of them was suspended tonight. Why arent we playing barecca? Is he still alive? As much as we hate ashley, we have to admit rafa has made some stinkers of signings. For every good 1 there has been a bad 1.
I watched on Sky TV. We were simply outclassed by a team who are years ahead in every way. I say years ahead, but it's more about the level of player they are able to buy. They had a £70m striker on the bench and Ozil's wages could run a small country. It's simply a quality issue. There was no lack of effort from any of our players, they're simply not as good.
Parking of the bus I can just about bear, 'cos Rafa's such a likeable guy. But park the bus AND Mourinho?
Quite predictable. We had a really poor night. Hayden and Diame showed their true colours again. They couldn’t mark a domino card. They can’t pass for toffee and for every good run of 6 games, there are 10 bad ones on the way. Surprised by the slating of Ritchie, I thought he did canny overall and his commitment defensively far outstripped any other player on the pitch nevermind in black and white. A bad game for Rafa too but he has earnt a break given how he has steered us safe again. It’s simple really, we lack quality. I assume Shelvey has upset Rafa as there is no justification for leaving Diame and Hayden on. I’d have have Shelvey and Ki on after 30mins they were that bad. Rondon looked like the lazy version we had early in the season, Perez was back to his normal fanny on self and Almiron was a bit headless. All three have my sympathy though because of how we set up away. Yedlin is ****e and last night confirmed we must get a right wing back pronto. Centre half’s did ok but we will have to watch because teams are now trying to isolate Lejeune to expose his lack of pace. All in all exactly as expected (I might have even guessed correctly on the prediction league)
The same team that took the fight to Everton, but just brutally exposed against considerably better opposition. We might as well have a European league as we are going to end this season with just 3 points against top 6 opponents. 3 out of 36 available.