Unless I'm mistaken, you appear to rate Poveda's performance lower than the 2 strugglers you mention. And yet, the BBC score Poveda higher than the 2 strugglers and the whole scum team! Have a look .... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56790342 I personally think that Poveda has terrific potential. I'd like to see him get a run, because I have every confidence that even on a bad day, he'll be better than Costa. EDIT: Actually, our lowest ratings scorer (Harrison, 6.45) was higher than the whole scum team.
Disappointing match but good result. The defence is begiinning to look good.Hopefully we will begin to move up the league.Perhaps finish 6 or 7th.
Meslier - 8. One superb save from one of the many free kicks. Came for high balls. Distribution was largely good. Ayling - 8. Positioning was very good. Effort was outstanding and even had a couple of lung busting runs up the wing toward the end. Struijk - 8. Like a magnet for the ball. Looked nice and calm under pressure. Llorente - 9. Got caught wrong side but his aggressive defending and all action display was eye catching. Alioski - 8. A couple of world class tackles. Did anyone work harder? Neat and tidy in possession. Phillips - 9. Bossed it. Was everywhere. Made some good tackles some of which were wrongly deemed fouls. Picked a couple of lovely balls to get us up the pitch. Dallas - 8. Good effort levels. Decent shot. Not as influential as some games but still made us tick over in the middle. Roberts - 5. Not his best. Too many simple mistakes in possession and not too much man marking going on. Harrison - 5. Workrate never in question. Never really had the chance to get at them. Have to say that Raphinha would have gone searching for a way. Harrison didn't. Costa - 6. Looked a bit lightweight defensively but never got the fouls he sometimes deserved. Hit the roof of the net with a deflected shot and drilled a dangerous ball across the 6 yard box. Bamford - 6. Couple of nice lay offs. Couple of important clearances from corners. Workrate wasn't as intense as usual. Subs. Klich - 6. Stood his ground in the middle. Tame shot after a nice break and turn inside. Koch - 6. Stuck to the task and won the ball and passed it to a white shirt. Nothing wrong with that. Poveda - 5. Never got in to it. Needs to learn when to pass and when to take his man on.
As a side note I thought the referee team were pretty much disgraceful all game. It was as bad as I have seen this season. At times they were falling over before anyone was near them. A period of play second half summed it up when they committed 4 fouls in the space of about 15 seconds. Eventually he has to give the 4th foul and we get a free kick. Within 2 seconds he blows up for a free kick to them for a nothing foul. They were pretty much physically assaulting us yet they get that!
Be interesting to see what players Bielsa brings in because a LB in place of Alioski is a must, but as far as cover for Phillips we have it sorted now with Koch dont we? Rodrigo in place of Roberts so we just need a new No8 to replace or cover for Klich. Raphinha is a starter but Costa has to go so either Poveda as back up or Summerville. Thought Koch and Phillips were deffo needed when Pogba came on and we have to accept their players are better at times so need to go more defensive. But for a team who cant defend we aint done bad recently against top 6 clubs
Funny how we see things. I thought he did very little, like he couldn’t get into the game and I found myself screaming at the telly for him to chase a the ball down a couple of times. Roberts annoys me, I feel like he likes to showboat on the ball when a better and quicker pass is on. That said quite a few of our players did that and caught in possession. Truth is that match was like a dog with fleas but a good point. How they are second in the table, **** knows. A few quality signings and some of the U23s turn out to be as good as we hope they are and we can start thinking about going for the top six. Nothing to fear if these a the next best team in this league.
Yeah but 30yo mate and Bielsa knows he has him to play at LB, RB Both wings and AM. Bielsa has another Paul Madley but we do need a special midfielder as we need some better players to improve the team
Ward-Prowse would fit the bill and we'd have a right footed set piece taker alongside left footed Raphinha.
Boring match.....from our perspective at least we didn't lose to the scummies again. Struick, Phillips, llorente best of the bunch for us,but my oh my I nearly fell asleep it felt more like a practice match, why poveda seems to be the go to sub I can't fathom doesn't offer much for me I don't think he has the physical strength to handle it as yet, we are safe so give a go to geldhart or greenwood, come on el loco what you got to lose
Evening all, Seems a lot of negative stuff around after that performance. On the positive side, We kept a clean sheet and did not lose. We showed that we can defend, Bielsa burn out is a total myth. Pogba and maguire cost more than our whole squad. Meslier is at 20years old an excellent keeper. Our CBs are now one of our best covered areas on the pitch. Onwards and upwards a top ten finish is within our sights. MOT ALAW
Got to be looking at finishing 9th now surely finishing 8th is still not crazy to think about. Only teams to double us this season have been West Ham and Wolves and Both were very lucky in doing that. 10th Arsenal are there for the taking 11th Villa's nose bleed start to the season is now hitting home, they are probably where they deserve to be behind fecking us. I still think Spuds are catchable 6pts behind especially when we still have them to play. but they also don't have a bad run-in and that positive G/D we aren't going to overturn. but if we can beat them after beating Brighton you never know.