A mate of mine excused tonight by saying we had half of our first team out. He was kind of right in that we maybe missed Raul a bit, missed Podence, and Dendonker was unavailable - but none of those would really be near a top six team. If you're missing them, then you're a midtable team.
I can forgive Sa for his foul - he's a front foot keeper, and we mostly are thankful for that. Every now and again it's going to bite him on the arse. We haven't signed a first team ready centre half for four years, and that's where the goal came from. Two defenders outdone by a through ball to Chris fucking Wood ffs. Sa's whole game is based on coming out quickly and anticipating/guessing what's happening next, and he's going to get stuff wrong. There's a reason he cost £6.5m and is uncapped, and that's because he goes shit or bust probably too often, but he's still worth keeping for me.
That's our best central three, without a doubt. They were all mugged off tonight. Yet Lage looks like his best opportunity for success is buying one quick centre half and then hoping one of the other 5 can step up.
There was a lot of shit in that eleven. Fabio is improving but still wouldn't make a mark in the championship. I got slaughtered for slating Hwang around Christmas, but the fucker is no better than Marlon Harewood. He's now even stopped making runs in behind because we never look for a through ball. He's fucking useless.
Trincao isn't worth a tenth of his purchase clause. He'll be OK in a dominant team in a poor league, but that's about it.
And then we have to play cundle in what must be the shortest midfield in premier league history.
All of this is on the board.
We have Hwang because Sellars has been desperate to get a signing in that doesn't involve Jorge. We have Silva and Trincao, who will at the absolute best be servicable in the PL in 2024/25. We've got Dendonker, who's shit at football, as our third midfielder - and potentially our 'senior' player in the position next season...Dendonker was actually missed, and that's a failing. We're so fucking puny.
If Fosun are happy with us bobbing along between 13th and 8th, I'm actually quite happy with that. Buy young, sell at a profit, play nice football and occasionally finish 7th, that's fucking brilliant.
But for fucks sake stop talking about becoming elite and all that bollocks. 6th was a real possibility, but they fucked it in January. But still after that he's come out with the bullshit of planning for us to be one of the big boys. Just stop lying. Admit that our ambition is occasional European football. That was beyond our wildest dreams 6 years ago, and we'd be happy with that. But constantly talking the big game but then passing up opportunities in the transfer window is just a massive bollocks. We haven't signed a fit-for-purpose centre half or midfielder for four years. FOUR YEARS. It's not even like we've had a swing and a miss. We haven't even tried. We've had players punching above their weight, that would barely get a kick for even West Ham, getting dozens of starts for us. We've chained ourselves to a formation purely because we haven't got a single central defender that any of are confident of in a back four. We've got three midfielders, one who's too good for us, one who's too good for us but we're not seemingly too bothered if he stays, and one who's terrible with a ball at his feet.
We rely on Podence, who is the dictionary definition of unreliable, and is as likely to be anonymous as he is to assist. But if he *doesnt* play then its pretty much guaranteed that nothing is going to happen, as Trincao, and Hwang, and Adama are all, for one reason or another, fucking useless. And then Neto, like jota before him, feels like he needs to everything on his own, because it's almost pointless passing to one the schmucks up top with him.
Bruno...you can tell his only experience is with a dominant team. He has plan A, and if that doesn't work he'll to plan A with slightly different players, and too fucking late anyway. It's like he feels he's done his work by kick off, and of they don't perform it's not his fault. After 15 minutes today, you could see it was crying out for us to put three in midfield. Wingbacks were offering nothing, so even just try pushing Saiss or coady into midfield to try and get a grip on the game. Just do something, even though your squad is nowhere near where you want it.
I think he's clearly a good coach, but I've seen little evidence that he's a good tactician. And with such a small squad, with so few options, he's on a bit of a hiding to nothing. But ffs at least send a bastard message. Show that you're trying be something other than Nuno without the credit. We've seen he can set a team up to go for it, and I know he needs players but today was set up for a 0-0 at best; and it was especially clear after twenty minutes.
I don't think he's going to get proper money for centre back until he proves that the ones he's got can't play in a 4. He may as well start that now, because the season is done
