In football you make your own luck. Fabio had a clear chance and was denied by a really good save from Jordan Pickford. He did not do a lot else to justify him staying on for 77 minutes though. Samedo looked great going forward and yet he cannot appear to stop a decent left sided player from crossing the ball , which is pretty much what any Right Back needs to do as a minimum standard. I am surprised Patricio is not getting more of a mention. He looked very weak on anything in or around the six metre area. Hoever looks a good buy but why have him out on the wing? Their second goal I have not too many complaints about, bar stopping the cross by closing Gomes down more. That's a Samedo issue.
He looks no better at WBOr we bought him to play WB
If that's the level of arrogance then I think we're in trouble - I mean vision wise, not relegation. Ambition is wonderful, but it needs to be accompanied with a touch of pragmatism and reality. If that really is the outlook and I appreciate you are only speculating, then to use an Americanism that's an organisation really taking a whiff. The Summer recruitment gave me similar concerns re being young talent developers
Bang on.
we’ve lost Raul and Boly, our 2 best defenders from aerial set pieces IMO. Replacing them, last night, with one weak ass player and MGW who, as much as I like him, can no more defend a set price cross than Fabio.
Agree with all of the above. I have read “Semedo looks good going forward” a lot on here, but to be honest, I don’t particularly agree. There’s been some improvement over the last 4-5 weeks, but it was a low bar. And last night he went backwards again.
Sorry that was supposed to be deleted as the conversation had already been had. I agree with you re the full backs and I do think we would be more solid generally with an extra centre half. Yesterday he would possibly have closed the free space Iwobi had down, would make the full backs more solid and cover more for our centre mids letting runners go. It's still not the answer to the majority of the goals issues though. We let soft ones in, playing a 3 or a 4. We had 3 against Brighton but still got done by the ball into the box to the big centre half, we'd still have had goalkeeping mistakes, we'd still have given away stupid penalties, we'd still switch off and let simple runs leave players free in the box. It's more fundamental than what formation we are playing it's a mentality issue which wasn't there before
Again I disagree. This isn’t about just only signing young players, but the right players. If we aren’t going down, and if we aren’t going to challenge for top six this season, what is the point of the stop gap player in the short term? If someone comes available at good value I think we would sign them, I really do.
I think you not 'you' see what you want to see depending on your viewpoint. I think he gives ammunition both ways
He's looking a lot better than he did at first but he's doesn't appear to be the huge upgrade that so many anticipated, £30m+ looks a lot of money for what he provides at the moment.
Like I said, there’s been an improvement but the bar was low. Surely you can accept that he is weak defensively and not particularly offering us much going the other way either?
I do - looking better and better going forward, but defending, he gives loads of space, poor in the air, weak in the tackle - he does feel more like a WB (same for RAN), recruited for a 5 but now in a 4 where there is more defensive work to be done.
How does he look “better and better going forward”? Can you provide examples?
