It’s very noble of Poch to hold his hand up and take responsibility but we all know the real reason for last night’s guano-show.
The chronic lack of investment and general squad malaise came home to roost last night. Spurs stank the place out of it with their long-ball puke football.
No adequate Kane back-up, no adequate replacement for Dembele or the busted flush that is Wanyama and what you are left with is lumping the ball up to a 6 ‘4 cardboard cut-out of a footballer and praying to the saint of lost causes for the return to fitness of Moussa bloody Sissoko.
It’s very difficult to switch from a team who likes to play it on the deck to being long ball merchants overnight. That tactic may well have worked for Mourinho against Ajax but he had his Man United team fine tuned in the art of lumping it long. That’s not how we play.
We look like a team that’s dead on its feet.
Surely Foyth is a better option than Trippier at this stage. He has a willingness to take his man on and appears to be one of the few players who can find a team-mate with a cross.
Trippier wasn’t England’s first choice RB for nothing and I think he just needs a summer of recharging the batteries and regaining his confidence.
Wanyama was a beast 2 seasons ago but he’s a shadow of his former self. Brought in to break up play, Ajax just played around him and he was all over the shop, swiping at balls as early as the 12th minute.
There’s a strong case now for Skipp to come in. At least he might get hold of the ball and string a few passes together.
Hell if Ajax can do it with youngsters why can’t we?!
Who is coaching Dele Ali? What position is he supposed to be playing, is he been given clear instructions before going out onto the pitch because he looks like a fella playing flicks and volleys with his mates in the back field.
He cost £5million and he’s still only worth £5million. He’s a law unto himself.
Poor Lucas Moura. He’s like a gamey park footballer with small man syndrome who runs all day beats 5 players but either gets swatted off the ball or ends up back where he started.
Moura looks too lightweight to have balls fizzed into him and he needs to change his footwear as he looked more concussed than Jan at times.
Rose was not much better, full of endeavour, no end product.
Eriksen the former golden boy of the Ajax production line was supposed to show these Ajax whipper snappers how far they still had to go. He didn’t step up – but it was difficult with no midfield to provide the platform.
Toby and Sanchez bore the brunt of our disjointed football in front of them leading to Toby making rash decisions at times. They were just firefighting for the evening.
Where there is hope there is a way, but I think it will take more than Sissy and Sonny coming back into the team to get us out of this one.
Thank* you Daniel. Thank* you very much.
*The original text did not read ‘Thank’.
Little, if anything, to disagree with here, alas! Pretty much bang on, legover!
I think we can guess how the original text read, Harry!
It is almost getting as hard to post on here as it is to get Levy to open his wallet. Have ENIC now got shares in this forum as they appear to be culling me as spam?
Our bench when we needed to push on in the second half was Foyth, Dier, Davies, Skipp and this was a CL semi final at a brand new billion dollar stadium.That to my mind says everything about this club. It is inauthentic and that gets right down into the dna of the players and it is showing. We haven’t played fluid attacking football for a long while now. We dismantled our wing backs in Walker and Rose when they gave us pace and width.Man City and Liverpool did exactly the opposite and built theirs. Look at how many of Liverpool’s goals this season come from crosses into the box from their fullbacks getting down the line. As soon as Trippier or Davies get the ball they stop and look to pass sideways or backwards because they have no pace or ability to take on a player and get past him . We have failed to secure the contracts of the best centre half pairing in the EPL in Toby and Verts. We sold one of the best holding midfielders in Dembele without replacing him leaving us with a crocked Wanyama and injury prone Winks. Eriksen switched off when he decided his future was elsewhere.why our genius coaches with there laptops and analysis software cannot do anything about the fact that we cannot take free kicks or corners or defend corners is beyond me. ENIC have had zero interest in the football business and did not expect us to still be in the CL. They were simply hoping Pooch could squeeze another top four slot and take the money. Pooch is not blame free. He spoke about bravery last summer then took a new deal and went quiet. Sissoko’ s emergence is the only bright spot team wise along with Sonny stepping up when Kane got injured. Yes give Pooch some credit for that but remember he must have had some input in buying Trippier and letting Walker go plus bringing in Llorente who would have been much more effective for us if we had retained two flying wing backs who get down the line and hang on decent crosses for Llorente to get his head on. It’s all a complete shambolic mess and what we will see in the summer is the usual selling off of players to fund younger potential and start another “project” of jam tomorrow in the NFL stadium