Why don’t you let our manager explain it from this post match interview following the Zagreb 1st leg win:
“The reason why on Thursday we changed seven players from the last match was because I trust all the guys,” he said.
“The last time I did this, we lost against Antwerp and everybody was killing me. And rightly so, because I made these decisions but in that match I felt a little let down by attitude and it was a moment where not everybody was working well and hard and trying to play.
“I change seven in a very important match and I did it because of trust. To be honest I didn’t change 11 because I didn’t want to give the team a feeling of it’s too much or I’m gambling or something like that because I could have perfectly changed.
They have a manager who treats players as human beings not robots.
Notontheshelf
3 years ago
The current Xpts table makes interesting reading.
1 City
2 Chelsea
3 Liverpool
4 Utd.
5 Brighton!!!
6 Leicester
7 West Ham
8 Aston Villa
9 Arsenal
10 Spurs.
To me this just illustrates that we are punching above our weight, or more precisely that Harry Kane is scoring goals we don’t deserve and hence inflating our position.
If he goes we are stuffed.
Whenever I see Brighton, I can’t believe how good they look for a team near the bottom. They just can’t score the goals their play deserves.
Porto have 38 yo Pepe as CB. He was MOM when they beat Juve in the CL last month. Toby has years in him!
Paul Donovan
3 years ago
We dont have too many average players , we have too many poor players. Im sure there are plenty of better , hungry players in lower leagues. In the 80s we had a bulldozer of a right back called Statham, he scared opposing forwards & crowd loved him. What happened to him? I heard he was a bad lad. So was Diego! So what. More of that at back. Toby & Rodon is our only pairing. Wimmer left because of Stan Dier & Oliver Sanchez
Philly
3 years ago
Totally agree with the comments about Sanchez. How much does Mourinho think of Dier if he cant get in front of Sanchez, and frankly to leave out toby for the Newcastle game was a crime. Unfortunately Son has gone off the boil as well and I can only see things getting worse for the rest of the season before Mourinho gets sacked and hopefully we get a young hungry manager and more players like Kane, Rodon and Hjojberg who are committed and give 100% every game. The rest of them are just there for the money and could be replaced by players coming through the ranks along with a few good purchases with all the money we make from transfering the majority of the current crop of wasters. Unfortunately I don’t ever see us becoming a major force while enic hold the purse strings so here’s to another decade of false hope.
Explain the lineup selected in Zargreb too. Lots of players he usually sticks on the bench. 🤔
Legoverlass
3 years ago
There are pictures showing Toby training on Thursday with the squad.Toby was a big fan of Mourinho when he joined even signing a new deal. He is our best CB by a mile with world class experience. There are plenty of players still playing at world class levels at 32 yrs and he is still a regular starter for Belgium who are one of the best national sides around at present. How Dier and Sanchez get in the team ahead of him is quite frankly concerning. Rodin alongside Toby is head and shoulders our best pairing at the back. Yesterday was a must win game with Chelsea losing but Mourinho selects a totally inexperienced back line which ultimately costs us two points and probably a top four slot. It also pushes Kane and Son closer to the exit door, Sending Bale on with a couple of minutes to go to take a free kick was embarrassing. To me Mourinho has lost the dressing room.
Last edited 3 years ago by Legoverlass
justin
3 years ago
Was it me or were half the players on the field just not fit? Is Jose ignoring the sports science team?
eddie
3 years ago
Utd.up next that should be fun.
I think Mourinho was being disingenuous when he suggested Toby was late back and didn’t get his covid test in time.Belgium’s last game in the recent break was Tuesday at home against Belaruse so hardly a test for him.How he wasn’t able to test in that time beggars belief.
It is a measure of how poorly we played against Newcastle that Jolinton scored against us and he could have scored more were he any good.Along with Haller at West Ham they must be the worst strikers to appear in the PL.
It seems since Newcastle beat us 5-1 in the last game of the season after being relegated,theyhave always taken points from us.Who would have thought it.
It would seem Mourinho has lost the players to me.They won’t admit it ppublically of course,but he is at that point in his tenure where the blame is always on the players not the multi award winning genius managing the team.Criticism should always take place behind closed doors not in the public domain.But he has previous in this scenario.
Anything short of our best team to start next weekend is unacceptable.And that must include Toby,particularly as we have only one match per week from now until the end of the season.I would chose Rodon to partner him.It is a measure of how far Dier has fallen in Mourinho’s estimation that he wasn’t bought on as a sub for a clearly inept Sanchez.
I wonder if Bale’s wayward free kick at the end as a message to Jose that he wasn’t impressed with being brought on for the last three minutes.I’m not suggesting he deserved more ,but he should have stayed on the bench and Lamela should have taken the free kick.
Kane is not a specialist in that department.I think his last {only?} success there was in the WC against some east European farmers.
It’s incredible that we are still 5th.and is an indication that,City apart this has been a poor season in the PL.If we got top four we really would be flattering to decieve.
Is Gascoigne gonna have a crack?
3 years ago
If you build a souless, plastic , corporate shell…..you’ll get a souless, plastic, corporate clientele.
I’m inclined to agree DD.For two of our most expensive players the pair of them spent an awful lot of time on the deck as they seem so easy to knock off the ball.
They have both been with us long enough to be able to last 90 minutes and then some.
JimmyGrievance
3 years ago
None of this is new. We’ve had too many bang average players in the shirt for far too long. It’s not changing anytime soon. If anything
, it’s about to get an awful lot worse.
Apart from providing a neat assist for Kane’s equaliser what else did the seemingly overrated N’Dombele do against Newcastle? IMO neither himself nor Lo Celso are effective enough for my liking!!
James McKevitt
3 years ago
I feel for the core of players who are trying their best every game, Hojbjerg, Kane, N’Dombele, Rodon and a couple of others.
There must come a time when they get fed up carrying a bunch of wasters on their backs.
Why don’t you let our manager explain it from this post match interview following the Zagreb 1st leg win:
“The reason why on Thursday we changed seven players from the last match was because I trust all the guys,” he said.
“The last time I did this, we lost against Antwerp and everybody was killing me. And rightly so, because I made these decisions but in that match I felt a little let down by attitude and it was a moment where not everybody was working well and hard and trying to play.
“I change seven in a very important match and I did it because of trust. To be honest I didn’t change 11 because I didn’t want to give the team a feeling of it’s too much or I’m gambling or something like that because I could have perfectly changed.
They have a manager who treats players as human beings not robots.
The current Xpts table makes interesting reading.
1 City
2 Chelsea
3 Liverpool
4 Utd.
5 Brighton!!!
6 Leicester
7 West Ham
8 Aston Villa
9 Arsenal
10 Spurs.
To me this just illustrates that we are punching above our weight, or more precisely that Harry Kane is scoring goals we don’t deserve and hence inflating our position.
If he goes we are stuffed.
Whenever I see Brighton, I can’t believe how good they look for a team near the bottom. They just can’t score the goals their play deserves.
Porto have 38 yo Pepe as CB. He was MOM when they beat Juve in the CL last month. Toby has years in him!
We dont have too many average players , we have too many poor players. Im sure there are plenty of better , hungry players in lower leagues. In the 80s we had a bulldozer of a right back called Statham, he scared opposing forwards & crowd loved him. What happened to him? I heard he was a bad lad. So was Diego! So what. More of that at back. Toby & Rodon is our only pairing. Wimmer left because of Stan Dier & Oliver Sanchez
Totally agree with the comments about Sanchez. How much does Mourinho think of Dier if he cant get in front of Sanchez, and frankly to leave out toby for the Newcastle game was a crime. Unfortunately Son has gone off the boil as well and I can only see things getting worse for the rest of the season before Mourinho gets sacked and hopefully we get a young hungry manager and more players like Kane, Rodon and Hjojberg who are committed and give 100% every game. The rest of them are just there for the money and could be replaced by players coming through the ranks along with a few good purchases with all the money we make from transfering the majority of the current crop of wasters. Unfortunately I don’t ever see us becoming a major force while enic hold the purse strings so here’s to another decade of false hope.
Explain the lineup selected in Zargreb too. Lots of players he usually sticks on the bench. 🤔
There are pictures showing Toby training on Thursday with the squad.Toby was a big fan of Mourinho when he joined even signing a new deal. He is our best CB by a mile with world class experience. There are plenty of players still playing at world class levels at 32 yrs and he is still a regular starter for Belgium who are one of the best national sides around at present. How Dier and Sanchez get in the team ahead of him is quite frankly concerning. Rodin alongside Toby is head and shoulders our best pairing at the back. Yesterday was a must win game with Chelsea losing but Mourinho selects a totally inexperienced back line which ultimately costs us two points and probably a top four slot. It also pushes Kane and Son closer to the exit door, Sending Bale on with a couple of minutes to go to take a free kick was embarrassing. To me Mourinho has lost the dressing room.
Was it me or were half the players on the field just not fit? Is Jose ignoring the sports science team?
Utd.up next that should be fun.
I think Mourinho was being disingenuous when he suggested Toby was late back and didn’t get his covid test in time.Belgium’s last game in the recent break was Tuesday at home against Belaruse so hardly a test for him.How he wasn’t able to test in that time beggars belief.
It is a measure of how poorly we played against Newcastle that Jolinton scored against us and he could have scored more were he any good.Along with Haller at West Ham they must be the worst strikers to appear in the PL.
It seems since Newcastle beat us 5-1 in the last game of the season after being relegated,theyhave always taken points from us.Who would have thought it.
It would seem Mourinho has lost the players to me.They won’t admit it ppublically of course,but he is at that point in his tenure where the blame is always on the players not the multi award winning genius managing the team.Criticism should always take place behind closed doors not in the public domain.But he has previous in this scenario.
Anything short of our best team to start next weekend is unacceptable.And that must include Toby,particularly as we have only one match per week from now until the end of the season.I would chose Rodon to partner him.It is a measure of how far Dier has fallen in Mourinho’s estimation that he wasn’t bought on as a sub for a clearly inept Sanchez.
I wonder if Bale’s wayward free kick at the end as a message to Jose that he wasn’t impressed with being brought on for the last three minutes.I’m not suggesting he deserved more ,but he should have stayed on the bench and Lamela should have taken the free kick.
Kane is not a specialist in that department.I think his last {only?} success there was in the WC against some east European farmers.
It’s incredible that we are still 5th.and is an indication that,City apart this has been a poor season in the PL.If we got top four we really would be flattering to decieve.
If you build a souless, plastic , corporate shell…..you’ll get a souless, plastic, corporate clientele.
I’m inclined to agree DD.For two of our most expensive players the pair of them spent an awful lot of time on the deck as they seem so easy to knock off the ball.
They have both been with us long enough to be able to last 90 minutes and then some.
None of this is new. We’ve had too many bang average players in the shirt for far too long. It’s not changing anytime soon. If anything
, it’s about to get an awful lot worse.
Apart from providing a neat assist for Kane’s equaliser what else did the seemingly overrated N’Dombele do against Newcastle? IMO neither himself nor Lo Celso are effective enough for my liking!!
I feel for the core of players who are trying their best every game, Hojbjerg, Kane, N’Dombele, Rodon and a couple of others.
There must come a time when they get fed up carrying a bunch of wasters on their backs.