Spurs under Jose was a two-man attacking unit with very little else. To think opposing teams wouldn’t see that and plan for it next time shows a distinct lack of foresight. The opposition just had to smother Son and Kane, and we struggle. And smothered they were! Spurs needed Moura, Skipp, Hojbjerg and our non-attacking fullbacks to join in.
Yesterday, they didn’t. If we give the opposition more to worry about, Son and Kane get more space. This happened versus Newcastle when Moura and Ndombele got past players, creating spaces for us to exploit. Yesterday, Moura was poor, but West Ham is a far better defensive unit than the Bar Codes, so they nullified our main threats well.
If Liverpool only relied on Salah to get the ball and do his thing he would not be nearly as successful as when Jota, Firmino, Henderson, Keita, and of course the full backs do their thing. And they had Mane on the bench!
Football is a team game and as most of us know, we do not have enough good players to beat top sides anymore, even average ones, on a consistent basis.
Yesterday, West Ham defended very deep and spawned a goal from another set piece, having created very little apart from a few half chances from crosses (It’s what they do). Now, Kane was at fault for the goal. Far too inactive, and he did lose possession a lot. He normally sets the tone on that, but if he isn’t doing well, we have little hope. I just do not see how dropping Kane would make us better. Son plays centrally and Gil on the left, but that is a big gamble. It is obvious though that our tactics with Kane on the pitch is not working well.
Both Kane and Son had a chance each and at the top-level one has to go in. Skipp and Hojbjerg rarely do anything creative and Ndombele put the ball through to Son for his chance, but because West Ham sat so deep and cut out the space centrally, as well as being stronger and fitter (it looked like they won more physical battles) we really struggled in the final third. When Nuno said we controlled the game, Moyes allowed us to have the ball in areas that were not going to punish them. Moyes definitely pulled the strings in the second half, hence no shots.
I wasn’t impressed with Moura, Reggie or Royal in attack. Did Royal cross the ball once? We needed players, stretching the West Ham defence across the pitch. Whether that is with 1v1s, overloads, or overlaps from full-backs I don’t care, but we were too slow in switching play and overall we look lost and without an attacking plan.
We had plenty of opportunities to cross the ball in the box yesterday, but our delivery was atrocious. In fact our ability to keep the ball in the attacking third was abysmal.
We are going to see more of this type of performance for quite some time unless we get a more attacking coach or more quality on the pitch.
The caveat with that though is we will be left wide open and possibly ripped to shreds if we get an Eddie Howe, Graham Potter type figure.
We can of course blame Nuno, he sets the team up, but let us not forget Jose and Poch struggled because of the quality they had to play with. We simply do not have enough good footballers to affect a game. Levy would have to pay more for that to happen.
However, we have just as good a squad as West Ham and Palace and we have been found wanting in both. That is what worries me. It used to be competing with Chelsea and City that caused me concern, but worrying about Palace and West Ham is how low we have sunk.
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He’s a chicken-wing back.
This all harks back to Levy’s utter brazen incompetence. He is shameless too. The most dangerous type. He will just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over and sticking two fingers up to the fans as long as they continue to blindly worship the team.
Our play is all way too slow, it starts with our centre backs, they all like to have the ball instead of moving on quicker, the problem then is it goes to Skipp or Hojbjerg or Ndombele who all like to keep the ball and don’t move it forward quick enough. The bottom line is we have too many players that simply aren’t good enough, Levy has just signed Emerson and he’s worse than Aurier, whoever is scouting these players needs sacking and so does Levy for signing such players, no wonder we never win anything. You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Levy and Lewis OUT !!!
Gil needs to get down the gym before he’s any sort of wing back
I’d say our performances without one of own at the start of the season were marginally more fluent and together.
We, like many teams have done over the years rely too heavily on certain players to get us through games. I’ve seen it at every level of the game.
A prime example of this was Poch electing to play one of our own over Moura in the CL final. We all knew one of our own wasn’t fit. He knew it, Poch knew it. Liverpool knew it too.
The pressure to play him because he is our best player in the biggest final in our history was too much for him, ( Poch) to say no. The result was inevitable. The players to a man see their talisman on the pitch and all of a sudden effort drops 10% times that by 10 and performances are affected drastically.
Coming full circle. NES, like Poch doesn’t have it in him to drop him. It would take a Fergie type manager to say no ! The clubs bigger than you. You don’t want to be here. I’ll work with the players who do. Then of course, there’d be Levy telling NES he has to play to keep his stock value rising for the impending transfer in January.
A far more radical approach is needed. The lack of speed and energy is a major part of the problem
Your right Nuno will become another statistic so why not go out changing the script. We are 8th or 9th at present.
Go to 3 at the back Tanganga, Dier and Romero. Wing backs Reguillon and Gil both high energy. Let them switch wings if need be.
I can’t put up with the no creativity. Dier is transformed let him captain the team