QldVilla

Don’t believe I suggested to throw him in the mix at all. The degrees in match fitness aren’t as significant as your suggesting. Your referring to their base fitness and is more likely why he is struggling because he was unable to keep the miles in his legs while he was injured. Therefore when he came back he’s coming off a lower base. At the end of the day, the coaching staff think it’s better to have an 80% fit Barkley on the field, then not at all.

Yes it was. And at this point in time IMO he hasn’t proven he’s worth much more than £15m. Chelsea bought him for that figure in 2018, has he really proven that he’s worth more? That may change over the rest of the season, but remains to be proven.

You can only get so fit on the training pitch, the rest is game time. Personally giving him a pass at the moment because of the time he was off injured. Don’t know if I like him for a permanent move, he’s not worth more than $25m.

You only get match fit by playing.

I heard Smith quote regarding people making comments about the players being fatigued and used the analogy that if they were fatigued they would be lying on the ground!! It's a poor analogy. One incident doesn't make it a poor decision by the manager to make a change, it's part of the game. I'd like to see the stats where Man Utd and others have made this change, very late on, and went on to win the game and not. It's used to wind down the clock. Probably 99.9% win .01% loss. There's a difference between being proactive and seeing things happening and being reactive when its too late. It's part of managing the squad over a full season. Yes some bash Smith because it's a sport for them, but some supporters want to see better management through proactive reading of the game, not reactive. Fatigue isn't just physical, it's also mental.

The one thing Smith has done well, is learn from his mistakes. It cost nothing to rotate in 1-2 players when the regular squad is looking a little tired. Also thought we were a little more physical in the middle, the Arsenal players will have some nice bruises from the encounter. We’re not playing particularly well at the moment, but we still remain a threat going forward and creating those big chances. Hopefully the week with no midweek game will get us back to our best.

Believe it’s still Smiths naivety as a coach. West Ham was a danger game, Moyes has got his mojo back, well organised and difficult to break down and has his Cahill Mark II in Lingard. Smith still thinks it’s the Championship and you can play twice a week, but not after COVID and not sharing the load with the bench. I agree in part with what your saying, but Smith would also see that they nearly went one up in the first half through Watkins. For me they lacked energy from the start, but the tipping point had came because they didn’t read what was happening in the last 20mins of the last two matches.

All good mate, they were my words, wasn’t implying you or others were writing him off.

Agree, Luiz is young and his best years are ahead of him, so I’m not ready to write him off completely as a DM, but he is a deep lying playmaker and the would be better suited in McGinn’s role. Personally I’d be chasing a proper DM in the summer, so will be interesting to see what Smith does.

I agree that we lack physicality at times in some games, but for me, you could see we were flat in the first 15min, lazy passing, no energy etc. Some saying it will be ok we’ll bounce back, but will we? Three days isn’t enough to recover, Arse will see the blood in the water. Smith needs to learn to rotate and rest players, even it’s it’s subbing after 60-70 minutes.

This has been in the writing for the last two games. You can’t play Saturday, Wednesday for 3 weeks and not catch up when you don’t rotate the squad. They looked lethargic and everything was poor from that. We’ll be susceptible to Arse as well because the players don’t have the time to recover. GPS, heart rate monitors etc don’t tell you everything, sometimes the manager has to use his feel for the squad and that players need to rest.

Agree and it’s not about upgrading Mings, but maybe bringing in someone for competition for starting places. We have one of the best defences in the PL and another 38 games of experience under their belts should make them better again next season.

9 points

Two games in a row now where we have struggled the last 20min, changes too late. The only difference was we didn’t get punished today. Smith was going for the second goal to kill off the game, we should have had one, except for poor decision making. Dodged a bullet today, Southampton could have won that game.

The analogy I used to reference Mille was never him as a player, but his physical presence, leadership and ability to realise a threat in the game (game management). If Luiz could develop these traits we would have one hell of a player.

How many times do you have to be wrong? You don’t even check what was said, because you’ve made up your own narrative. This is what I said in reference to Jedinak: “The one thing I believe he lacks at the moment is the physicality against certain teams”. “A Jedinak in his prime would of put some of those Burnley players on their backsides”. I was referring to Jedinak’s physicality!!

No, you assumed and assumed wrongly, I was talking about passing and if he couldn’t of passed he never would have been a PL player or captain of his country. But than again, I don’t think you assumed anything, just made something up to suit your narrative. My comment was in reference to his leadership, and physicality, as that what was needed to be added to Luiz games. Everybody else got the reference, except you. You know this, but you’d rather be a smart arse than have a discussion.

Pity you can’t gets your facts right, not sure whether you just ignore what others say, or just oblivious...

No I didn’t! I said someone like Jedinak with his physical aggression and game intelligence would of seen the threat of Burnley and started putting them on their backsides. You missed the analogy completely! Its what is missing from Luiz game, identifying the threat and getting physical, which is needed in some games.

Your missing the point that Luiz hasn’t developed a hard edge to his game as a DM. Against some teams you need to have that in your locker.

I didn’t say he doesn’t play the position well, that he’s just not a natural DM. He’s developed his game in the position over the past 12 months, but he would prefer to play further up the pitch. It’s also not to say he won’t develop into a world class DM over the next few years. The one thing I believe he lacks at the moment is the physicality against certain teams. A Jedinak in his prime would of put some of those Burnley players on their backsides.

Luiz has been one of the best players all season, but he has been off his game a little since the COV19 outbreak. He’s not a natural DM, he’s better playing a bit more forward, but a lot of good teams don’t use natural DM’s, they prefer a deep lying playmaker who can break teams up, but keep the trains running, which Luiz does very well. He’s still only 22 and his best years in front of him, he will have the off game occasionally.

We play as a team and the team is to blame for today’s defeat.

The only people to blame are the players themselves. Didn’t take their opportunity to close out the game and allowed two poor goals to let Burnley back in. There’s been glimpses of it all season, people have just chooses to ignore it. The last few days fans have been talking about Top 4 and the next level, well, we have a long way to go before that talk can be justified.

Yes, I have. He was first rumoured back in December 2019. Some of us actually watch more than the PL.