El Segundo

Completely Meh! today.  Didn't think Arsenal were all that but were better than us which is all they needed to be.  Our build up play is too slow and predictable.

Two number 10s isn't going to work.   Looked much better after the subs. 

Ollie's touch and ball retention are terrible., another awful performance today, though admittedly he didn't get much service. 

This will be an unpopular opinion but I think Martiinez has let a few in that really top keepers would save - today was one of them.   

Not sure what Sanson has to do to get a start.

34 minutes ago, Robtaylor200 said:

Really hope The lads there sing Andy Lockheed's song during the match 

Indeed Rob, he was very good in the air, building several successful aeroplanes, and should be saluted.  Andy Lochhead RIP on the other hand was a great header of the ball and also deserves a song.  

I find it strange people think we we will / should sell players like Traore and Bailey because they are not first choices.  It's a squad game and to move into that elite level we are going to need minimum 15-20  players who can perform at that high level.  What happens when, inevitably, we get some injuries or suspensions?  What happens if we qualify for Europe and go further in the domestic cups and have a lot more games to play? The trick is to keep all those players happy when they are not automatic first choices.  I think Gerrard should rotate a little and give the likes of Sanson, Bailey and Traore a start, and now the season has fizzled out  a little maybe Chuk and Iroegbunam as well.     

Links to Suarez concern me because, together with Coutinho,  I do wonder if it hints at a "galactico" type thinking with everything centred around a few big stars rather than on a team system that players can become interchangeable in.  There are already signs that we are becoming very reliant on Coutinho for creativity, much as we were with Grealish.  Sure it raises our profile, but is that at the cost of a long term team plan and system?  It's a dilemma that seems to be affecting Man Yoo since re-signing Ronaldo.          

I don't think West Ham's style is that bad, certainly nothing like as bad as Wimbledon back in the day or Burnley now.  They have some good footballers and some physical footballers and they mix it up well.

I do think this game is where a different type of forward would have helped, someone bigger and stronger i.e. a Davies type, to distract the big CBs involved with a more physical battle. 

Re-watching the second goal breakaway a few times, Lanzini starts at roughly the same place that Coutinho is and maybe 5-10 yards nearer our goal than Young.  Coutinho barely breaks into a jog, Young takes about 3 seconds to realise it's a breakaway and by the time Lanzini scores Young is about 30 yards behind him.   

For all his magical skills I do think Coutinho needs to work a bit harder when don't have the ball.   Buendia is much better at that type of thing.

Ramsey for me shows some great skill going forward but has a habit of drifting out of games and also losing or not winning the ball in dangerous areas.  I think he's a great player but I honestly think he needs a rest and maybe Sanson given a run.

Poor for much of the second half where the midfield seemed to disappear for 25 minutes again.   Actually thought Ramsey was a bit lost again until he popped up to score.  Love the way he passes it into the top corner.

Didn't do much wrong for their first goal, just a very well taken snapshot, and you just knew the Ukrainian would score as soon as he came on.

Shame we didn't really start going for it until the last 10 minutes as we showed we could rattle them a bit.  Bailey and Buendia both did very well and livened us up.  Young frustrates me, so many crosses and passes hit straight at the first defender.   

Their home games may just save them - they show a lot more fight and intent there,  beat Leeds and were absolutely robbed of a point against Citeh and they have looked half decent since Rafa left with the Goodison crowd behind them.  Away from home they are a shambles.  BTW I've never got why Richarlison is so highly rated by some, including Barcelona it seems.   Never been impressed by him.   

1 hour ago, tommytenjobs said:

For me, a Really odd game yesterday. We created loads of good chances, should have scored at least two, three more and yet….I didn’t think we were very good. The first half especially was disjointed, poor passing and in often it looked like our only plan to move the ball from back to front was the channel hump from mings, chambers or cash. It’s nice to win so comfortably and we look exciting going forward on the break and in broken transitions. But….I feel the inconsistency from game to game is borne from still not really having a plan in possession itself or of how to move the ball through the lines on a regular basis. As I said, feels churlish To be thinking about how to improve or the weaknesses when you come away from a game thinking we could have won by 7/8…..maybe I’m a glass half full kind of a guy?

I'd agree with you - a great win and let's all enjoy it but it doesn't mean everything is suddenly fixed.  There was still a lot of wayward passing and lack of movement at times,  we conceded a lot of possession, especially second half where the midfield seemed to disappear for a while,  which better teams would have exploited,  and again sometimes struggled to play it out from the back which often led to those channel balls being played. 

When we attacked though we cut through them, and we defended pretty solidly too, in no small part due to an excellent performance from Chambers - gave him MOTM not only because I wasn't really expecting him to be that good but also for the pass of the season into Coutinho.  

Great to see that Watkins and Ings can play together and both score and some of Coutinho's play was sublime.  One worry for me is Ramsey who has seemed off the pace in the last 3-4 games games and yesterday it  seemed to largely pass him by.  Thought Sanson and Buendia both looked good in their cameos and maybe a rest for Ramsey is due?

Finally, although he had his moments, finally a decent ref.   

The worst thing about this game is the lack of redeeming features.  Difficult to find a single positive except at least we didn't get hammered.  We are normally shit at Newcastle for some strange reason but this was special - if we really did give the ball away 136 times (and it felt like we did) then that's once very 40-50 seconds. 

How can Professional Premier League Players paid tens of thousands a week, some of them internationals for Brazil, Argentina, France and England,  be that bad at passing, controlling and retaining the ball?  How/why does Luiz overhit every single set piece he takes?  Why has Watkins turned into Trezeguet without the occasional instinctive goal?  Why has Digne taken up Targett's mantle of hitting crosses straight at the first defender?  

Home form has been ok except for defending but we were poor all over at at Brentford, bang average at Everton and as bad as Smith's worst (Arsenal, Southampton) against Toon. Gerrard has to do better than that with what he's got.

Martinez - I’m not convinced he is quite the Keeper many think he is. 

Cash - In the passage of play leading to Leeds’ third goal Struijk was allowed to win two headers, the first was cleared off the line by Mings, the second was also blocked by Mings but rebounded to James who scored.  On both occasions it was Matty Cash “marking” Struijk and he did a terrible job, but many seem to be blaming Mings. 

Mings - was all over the place the first 20 minutes but after that I thought he was very good.

Konsa - once again failed to close down quickly enough to allow a shot at goal (see also Brentford’s first goal) and then got two stupid and avoidable yellow cards.  Again I’m not convinced he’s as good as many seem to think he is.

Digne – played very well I thought

Luiz – Typical Dougie, some good things some classic brain farts

McGinn – Decent game I thought

Ramsey – looking like we’ve unearthed a star, great runs and cool finishes. Perhaps needs to work on his tracking back.

Coutinho – world class, simple as

Buendia – I call him the nearly man, so much of what he tries is nearly brilliant but not quite. When he gets it right it’s Coutinho-like.

Watkins - needs to take some lessons from Keinan Davis on how to keep the ball under pressure from defenders.  Almost every time he either mis-controls it or else controls it but has neither the strength nor the skill to stop the defender dispossessing him.  I even think using Davis as a focal point for the interplay of Coutinho, Buendia, Ramsey McGinn et al would work really well. 

Young – did ok when he came on

Chuk – looked half-soaked and was playing daft passes in dangerous positions. His worst showing so far.

Chambers – did the job he needed to do to see time out.

Gerrard - First half in particular Bielsa countered Gerrard’s “keep it narrow” approach by overloading the wide areas with up to three players attacking at speed who then played little triangles around the defenders who went out to challenge them, and into the gaps they left in the middle.  Lack of cover from midfielders exacerbated this.  It was like a knife through butter first half. Gerrard didn’t really do anything to counter this directly.

Ref - did one good thing, playing advantage to allow our third goal to happen.  Other than that he made was pretty poor I think, letting some blatant fouls go and giving others for nothing. 

Overall - Our defending was awful but I wouldn’t just blame the defence for that, they were left exposed too often. Meanwhile their man-marking seemed to have us rattled when on the ball.  It was only Coutinho’s brilliance and Ramsey’s cool finishing that got us back into it and then a

Is Lampard really that bad a manager?   He did better at Derby than those who came before and after him, and was judged at Chelsea in comparison to elite managers who came before and after him.  Ok Chelsea were in 9th when they fired him and they'd overspent on the likes of Werner but he gave more chances to the likes of Mount, James and Abraham,  some of whom are now established first choices or have been sold for hefty fees.  Up to a few months ago Arsenal were much lower than 9th and everyone was saying Arteta was a shit manager but that tune seems to have changed.  I think it's a risk for Everton but by no means a foregone conclusion that he will fail.      

4 hours ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

The VAR was Craig Pawson, I'd love to ask him what the difference was between this and Watkins' claim yesterday which he was also ref of.

100%.  Pickford went straight through Watkins after Watkins had got the ball, Pawson not interested.  Today as VAR he see fit to overrule the onfield decision to bring attention to something that's nowhere near as clear.   The guy is either an idiot or a cheat, or both.  It's getting beyond a joke now how inconsistent and bad they are.   Actually there is some consistency, I suppose,  in how often things like this go in favour of the Sky 6 but not the likes of us.  Still it keeps the title race more alive so the PL will happy the refs "did them a favour" meaning that their product remains attractive for longer , and I guess that's all that matters these days.  

13 hours ago, Peter Griffin said:

Even the best ref's will make the odd incorrect decision. Today, he annoyed me in the first half as I think he could have let the game flow a little better. But with regard to the key decisions he got them all right and the result wasn't influenced by poor referring. To me that is the key barometer for the performance of a ref. 

Peter. I'd agree  you are right about the key decisions, and I'm grateful for once to have a ref who didn't ultimately influence the outcome.  But that still doesn't mean his performance was acceptable - just not as bad as some of the shockers we've had to endure.  There were quite a few obvious mistakes like giving/not giving  corners and throws given the wrong way (for both teams) that had me wondering if he could see straight.  The incident where he yellow carded Mings happened a few feet in front of him and was as clear as day a foul on Mings.  Mings jumped for the ball and was backed into and taken out mid air, which also endangered him.  He gave Everton another one first half when Richarlison was clearly backing into Mings or Konsa rather than being pulled or held.  And the non-foul on Ramsey running through when he was clearly kicked.  Too easily conned I think.  And despite ultimately not influencing the outcome, he seemed to be doing his best by adding 5 minutes from nowhere, and then playing an extra one on top giving Everton one final chance from a corner.  You may rate that as acceptable,  I think it's a sign of the appalling standards we are used to that some people do, and I'll have to disagree.   

For those saying the ref was ok, just have a look at the incident he booked Mings for.  Comically bad.

Good first half, midfield disappeared second half.  Good job we defended well and Everton lacked that bit of quality in the final third.   Probably didn't deserve the win overall, we need to play well for 90 minutes not 45.   Felt like we were playing against 12 men again at times with yet another inept referee who booked Mings for being fouled and then found 6 minutes of added time from nowhere.  

Ref trying his best to give Everton an equalizer - almost 6 minutes payed

How the **** is there five minutes added?

1 minute ago, Spoony said:

Jeez I’ve never seen so much whinging about a ref. I don’t think he’s been as awful as you’re all making out. Our issues are of our own making and we should have expected Everton to be playing like a shower of rocket polishers.

A ground out 1-0 would be a wonderful result in the circumstances. 

Us being poor and the ref having a shocker are not mutually exclusive though are they?  He's given some terrible decisions, that yellow for Mings was just laughably bad.

The referee's performance summed up by booking Mings for being fouled.

2 minutes ago, LondonVillian said:

it was never ever a pen lol

It was as much a pen as the one given to Kane when Cash slid in on him after the ball had gone out two years ago. LOL.

Ref is a blatant Homer and appalling.  Three fouls in one move on Cash, Luiz then McGinn before he finally gives it.  Pickford goes through Watkins no pen.  Joke. 

I've never been totally convinced by Watkins either.  Even last season when he scored plenty, he also missed loads of chances he should have buried. I don't think he has a good enough touch or enough composure to be a really top striker.  He's good at finishing instinctively when getting on the end of crosses but far less so when put through one on one (has he scored any of those?) and when he has a little time to think about what to do. 

Top strikers instinctively look for the corner, or throw a little dummy and  hold the shot while the defenders commit themselves to a block, give the keeper the eyes, or dink it over the advancing keeper. Too often Ollie puts his head down and blasts it straight at the keeper or first defender when he has a clear chance.  

Examples -  when De Gea passed it to him in the box at Old Trafford,  in acres of space and with time to pick his spot,  he blasted it straight back at De Gea.  Also when he did show a little composure to take the ball around Mendy at Stamford Bridge he then blasted it straight at the covering defender instead of placing it or dummying to shoot to get the defender out of the way.  He did something similar in another game, I can't recall which.    Do the top strikers fluff those?  Not usually. 

Archer seems to have that knack of the kind of cool finishing I'm talking about, looking for the corner, but obviously not tested at the top level yet. It's a shame we didn't have a proper cup run to offer him more game time. 

If we can stop shooting ourselves in the foot by gifting goals to the opposition and giving the ball away too often we can be a very good side.   

So many misplaced passes especially first 25 minutes when we were awful.  Some of that was due to trying to play higher risk key passes to set up attacks especially Buendia,  but some of it was just plain sloppiness.  

Much better second half and probably deserved to win it overall.

We need to cure our inability to score for this one - we'll need at least three to nullify the usual PGMOL Man United assistance, dodgy pen etc.

This will will mean we'll need to put it the net 6 or 7 times to allow for forensically researched disallowances. 

Not hopeful.

That is pure corruption in action by VAR.  Desperate to find anything, absolutely any reason, to rule it out.  What chance have you got?