TomC

16 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

and **** you Kamara for your stupid red card 

The language against one of our own is a little harsh...but I agree with the sentiment. I will cry if that red card leads to the undoing of our season. Or if we miss CL by a point or two.

3 minutes ago, meregreen said:

Bottlers. Watkins totally anonymous and he wasn’t alone.

Can't blame it Ollie. He had no service. We were in our own half almost the entire last 60 minutes.

Wow, that one hurt.

Positives...set pieces, offside trap.

Negatives...

--We're really struggling to score from open play right now. That didn't start with this match.

--We were really, really sloppy with the ball today. They won because they monopolized possession for the last 60 minutes. We made sloppy passes, had sloppy first touches, couldn't deal with their press (they really did well pinning us in the corners). Missing Kamara and Pau didn't help, but I'm not blaming this on Donck or Lenglet. Almost everyone in back was sloppy. And you can't use an offside trap when they're camped out in your end constantly.

--TV commentator couldn't stop worshipping Man U the whole second half. That made it even worse.

The last two matches leave me in doubt about a title challenge. Still optimistic about CL qualification, though. This patch won't last. In Unai we trust. He'll get it sorted out.

4 hours ago, Thug said:

Celebration time is added on.

Correct. This was added to the laws in 2016.

It probably still makes sense to restart as quickly as possible given that referees do not always do what they're supposed to, but in theory, you should be able to celebrate without losing time.

4 hours ago, WallisFrizz said:

He doesn’t need a rest, he’s been a sub a few times recently, he could do with some competition tho.

Didn't see tonight, but looking at his subpar performances the last few matches, it may be the opposite problem. He does have competition, namely Konsa-as-RB, and he has not reacted well to it. He seems to be trying to do too much to win his spot back.

I had to work and haven't seen the match yet, but I will say this...why do I think we're still in the mix at least for CL, maybe even for the title?

Today...Zaniolo goal in stoppage time to salvage a draw.

A week ago...Watkins 85th minute goal to win against Brentford.

A few weeks ago...Watkins 90th minute goal to salvage a draw against Bournemouth.

November...Watkins 80th minute goal to beat AZ.

October...McGinn stoppage time goal to beat Zrinjski.

That's called character. That's 5 PL points and 4 Conference points that will mean something at the end of the season because we played to the end. That's what the great Ferguson Man U sides used to do.

I wonder whether Barcelona has a recall option in January. It's pretty common, isn't it?

6 hours ago, oishiiniku_uk said:

I know these kind of articles are completely arbitrary, but how does Watkins come 98th in the Guardian's 100 best male footballers when Darwin Nunez is 78th? By any metric Watkins has been one of the best strikers in Europe this calendar year and yet Nunez, Lukaku, Isak etc. are all above him. Do these things get rated on 'vibes' or what? 

At least he's on the list. That's progress. Our players usually get overlooked (except Emi). I would be pleasantly surprised to see Doug on the list too, but he probably would have been in the 71-100 range too. We'll find out tomorrow, I guess.

2 hours ago, DJBOB said:

It's interesting that Unai has moved away from Cash at RCB a lot.

He played decently enough in that role last season and I can't remember any shockers he had when we started out in that formation this season?

I remember Crystal Palace at home last season, Unai even had him play as a more traditional overlapping fullback wide of a box midfield and he got the assist for the OG.

Unai clearly sees something on video that prompted the change but haven't seen a lot of the end result yet.

Cash played that role well enough, but if the RB is going to stay at home as part of a 3 when we're in attack, Konsa is probably better at that role. If you're going to drop Kamara into the back 3, or go for all-out attack and keep only 2 in the back, then Cash is better.

Even if he were to want out (and I don't think that he does), no club in a title chase would sell one of their best players to a rival for the title in a January window. He could threaten to stop trying and still we'd be better off paying his salary for six months and excluding him from team activities than letting him help a rival. Zero chance that we're selling him to a rival in January. None.

On 18/12/2023 at 08:07, Jas10 said:

Bailey pass back

 

Unai seems so intense most of the time. Good to see that he has a sense of humour.

11 hours ago, MarkLillis said:

Football has changed a lot since the last time we were in this position in 1998.

What hasn't changed is back then (like now!) nobody thought we could win it.....and they were proved emphatically right.

I cant get that season out of my mind, pre Xmas and post Xmas were night and day. The second half of this season will NOT be like that this time.

I believe we will keep getting results and i believe pundits will keep trying to find reasons (like the imaginary "poor" away form) why we wont stay the course.

All we can do as a club and as fans is enjoy the moment and live in it.

So ignore all the WBA, Blues and Wolves fans telling you to stop getting carried away and carry on dreaming!

With all due respect to John Gregory, he was not Unai Emery. Unai has won things before.

That squad had less depth than this one, too.

7 hours ago, tomav84 said:

konsa seemingly being our 1st choice RB now means that i'll be absolutely staggered if we're not in the market for a new RB in jan

I think that Unai planned on using Konsa at RB from day one, at least in matches where he uses the asymmetrical formation and the RB doesn't attack. He was going to go Pau-Mings-Konsa as the back 3 in attack. He has Cash for when he wants to go forward on the right.

I don't see him changing Konsa. If he can find an upgrade to Cash at the right price, he might, but that player is going to play only when the tactics call for it.

His strength in attack is carrying the ball forward. He doesn't get to do that when Unai plays him further forwards. He drifted around not quite sure what to do; his off the ball movement was poor. He and Diaby often ended up in the same channels.

17 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Brentford are weird, they came up with football and style and ideas as this progressive example to others and they've gradually morphed into Stoke.

I haven't watched enough of them against other teams this year to know, but maybe we're seeing a different side of them now that we're title-chasers instead of their mid-table peers.

2 minutes ago, allani said:

I really couldn't disagree with a post more than I do with this one.  Aimlessly pumping the ball into the box isn't the answer.  We passed around patiently knowing that the chances are that at some point a defender would switch off.  They did and Bailey picked out an unmarked Moreno with a perfect pass.  No-one has ever told Man City or Barcelona just to hoof the ball into the box. 

Perhaps I overstated my case...I agree, you don't want to pump it aimlessly, but it seemed to me like we were taking no chances whatsoever until the red card. Your example came after they were down to 10 men. Would we have scored without the red card? I don't know that we would have.

Good teams find a way to win. We finally found a way, although it took a Ben Mee gift to do it.

We still struggle to break down park-the-bus teams. We were ponderous. After they scored, it almost looked like Gerrard-ball. Chaos favors the attack. Don't wait for the perfect opportunity. Pump balls into the box and your chance will come.

We missed Doug running the show from deep. We missed Tielemans' through balls. We missed (until the second half) Bailey's runs.

McGinn had to play a different role without Doug and was restricted.

Moreno was still rusty but made amends.

I'll defend Cash as a RB but he is not a midfielder.

Poor self control from Emi and Kamara at the end. You're winning; let it go. That said, the ref let the game get out of hand and was really poor.

To be fair, I thought Brentford should have had a penalty for the shove in the back on the edge of the box.

Well, that was negative even though we won, so let me conclude with something positive. The second goal was a beauty. Great flick, great finish, great character to get there.

Red card to Mee aside, the ref has been poor and is getting poorer.

Konsa probably shouldn't have shot there. Keep the ball and make them chase it.

Ref has lost control here.

I loved how Zaniolo picked the ball out of the net, suddenly realized that we're ahead, then booted the ball away.

Poor from Moreno.

1 minute ago, maqroll said:

He's been given license to roam, I think.

Agreed...but he's drifting more than roaming. Not making runs. He's too used to running from deep.

3 minutes ago, pregra said:

Cash playing as a central attacking midfielder

This is the problem. He doesn't know how to play the position.