WooJung

He CAN play in a 2 with Dougie, he did it last season when Kamara was out and we were winning game after game.

13 minutes ago, tommytenjobs said:

Is there any other option than Morgan for young player of the year? Thinking about this last night and I couldn't come up with one. Perhaps says more about Ramseys injuries and the 'aging' squad we have thanks to relegation avoiding squad building and Gerrard in recent past.....and Rogers has been great don't get me wrong....but i think he gets it almost through default. And he's only been here for a third of the season. 

Any other shouts? 

 

 

The closest one is probably Duran, and he's miles away 

Needs to learn how to hold the bloody line, every time there's an offside check it's him who's trailing behind.

Exact same thing happened last weekend with Jackson. We got lucky then, sadly not today 

I get the "he misses Kamara", but Kamara being on the field doesn't prevent him from jumping with his arm stretched out or messing around with the ball and losing it like he did against Chelsea (despite it being a poor pass to him from Digne) and especially putting his face into other players' faces (it's happening very often now).

He is a great player but he really needs to step his game up.

I won't give him crap for the penalties, he never missed one for us before, pressure was high, and McGinn and Diaby f**** around at the edge of the box delaying the kick did him no favours at all.

The corner they got their penalty from never should have been allowed to be a corner, Lenglet should have dealt with that. Especially considering how poor we are at defending set pieces.

I want to be nice and will praise his great ball to Bailey which led up to the 2-2

For context and comparison, Bertrand Traore finished his first season with the same number of goal contributions (7 goals, 6 assists) in 2333 minutes.

The thing is that he's showing poor intelligence/leadership/maturity.

We know how good he can be technically, but his mentality right now is letting him (and us) down. 

I believe it's more than fair to expect much more from him, and judging by Unai's reactions, so does he

Hope it was a useful warm up for Thursday 

Soft

Brought a lot of much needed presence in midfield, which was a breath of fresh air.

Needs to do better for their goal though 

Typical, he's been one of our best players in the last few games and of course he gets injured 

He's gonna have an unpleasant 1 to 1 with Unai, I suspect 

I said it in the match thread, he was so much better in 2023 and it can't only be on Kamara missing, as Kamara missed a good portion of the 10 unbeaten games last season and Dougie was brilliant throughout.

He's miles off it, he isn't being exposed, he's messing up on his own. Infuriating patch of form

Stupid foul from Carlos 

Just now, MotoMkali said:

A significant part of it is. He could be more aggressive with his decision making knowing Kamara was there to cover. You can see it when he loses the ball now we look so vulnerable. 

I'm not convinced, Kamara was missing for a good portion of the 10 unbeaten last season and Dougie was shining nevertheless 

2023 Dougie was much better, wasn't he? It can't only be Kamara's absence 

5 minutes ago, Xela said:

I look at Rogers and think is this what Aaron Ramsey should have been? Or could be? I know why we sold him, but could he have flourished in the same role? He was more effective than Rogers at Boro by far. 

Not knocking Rogers at all, he's been wonderful. 

Difficult to compare, they are young players with different skill sets who were playing under different managers in a different league.

It could very well be that Rogers is being much better utilised, is maturing more quickly and suits the system better, and Ramsey "peaked" at that level and may not be transposable to the premier league, as happens to many good championship players.

Some decent premier league players also don't seem to get significantly better when they drop down a division, I'm thinking of Westwood and Ayew when we got relegated.

All speculation mind you, I haven't seen anywhere near enough of Ramsey to make that judgement and he may well end up being the better player 

For the the most frustrating thing about him is how limited he is in tight spaces, whenever we are in possession in the opposition half, when the ball goes 9/10 its going back. We'd be a lot more dangerous with a more creative and gifted player, which should be one of the focus purchases this summer 

Never thought I'd ask, but does he get back into the team?

3 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

We scored inside the 5 minutes added time, the ref should probably have added an extra 30 seconds/minute.

Banking on fair officiating is a very poor strategy 

It must be said, Germany has it marginally easier due to having a smaller league (18 teams) and only one cup competition, making it a minimum of 5 fewer games they play compared to an English team.

How impactful in terms of fitness that is I cannot say, but it could potentially be the difference between health and injury for key players 

Very disappointing performance overall, but that penalty was class

There is now something Grealishesque about him whereby we know we can give him the ball and he'll not only look after it, but likely make something happen.

Absolutely crucial player for us

CAN WE STOP GIFTING THEM CHANCES?

Why does Unai wait so long to change something that clearly isn't working?