I didn’t post yesterday, because I worked a gruelling shift and was shattered when I got in, apologies.
But the reward was I managed to get back in time to watch the game today.
I’m pretty sanguine about that result, as let’s face it, any hope of getting anything out of this game was just that; hope and not expectation.
At least we didn’t get thrashed 9-0, as Southampton did.
The fact is we just got beat by a better team and while I can point fingers at Mings and Engels for a couple of the goals, I think it’s a percentages thing and if you’re going to face that many efforts against you, you’re going to make the odd mistake.
The third goal looked like offside by Silva to me and I don’t care if he touched it or not, he’s still interfering with play to my mind, as he’s interfering with Heaton’s view.
Unless they’ve changed the rules again and I’ve missed something (which is always possible).
And then there’s Wesley.
I saw criticism of his contribution and to be honest, just thought that he hadn’t had enough of the ball.
Until Davis came on and the commentators talked about how Davis is more mobile than Wesley after just a couple of minutes.
That immediately gives the impression that Wesley just doesn’t do enough. Indeed, I mentioned a couple of weeks back that I thought that Wesley needs to put himself about a bit more.
I’m not going to comment, as I wasn’t really concentrating on Wesley and was more concerned with what was going on in the middle and at the back.
Certainly on the telly it seemed that Davis got more involved in a couple of minutes than Wesley did for the whole of his game, but watching on the telly doesn’t tell the whole story.
I can understand any clamour for Davis to get a run of games, but my concern with that would be that Davis just isn’t prolific.
Fair enough, we’ll never know if he’s improved without giving him a run of games, but that means dropping Wesley under our current system. What would that do to Wesley’s confidence?
It seems to me that the solution is to go 4-4-2 and play both of them up top, where Davis can hold up the ball to bring Wesley into play.
I don’t expect it to happen though and my guess is Smith will go with Wesley as long as he can.
That £20 million war chest, that we’re supposed to have for the winter window?
I’d expect us to double that just on one or more strikers, before we even look at anything else.
Man City were simply the better side and losing today was no disgrace. They are probably one of the best sides in the world, even when weakened at the back, after all. The thought of Aguero coming on as a sub must really dishearten any opposition player.
All that said, if I had posted yesterday, I’d have said that I have a sneaky feeling that we will pick up a point against either City or Pool.
It looks like it’ll have to be against Pool then.
Again, VAR. Got it wrong again, Norwich and Man utd.it defiantly not a pen.glad to say was saved . Crowds was booing at VAR.
Best Coach in the world but a master of the dark arts.
All Pep’s teams have had a hatchet man or two, so it is not a coincidence. City replaced the thug Company with Raidi. Pep instructs players to bring down an opponent if there is a dangerous break away starting – at the expense of a yellow card. Against Wolves City tried it on Traoré but he is so quick he hurdled the first scythe and the second player never got to him. There probably won’t be more than 3 break away attempts so the cards can be shared. Against Villa they were down to 2 hatchets, both on a yellow, so one collected a deserved red but that was too late to make a difference.
Talk of Grealish on crutches leaving the ground. Might be tight ham string and taking precaution hopefully.