Chelsea (h) Premier League Saturday 21st Feb 12.30pm

[Frogfish]

I guess he wanted to keep Salah on the right no matter what (generally best to let your best player play in their preferred position) and then it was a matter of choosing a lesser evil between Ox or someone at CF and Gakpo left or what we saw. Maybe he also hoped some continuity with Gakpo having played the previous games up front would pay off, don't know. It didn't work too well obviously, although Elliott did a couple of good things on the left.

Here's the thing though, as I posted earlier, Salah has a far better goals per game record from playing central - whether he likes it or not - than he does playing RW. So it would have made all the sense in the world to move Salah central, play Elliott (or Doak) on the right (a position they are familiar with and play well there) and Gakpo in his prefered position on the left. It honestly made no sense unless it was as a deliberate counter to something Chelsea could be expected to do.

 

[Farkmaster]

Salah is getting the ball near crowds of players that's why he is not scoring, there is no space to run into or anything, and that assumes that someone is giving him the ball in the right areas, which ain't happening much - again down to midfield. I think that is also why he holds onto the ball and nearly always loses it these days because he don't know if he is going to get the ball back again.

Salah is getting the ball one on one against defenders and he generally is not beating them anymore. It is as though people are in denial about this. He used to require two defenders on him.

Put it this way, Nunez gets the ball isolated, and the crowd begins to roar because he's going to blow by and something could happen. Salah's not getting that roar because left back after left back knows that our attack is far less multidimensional. They just have to solve the Salah on the ball problem. Many of them can do that now. They didn't used to be able to. Salah can sometimes work a fairly low percentage shot. They can give that to him, and they're fine.

Of course our midfield failing to be able to allow Trent up the pitch wide is a problem, the lack of other threat elsewhere is a problem, the lack of any attacking interplay is a problem, the failure of any high press creating good opportunities with space and chaos is a problem, yadda yadda.

But Salah isn't winning individual battles, anywhere near enough. Not enough for Salah, but not enough for any senior level player in our team. We don't have any choice and we have to keep playing him. He will need to adapt to be an out ball that can retain possession, and we will need to figure out a system that can make space and threat for him, but none of the options are truly convincing given the system we have. We also need to have him hit a purple patch and get us some goals.

That's the thing, we actually need individual brilliance and threat from pace. That's what mediocre teams need sometimes. Would it be nice if we solved all of our problems and figured out how to get challenging interplay between Harvey and Salah and Trent making overloads down that side. Yup. But we're building our castle on sand, and it's not going to happen until we rebuild our team. That's why you have a superstar striker. That was the idea of keeping him, no? He's the bridge to the next team? Keep a little bit of continuity, keep us in the top 4. He's failing in that task, and I hope he's hell bent on figuring out his part in it.

 

[rurikbird]

Salah is getting the ball one on one against defenders and he generally is not beating them anymore. It is as though people are in denial about this. He used to require two defenders on him.

Put it this way, Nunez gets the ball isolated, and the crowd begins to roar because he's going to blow by and something could happen. Salah's not getting that roar because left back after left back knows that our attack is far less multidimensional. They just have to solve the Salah on the ball problem. Many of them can do that now. They didn't used to be able to. Salah can sometimes work a fairly low percentage shot. They can give that to him, and they're fine.

Of course our midfield failing to be able to allow Trent up the pitch wide is a problem, the lack of other threat elsewhere is a problem, the lack of any attacking interplay is a problem, the failure of any high press creating good opportunities with space and chaos is a problem, yadda yadda.

But Salah isn't winning individual battles, anywhere near enough. Not enough for Salah, but not enough for any senior level player in our team. We don't have any choice and we have to keep playing him. He will need to adapt to be an out ball that can retain possession, and we will need to figure out a system that can make space and threat for him, but none of the options are truly convincing given the system we have. We also need to have him hit a purple patch and get us some goals.

That's the thing, we actually need individual brilliance and threat from pace. That's what mediocre teams need sometimes. Would it be nice if we solved all of our problems and figured out how to get challenging interplay between Harvey and Salah and Trent making overloads down that side. Yup. But we're building our castle on sand, and it's not going to happen until we rebuild our team. That's why you have a superstar striker. That was the idea of keeping him, no? He's the bridge to the next team? Keep a little bit of continuity, keep us in the top 4. He's failing in that task, and I hope he's hell bent on figuring out his part in it.

Good post. Maybe needs to be reposted in the Salah thread.

 

[moron]

Salah is getting the ball one on one against defenders and he generally is not beating them anymore. It is as though people are in denial about this. He used to require two defenders on him.

Put it this way, Nunez gets the ball isolated, and the crowd begins to roar because he's going to blow by and something could happen. Salah's not getting that roar because left back after left back knows that our attack is far less multidimensional. They just have to solve the Salah on the ball problem. Many of them can do that now. They didn't used to be able to. Salah can sometimes work a fairly low percentage shot. They can give that to him, and they're fine.

Of course our midfield failing to be able to allow Trent up the pitch wide is a problem, the lack of other threat elsewhere is a problem, the lack of any attacking interplay is a problem, the failure of any high press creating good opportunities with space and chaos is a problem, yadda yadda.

But Salah isn't winning individual battles, anywhere near enough. Not enough for Salah, but not enough for any senior level player in our team. We don't have any choice and we have to keep playing him. He will need to adapt to be an out ball that can retain possession, and we will need to figure out a system that can make space and threat for him, but none of the options are truly convincing given the system we have. We also need to have him hit a purple patch and get us some goals.

That's the thing, we actually need individual brilliance and threat from pace. That's what mediocre teams need sometimes. Would it be nice if we solved all of our problems and figured out how to get challenging interplay between Harvey and Salah and Trent making overloads down that side. Yup. But we're building our castle on sand, and it's not going to happen until we rebuild our team. That's why you have a superstar striker. That was the idea of keeping him, no? He's the bridge to the next team? Keep a little bit of continuity, keep us in the top 4. He's failing in that task, and I hope he's hell bent on figuring out his part in it.

I have missed these one on ones he keeps losing then. The two situations where he has lost one on one's that I recall are the Napoli and Arsenal games. However, he has missed many chances, that is for sure.

 

[King Binny]

 

[Buddha]

Fuck me, they’ve signed Ivan Drago.

 

[rubans]

Looked a decent player.
But didn’t do much after Trent came on.
He was running against poor old Millie, need to see more before that 90m fee is justified.

 

[tombrown]

Fuck me, they’ve signed Ivan Drago.

Draco Malfoy

 

[rurikbird]

He does have a villain look about him to be fair.

 

[ctlovesred]

I thought his passing in tight spaces around the box was excellent. His first touch let him down as did his shooting.

Long May that continue.