I thought while Rossiter did well individually, the lack of height and physicality in our CM today gave Sion some breathing room in midfield that they wouldn't have otherwise (if, say, Milner played there instead of Rossiter). Allen usually needs a few games to shake off the rust after his injury layoffs (there have been enough of them over the years to find out the pattern), some passes today were uncharacteristically sloppy, but at other times he did very well (like that pass to Ings (I think?) in the 1st half or the through ball to Origi in the 2nd). After one or two more starts I think Allen will be back to his best.
Ibe looks very short of confidence, but the only way to get out of that is to keep playing him. Not sure many people here would agree with this, but I would actually play him at RWB in the derby instead of Clyne. I still have memories of his MOM performance there last year, he needs to feel the trust and eventually confidence will come.
Origi had his best game for us so far, shame about not being able to find a finish. But I want to see more of him and please stop comparing him to Borini – he has a lot more tools than the Italian, he just needs to play regularly to find his confidence, just like Ibe.
Not the best game from Ings, but he should still start in the derby. Lallana probably MOM, but he should have scored a couple more.
Overall I think Europa league group stage is actually beneficial to us at the moment; we can give young players like Origi, Ibe, Gomez and Rossiter or older players who don't always get in the team like Lallana plenty of regular game time and don't really care about whether we get out of the group or not.
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