GURJ SS

Watched the game and then took some time to reflect as I don't want to sound like a broken record or get tunnel vision and keep blaming something that might not be true, but there's a number of things that keep bugging me. I don't think Rudiger coming into the defence has made us weaker however I don't think he has particularly made us stronger as Zouma gives us the most strength in the air and physicality. What I do think he has done by coming back is caused the same issue we had with Luiz when we're on the ball or playing out from the back, and that is because he has the ability to pick out a long pass he is missing the immediate and quickest pass out of defence into a much more creative player. What's happening is our front 3 are moving forward and tucking in far too soon which makes our fullbacks get into positions where they should be receiving a pass on the run and not how they're receiving it which is a first touch to stop the ball. Tomori but far more so Zouma would release the ball as quick as he got it, which means that while yes he doesn't have the finesse of our other centre backs the great thing is he releases the ball to someone better and in far more advanced positions of the pitch than himself; more importantly it moves the ball out of the defence as soon as possible and while our players are still transitioning from defence to attack, meaning we can counterattack and counterattack with unpredictability whilst the other team hasn't settled. Personally I think Tomori and Zouma were fine at the back with Christensen as 3rd choice. If we were to think back to some of our great teams and how the centre backs like Terry, Carvalho and Alex could work with the ball we've got to remember they had fullbacks and midfielders around them who could also work the ball and attacking players who were vastly superior to what we've got now; what we've got now are the type of players where we need to get the ball into the attacking areas as early as possible and take advantage of that early space, we simply haven't got the quality to break a team down when we're too slow to move the ball on from defence. We looked slow with the ball yesterday when bringing it forward and that's with our two better ball playing centrebacks and I think it's more to do with them starving the more forward players of possession as early as possible. Which brings me to the next point... Central midfield. We don't have one. Jorginho was on his own until Barkley came on and started linking up with him and the defence, Kante is all but useless when needing to play small intricate passes to break past an opposition's midfield line and to be honest he doesn't offer enough in attack to say he should ever be closer to his striker than his centrebacks, Jorginho had a partner in Kovacic where he was able to play and rotate with and more importantly our centre backs had more options to get rid of the ball early while the other team were still settling defensively. At the moment the centrebacks who I've been critical about above but to their defence have to work with just Jorginho to keep possession while Kante sprints off to join Tammy for some extremely bizarre reason; by that time the opposition are all settled and have everyone behind the ball. Sarri used Kante as an AM, Lampard is using him as a second striker which makes Sarri's decision look mundane, Kante can tackle better than Mount and Mount can get more goals than Kante however their roles have been switched around - Kante did not replace Kovacic, Mount did, and he isn't that type of player; Kante took Mount's role which makes me question if Lamps' drink is spiked moments before team selection. I don't think we lost yesterday because Lampard hasn't addressed our defensive side of the game, I think we lost yesterday because Lampard has lost his way with our attacking side of the game. We're never going to be a solid team that grinds a win out with the current set of players, however we don't need to be, yesterday was supposed to be a 1-3 win or something similar; but it turned into a 0-1 defeat because of our attacking issues.

I think Dave has been a little misused this season, he clearly isn't a wingback and his best football in a back 3 system is when he is one of the back 3. I think because we've seen his attacking game exposed even more than usual due to playing RWB he has looked far worse than he is this season. I've just done a post mentioning Kante in another thread but I'm really not picking on him... Thing is if you've got a defensive RB you don't put Kante as a RCM, you'd put someone like Kova/Mount/Barkley as the RCM and move Kante to the left side that has Emerson/Alonso on it; this allows Kante to cover for the more attacking fullback and Dave to cover for the more ball playing midfielder. I just think the balance has been too lopsided towards the left being more ball playing and the right being more about winning the ball back. As for him playing at LB it's like watching Gallas at LB again, it's as uncomfortable for the player than it is for us to watch but it's starting to work better partly I think because Balance will start to be restored. Our attacking players like cutting/drifting in from more of the left side of the pitch on their strong foot(right), and someone like Dave is able to cover them when they do that, on the right they tend to look for an overlap of a fullback while they open up their body to play it wide and Reese provides that. Maybe I'm looking too far into into and overthinking it, but I think these small changes is what improves teams vastly.

Klopp has definitely bought his team, I'd say there's an argument that he's able to make players perform better because he adapts plans to play to their strengths, for example his fullbacks aren't the best defensively so he uses the centre miss to cover for them, especially because he knows they can attack better than his centre mids. I'd say that's where it changes, if Jorginho and Kovacic play together with Mount they tend to play closer to each other and control the midfield, however when Kante plays he pushes so far forward that it isolates Jorginho and we don't ever gain control of the midfield. My biggest frustration with Kante is his decision making on the ball, yes Maka directed players into closed off areas but when he had the ball it was always the right pass, Kante literally kicks it at someone in panic, or his body language will be of a player that really doesn't want to be on the ball and it'll bounce of his shin or something. In a counter attacking team that doesn't want someone to sit in midfield and control the passage of play he's perfect, but if the manager wants to control possession with his midfielders he simply isn't needed; and the amount of times he's on the wrong side of the ball nowadays when we're being hit on a break the question rises do we even need him? I'm not knocking him, just I don't think we need that type of player anymore, I'd rather have two ball players who stay behind the ball and dictate the game over one ball player and one ball winner who attacks but isn't really worth having them attack because they aren't in position to use their main strength. Similar to my example of Klopp, as in you wouldn't see him push Fabinho high up the pitch because it's wasting his strengths. Kante's strength is being on goal side of the ball to stop counter attacks, pressing on opposition players who are breaking with the ball, and to jockey players into corners; making him constantly contribute to attack is the equivalent of a manager putting someone like Mascherano as an attacking midfielder, just doesn't work to the player's strengths. Kova can carry the ball through a congested midfield probably better than any of our players can, that quick burst and his ball retention skills are on the level of Willian. Yes he doesn't score much or have a direct assist however the opposition see far less of the ball when he's on the pitch and most importantly our backline has a genuine outlet to pass to. Haha true, I think when it comes to Lamps personally I think he's at the same level as a manager as the likes of Abraham and Mount are as footballers, while that means there will be mistakes it also means he like them will only get better and better.

I'd prefer Richarlison over Zaha, the main problem with Zaha is if he's having a bad game(and happens more often than it should) it's all arms in the air, blaming teammates or telling the ref to eff off. Richarlison just puts his head down and digs deeper every time, he's creative with top skills but can also power through the opposition; he's the type of player that you can keep on the pitch to turn to when Plan A and B haven't worked.

The reason was Rudiger was being a n*b, Zouma had no choice but to head it because there was a player behind him. It will cost us in the future as Zouma will leave it next time and the danger won't get cleared, giving a corner is better than not clearing the danger. Kante is supposed to be the ball winner but he just chased shadows up front, Kovacic is a all-rounder and his partnership with Jorginho was going from strength to strength; Kante has all but ruined that flow in midfield of being able to control and dictate the game. Aging players has nothing to do with Lamps getting punished, he's getting punished because his decision making is sometimes woeful. We haven't actually got much of an aging squad. We're in CL football, if Lamps can't maintain that then we've gone backwards. I understand Lamps is one of our own but previous managers have been bashed for not moving the club forwards and in some cases bashed for moving the club forwards; so the club and fans have that choice to make, a few years without top level football or heavy investment which means also getting a top class manager.

We attack with our fullbacks, one central player and 3 forwards. Let's have a look at those players yesterday: Dave, Reece, Mount, Pulisic, Willian, Tammy; they're either not goal scorers or too young to expect the same decision making than players like Lamps and Drogba had (something even they didn't have at their ages). We either stick with this educating young players plan or we gut the team and spend hundreds of millions, it's taken Klopp over 5 years, Lamps has had 5 months. If a manager plays young players they have to get their tactics spot on, there's very little room for error. Jose summed it up very well when talking about Ballack, he said Ballack played very clever by closing the gap between himself and the defensive mid to 5 metres when the team was trying to close out the opposition and he maintained that gap. Where players like Mount haven't got that knowledge yet, even Kante hasn't as he was wondering around alongside Tammy for some bizarre reason; this is where Lampard has very very little room to get his tactics wrong, he has to make sure everything is bang on - we haven't got the best tactical players as it is so the manager needs to step up. No we don't work opposition goalkeepers enough and that's because the team changed tactics and we've taken a step backwards. Jorge and Kova as the 2 centre mids with Mount in front of them have us 3 players who can receive and pass the ball around in tight spaces, meaning fullbacks can get into their correct positions and forwards can make forward runs instead of having to hold the ball up with their back to goal, since Kante has come back we've got one less man to do that and he actually loses the ball far too much or just kicks it at the closest teammate; he is a counterattacking player and we need build-up players in the middle of the park; otherwise those who get forward have to now become part of the build-up play instead of just concentrating on getting into the right areas. The managers door is where it's been laid at for the past managers, Lamps is no different. If he wants to ensure these young lads are given time by the club then he must make sure that they're given the correct formation and tactics for every game, or at least good enough tactics to not make them look like Sunday league players.

I don't think new players will make a difference, Lamps needs to sharpen up because he's getting punished just like Moyes was and Ole still does; the step up seems too big for him if we're aiming for a top 4 finish. If we're aiming for a 5th to 7th finish then he's the right manager for us. He thinks if he balances the defensive and attacking players up that it automatically means there's a balance in the side, and he has really imbalanced the side by picking players who returned from injury when they should have waited their turn. I'm still not convinced that Kante makes us better, he spends more time chasing shadows up top than actually closing the opposition out in dangerous areas, and Rudiger has always seemed alittle unstable mentally and today he was shouting at Zouma for no reason; compare that to Tomori and Zouma (much like Jorge and Kova) who had a great understanding and getting stronger each game, there really was no need to change anything. We're 1 goal up and Brighton are getting stronger, so he removes Pulisic who works hard for a raw young winger who makes zero effort in tracking back and has been nothing short of poor since coming back from injury. He then takes off Mount and moves Kante(a ball winning midfielder) further up the pitch; we need to close the opposition out so he moves a ball winning midfielder closer to our striker than our centrebacks, a mind boggling decision.

The game management was horrendous today.

We held on.

C'mon Tammy, some game management was needed then.

We're winning 1-2

As soon as Willian was one on one with Luiz I think we all knew the goal was coming, how Luiz let Tammy turn and then the ball get played to Willian will make Arsenal Fans TV truly going into meltdown lol... Well, it's why we let him go.

I'd say Dave was, think he's a good player but he had 5 seconds more on the ball than anyone else and was doing nothing with it.

Boom!

Yes!!!!! Tammy!!!!!