And breathe…
Sorry troops you’ll have to make do with more of my lunchtime musings while I’m still on call at work.
Our first defeat of the season then, against the high flying hammers. Some of the reactions I’ve read on various forms of social media have really been quite incredible, from bench Alisson, to completely change the style of play, to Virgil needing to be dropped and so on….
Now I’m as frustrated as anyone about yesterday’s display. We were well below par in almost all areas of the pitch, yet still could have won the game had Mane converted his chances. Primarily though, we lost yesterday because our keeper had a nightmare. It happens and will happen to all players at some point over the course of the season. The difference being with an outfield player, the rest can absorb a poor individual display. When it happens to your keeper, more often than not you’ll lose the game. Thankfully games like that are an anomaly for Alisson and over the course of the season he’ll save us a lot more points than he’ll cost us.
It is something of a concern the number of goals we’re conceding and we do seem very easy to play through at times just now but prior to yesterday, we were on a record breaking run of consecutive games without defeat. To that end, surely the answer is not tearing up the system and completely changing the personnel? Not for me anyway.
We have tweaked our tactics this season, we’ve started games much quicker again compared to the last couple of seasons where we were often slow in the first half. Trent is also taking up more central roles and Hendo pushing further out wide so it may be that the team just needs a bit more time to get used to the tactical tweaks but our players, manager and coaching staff are too good not to see what the problems are and make the necessary adjustments.
What is frustrating however, is not capitalising on our rivals dropping points. City last week and Chelsea this. In a title race that is likely to go right to the wire, it’s imperative that we take advantage of our rivals slip ups. Having said that, it’s only November so let’s not lose our minds just yet.
The dreaded international break next then and a frustrating game to finish on. A resurgent Arsenal up next in the PL them and despite their disastrous start to the season, now only find themselves two points behind us, so we simply must get back to winning ways although I believe we will.
Anyway lunch break over so that’s it just now. And breathe… Walk on!
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