Cherry picking

A trip to the south coast to face an in form Bournemouth team awaited us in this round of fixtures, in what promised to be a difficult game and from the very first whistle, it didn’t disappoint.

Trent is a player who polarises the fan base. Lauded by some for the creative side of his game, slated by others for his often poor defending. As with any polarising subject, the truth lies somewhere in the middle but yesterday unfortunately, we saw the worst of his game and literally from the minute the game kicked off as he inexplicably just held on to the ball far too long, was dispossessed and we conceded a big chance in the opening 10 seconds of the game.

Unfortunately this set the tone as Bournemouth caused us all manner of problems down our right hand side, the lively Semenya had the very lackadaisical Trent on toast time and again and we rode our luck as he struck the underside of the crossbar at 0-0.

At the other end we were finding clear cut chances hard to come by, although one sweeping move had put Szoboszlai clean through, forcing Kepa into a good save.

The penalty that eventually broke the deadlock from nothing too and will have been a hard one for Bournemouth to take, as the defender chasing Gakpo accidentally clipped his heel, down went the Dutchman and penalty given. The contact was marginal and accidental, at first glance looking like Gakpo had tripped over his own feet but from the right angle you can see the clip that caused his trailing leg to collide with his standing leg and it was the correct decision, if a little unfortunate for the plucky Bournemouth. Up stepped Salah and expertly converted to give us what many thought was an undeserving lead. Them’s the breaks however.

Second half I thought we had a little more control and Bournemouth must have been casting envious glances when the time came to start making changes. The lack of depth on their bench stark compared to ours. It was one of the starters who sealed the game though – who else but the unstoppable McMOTM- Mo Salah. Scored his second of the game with a truly world class finish and in doing so, put himself in the most exalted of company, joining a very small group of players to have scored more than 20 goals in five Premier league seasons. If we win either of the big two trophies this year, Salah has to be nailed on for the Ballon D’or. I can’t think of anyone else in Europe coming close to matching what Salah has been doing this season and you’d have to think the club will pull out all the stops to keep him, alongside Van Dijk who was excellent once more. I’m a bit more ambivalent about Trent. I feel he’s a luxury player who, while nice to have, isn’t worth breaking the bank over or caving to ridiculous demands for.

Elsewhere, I feel Robbo has looked more himself in the second half of the season and has found some form. Gravenberch was excellent again and Szoboszlai has looked like the player we saw at the beginning of last season in recent weeks. I always bang on about competition for places being so important for getting the best out of players and I think it’s no coincidence that the early season form of Jones, as well as the very lively cameos we’ve seen from Elliot of late, have spurred Szoboszlai on to finding his best form.

In attack, Diaz has somewhat gone off the boil in recent weeks. He had a blistering start to playing in the central position but has proved ineffective there in recent games, although it’s telling that despite his recent heroics, Diaz is still preferred there to Darwin. With Jota back in the squad however, I suspect both will be making way for him in the central role. All will have their part to play in the second half of the season however, as will Gomez who also returned to training this week.

Another three points then and one of those games that felt like a massive win in the grand scheme of things, although unfortunately as I type this Arsenal have just spanked City. I had hoped City would do us a favour, or at the very least it would be be against them that Arsenal would claw back some the GD deficit to us but alas, it seems City are destined to be something of a nightmare for us every season, even when they’re crap.

This season however, I don’t want to spend too much time focusing on our rivals, as it’s all about us. If we do our job, it doesn’t matter what they do from here out and while I don’t want to tempt fate, I’ll be staggered if we don’t go on to win the league this season. We’ve been by far the best and most consistent team and we have the experience in the dressing room that knows how to get over the line and keep the team focused.

Spurs next then, where we need to turn around a one goal deficit from the first leg but once again this season the footballing gods have smiled on us, as a favourable FA cup draw against Plymouth next Sunday, allows us to go full strength against Spurs on Thursday and then heavily rotate for the weekend’s game. To that end, I still make us favourites to progress to the league cup final, despite being a goal down to Spurs.

Our dream season continues then, Slot continues to quietly but excellently go about his business, our big players are in the form of their lives and it’s difficult to see anyone stopping us now, certainly in the league. Knockout cup football can throw up crazy games and results but in the league, I just can’t see a scenario where both the wheels come off for us AND Arsenal (who I view as our only threat now) find the consistency to win the rest of their games, which is effectively what they’d need to do from this position.

With big players like Jota and Gomez returning as well, I csn only see us going from strength to strength towards that golden sky. Walk on!!