Jump to content

Bodowned

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    1765
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Bodowned

  1. I think the Harvey point is right theoretically, but our midfield has been overrun for several weeks now because of tired legs and a disorganized press so I don’t see how it’s any different? West Ham marched through to the final third with little to no resistance for 40+ minutes.
  2. Elliott is not a perfect player, but he absolutely solves a bit of the creativity problem. His problem is he’s not physical and that seems to be the only trait that Slot cares for. Elliott / Bradley / Salah linked up very well against Fulham and nearly pushed us to a draw. Elliott was the best player on the pitch when he came on against Newcastle in the cup final and played three incisive balls into the box in a short period of time that we don’t usually see from a our MF (one which led to the Chiesa goal). There’s just no way you can look at Jones / Szobo’s recent non-impact and tell me he doesn’t deserve a look. Leicester is probably the perfect match to try it, but I’m sure it’ll be Grav / Macca / Szobo.
  3. I like good football and we’ve played about two halves of good football over our last 7 matches and we’re able to win the league in neutral due to Arsenal stepping on rakes. One of the common complaints with Klopp was his undying loyalty to the same stable of players and we’re in the same frustrating rut right now. I just don’t understand why Endo, Elliott, and Chiesa can’t find their way into a game.
  4. Szoboszlai subbed on in the 68th minute and had 6 touches in 29 minutes. This midfield is tired and toothless and Harvey Elliott couldn’t buy his way onto the pitch. Fortunate set piece at the end because West Ham utterly dominated us for the entirety of the second half and Alisson made a few brilliant saves thankfully.
  5. Lucho has been the most dangerous player since he’s come on. Outstanding run from Bradley to see that open space to receive the ball.
  6. Salah has been fucking terrible for half-a-dozen matches. You can’t play a 32 year-old 98% of available minutes and expect him to be the same player in April that he was in November. At some point, these players need to be held accountable and rotated when they aren’t performing. Gravenberch, Szoboszlai, and Salah have been run into the ground this year.
  7. 6-game run of not scoring more than 1 goal from open play. Still trotting out Salah and Szoboszlai week after week despite the 0s they’re dishing out. Chiesa and Harvey will never see minutes from this guy.
  8. Embarrassing to not get a shot off.
  9. Does this team run any actual offense or is it just 3-4 players standing around while someone does iso ball for a contested jumper?
  10. Where he touches the ball is not substantially different from where players like Wirtz, Musiala, Cole Palmer, Bruno Fernandes, etc. find possession but his output is most definitely a step down. You can say he works harder out-of-possession than some of these players, but nobody looked at Szoboszlai in the Bundesliga and thought “we should get this guy for his pressing!” He played 70% of our UCL minutes and had 0 G/A in the last 7 matches in the competition and created 0 big chances in all of his appearances combined. The technicality of our forwards and midfield is a step-down vs. the likes of PSG, Arsenal (less so when it comes to forwards lately!), Barcelona, etc. and it’s something we need to solve for.
  11. Seems disingenuous to post comparisons against “all midfielders” which includes players who don’t venture forward with any frequency. Compare his stats to other attacking midfielders or wingers (which is where he spends his time in possession, as evidenced by his heatmap) and you can plainly see his limitations.
  12. He has 17 G/A in 78 appearances across EPL and UCL with 18 big chances created as a midfielder who positions himself like he’s a forward when we’re in attack. The only consistent compliment you can give him across all of his minutes is that he’s a high-energy workhorse. So we paid £60M for a better-looking Jordan Henderson. We need more output from him if we’re playing donkeys like Nunez, Díaz, and Jota upfront. Harvey played 3 passes in 20 minutes (one for an assist) that I haven’t seen Dom try once this year. Szoboszlai is absolutely a critical part of our midfield rotation going forward, but he is not (for me) a nailed-on starter every week. He’s too passive drifting in & out of matches when we’re in possession and lacks technical ability on the ball. He can’t create space on the dribble and is mostly a lay-off merchant to the wide players. Somebody, at some point, needs to have some ambition to play through the middle.
  13. The most head-scratching part of this Chiesa saga is that he makes £150K/week. He’s the FIFTH highest earner in the entire squad and he’s been chained up in Slot’s basement for 6 months while we watch Darwin, Díaz, and Jota produce fuck-all week after week after week. Also painfully obvious how limited Szoboszlai is as an attacking midfielder against more physical and technical midfields. Invisible and passed around against PSG and put in a replica today. We need a creative #10 — a Coutinho-redux who can break down low blocks with his dribbling, passing, and outside shooting.
  14. He’s bang-average at best. If Barcelona want to stupidly throw €70M at us for him this summer, then I’d take it in a heartbeat. It’s already unforgivable that we didn’t take the Saudi money for Nunez in January and let City walk away with Marmoush. Jota, Nunez, and Díaz should ALL be gone.
  15. Chiesa shown more in 15 minutes than Díaz has in 10 matches.
  16. They didn’t look good before that. Drew to Everton, drew to Villa, barely scraped past Wolves. Needed haram-ball tactics to beat a bad City side. They’ve looked like an excellent squad exactly one time in 2025 and it was the semifinal drubbing against Tottenham. Other than that, we’ve been hanging on for dear-fucking-life with a tired starting XI.
  17. FSG needs to be prosecuted for lack of investment to back a new manager. Absolutely no depth to this squad — Slot sends out the same 11-14 players every single week and the midfield trio are dead tired. The only reason we’re winning the league (MAYBE, at this point) is Salah’s form over the first 5 months and the fact that City and Arsenal capitulated. Same position as last year — great squad through January/February and then the grind of the schedule catches up to the main squad as there’s no adequate rotation to keep players fresh.
  18. Cannot believe we rejected the Saudi offer for Nune…could have gotten this donkey off our hands and barely lost a nickel on the investment… I’m praying for Isak in the summer.
  19. Rewatching on YoutubeTV…the first two sacks are on Ewers (the patented self-sack), the third is probably a split-decision depending on what coverage looked like down the field, and the sack-fumble is 90% on Cam Williams. You can’t get beat one-on-one there. That being said, Ewers had Golden running underneath (which looked to be schemed?) from right-to-left and he might have had enough momentum to fight to the end zone if he catches it clean in space. Ewers worked the left side of the field from the snap and there was nothing going there — too many OSU bodies. The run game is truly appalling sometimes. There’s a play in the 3rd quarter that sums up the interior OL experience where the play is schemed PERFECTLY with Majors and Conner pulling to the left with one edge player to kick out (J.T.)…Majors probably could have chipped him to help Conners out before moving to the second-level responsibility, but instead it’s Conners 1v1 on the pull and he gets absolutely fucking smoked and Wisner loses 2 yards when the play was blocked up for 7-8 yards otherwise with no OSU players near the LOS on that side of the field. He gets swim-moved inside SO EASILY. The execution is just not there in the run game…the reality is some of these dudes are JAGs and it was exposed against our best competition.
  20. 2 straight years inside the 12 yard line
  21. when we get a QB who elevates talent..watch out!
  22. red zone offense could be different if we had a QB who drove the ball down the field instead of lollipopping every pass. hard to play in tight parameters when every ball takes 3 seconds to come down
×
×
  • Create New...