GW13: Start of the Festive Period
- Thread starter the1andonly3003
- Start date
Kelleher has made his mark over the last few weeks. I've been very relieved/impressed/happy with his game.
Whew ! That was really nerve wracking .. should have been 6 or 7.
Top of the Table!
what has happened to that City team? They were awful defensively.
Top of the Table!
what has happened to that City team? They were awful defensively.
Rodri literally takes the place of three guys and they have hilarious goalkeeping.
They have also been missing Stones over this winless run, save for the first one against Spurs. He’s a really underrated player both for City (they finally won the Champions League when he was healthy down the stretch playing in the midfield) and for England.
I think City haven’t done a great job refreshing their midfield, so it becomes hard to control the field like Pep usually wants to with injuries to Rodri and KDB, Bernardo and Gundogan look like they’ve lost a step, Foden hasn’t looked right since the Euros, Kovacic and Nunes are good but not world class players, Philips didn’t work out, etc. Meanwhile Arsenal added Rice, Liverpool completely turned things over with Szoboszlai, Gravenberch, Mac Allister, Endo, etc., Chelsea spent exorbitantly on Caicedo, Enzo and Lavia, and it just seems like City fell behind in the midfield arms race and needs all of their existing players to keep going at a super high level despite playing a ton of high leverage games over the years until they can restock. Those Zubimendi rumors definitely make sense, regardless of the Rodri situation.
How is Ashley Young still getting starts? The only thing he does now is slide in late to try to block his mark’s shot.
He's no longer capable of keeping up with Premier League wingers. But that's been the case for awhile now.
The real shocker is the sudden decline of James Tarkowski, who has been excellent for the past couple of seasons, especially in tandem with Branthwaite. IMO Tarkowski has deserved a spot in the England squad, especially ahead of the likes of Maguire and Coady. But he's been awful this season.
With Young, Doucoure, Gana Gueye, and Young, there are too many players on the wrong side of 30 whose performances are just falling off a cliff.
Mykolenko, Beto, and Jack Harrison have the look of the nearly-man about them - they're never going to fulfill their promise.
Calvert-Lewin is his own unique case.
The only players who are even close to performing in their prime are Pickford, Branthwaite, Ndaiye, and McNeil, whose severe left-footedness and lack of pace leaves him without a consistent position - he keeps bouncing between a 10 and a wing, without being able to fully discharge the duties of either job.
It's a mess.
No manager could make this bunch into 1970's Ajax, but however you want to define the standard remit of a manager - to make the players better than the sum of their parts, to give them the best possible chance to win, to maximize the talent at his disposal - Dyche is not meeting the demand. The side lacks the ability to play with both belief and nous over 90 minutes. They string together stretches of positive play in every match but the end product is absent and they fold at the first punch from their foe.
That's on the manager.