nyblue23

I lost a lot of respect for Aguero Monday. Should've had a card or two for diving as well.

Disappointing result because we were up a man. Schneiderlin shouldn't have been sent off, but neither should have Walker. Given an equal match, I'd feel happy at 1-1, but with the illegitimate sending off of Walker, 1-1 feels poor. Rooney was terrible save for the goal, which was too close in not to finish. DCL the only real positive in this match for me. Kind of looking forward to see what Koeman does without Schneiderlin, as i feel his reliance is too deep. And thank you Btay for saying what needed to be said about hafnia. You're only a target because you make yourself one.

Yessssss!!! On my fantasy squad and I don't even care.

DCL and Davies so isolated every time they get forward. Need to replace schneiderlin with Siggurdson at the half and we could use Lookmans pace as well.

Heh. Let's hope. Not inspiring a lot of confidence in me.

Holgate Keane Williams Jags Baines Schneiderlin Gana DCL Rooney Davies About as defensive as you can get.

Christ.

Welbeck is more the type we need I think. Strength and size as a foil for Rooney and Sandro, even if he's not your typical target man.

Think De Gea, Courtois, and Ederson are all comfortably ahead with Pickford already at his level or above. I think Begovic and Butland are more Lloris' level personally.

Impressive reel for a short fee games. Kid's got tricks.

Thanks for that. He's a good player and his work rate is phenomenal. He looks to join the attack consistently and seems to genuinely love playing football. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but he didn't get a touch during his first 5ish minutes on the pitch Thursday despite making the most intelligent movement off the ball, and, as a result, threw his hands up in desperation. He wants to be involved and join the attack, and for me, he's rarely put a foot wrong. My only real critique is that his passing seems a bit slower than most.

Seems like Dowell, Kenny and Davies at the beginning of the season were all pretty important to last year's squad.

And Davies. But still a fair point.

Stek last year over Robles and Martina this year over Holgate/Kenny. And as much as I think Schneiderlin was a good buy and has done very well for us, he's the last person in that midfield that would be dropped, and I personally think Gana is more valuable and Davies is approaching Morgan's value.

Yeah this is the main thing don't like about him so far. For whatever reason he seems to have a couple long-term favorites who he brings from club to club who aren't worth their weight, and he stands by them with an almost defensive religiosity. It almost surprises me that Stekelenburg isn't starting in front of Pickford.

The offsides were really bad. Rooney guilty of the first few... the unfortunate part is that they weren't even playing a particularly high line. The offsides were coming from all over that half of the pitch.

He was much better today. Looked class in the first half, only to unravel a bit in the second with some ill-advised runs and some poor positioning. Willing to suspend my previous judgment for another run out or two, but think I'd still rather see Kenny there.

That must be it for me too, then.

We looked a little disjointed at the back second half and had some bad giveaways that led to a couple of those shots. At least three of those shots were speculative and straight at the keeper.

Great to see Besic back out there.

True. All four of the back line have had a few of those today.

Yeah, just don't seem to be playing with nearly the desire and grit we saw from Ruzomberok. Ruzomberok were so well organized and played with such high defensive energy... just haven't seen that in this match as much. You're probably correct that Split have more individual talent, though.

Great display by virtually everyone on the pitch. Only person I can't find anything good to say about is Williams, and he hasn't had much to do. Very good half of football. Don't want to get too excited as I'm not sure these guys are even as good as Ruzomberok, but it is encouraging to see us link up well and the work rate has been phenomenal.

Who needs a target man when our defensive-minded players score like this?

Good thing Gana offers nothing going forward