UEFA Champions League/Europa League ** Spoilers ** [22/23/24 October 2019]

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,188
Truly awful performance all told. Youth players being used is great but bringing them on in a position they are used to, with enough quality around them to help them through a game is the best way to do that.

Playing Willock and Martinelli out of position a AMN who has been absolutely dreadful, a barely played Smith-Rose and a combination of players that basically has no connection or playing together. Bellerin out of form as well. Why we didn't play say Tierney in the league then Kola in this game. Then it should have been Guen/Torreira in midfield with Willock in the no.10 as he's played most of the times he's played this season, Smith Rose later, and a youngster in defence maybe alongside Holding.

We played like 11 guys who had basically never played with the partnership they were in before this game and that's largely true, there was basically no link up play or understanding between any two players until Guen came on and Torreira and his movement was really good. Pepe obviously got the goals he's been missing out on after some really good recent performances where he got unlucky in front of goal or not winning penalties he clearly deserved.

Victoria looked like a well drilled side with a couple of very good players but mostly just a team on the same page, practised and experienced together.

We've got worse games around games later in the competition, like a game before City at home and another one was Liverpool away maybe. We should have put out a stronger side, made sure of a thrashing, a good performance after some woeful performances as a team recently and made sure the points were on the table so we could play ridiculously weak sides later in the group stage before important games.

No idea what Emery is playing at. No doubt we'll be back to Xhaka at the weekend, Torreira benched and Tierney dropped for Kola.

Emery actually said that Kola has done nothing to be worth dropping for Tierney, except inability to defend, very weak going forwards, constantly doing stupid tackles and being on the verge of conceding a penalty several times a game... yeah, nothing. Tierney again tonight with a weaker performance showed that his crossing and attacking is miles better than what Kola can do, largely because he can in fact cross the ball at all.

Lucky result but not a performance to build anything from, except maybe Pepe to get that bit of confidence he needs personally.
 
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