We could have done with some rotation today. Where we had zip and energy against Chelsea, today we struggled in the face of palace keeping tight to us. The midfield engine of Mason and Bentaleb, so impressive in our last two games, didn't have the same energy - and that is not surprising as they've played 3 games in 6 days is it? Definitely could have played Dembele today.
But the biggest problem for me are our strikers. Kane was also leggy. Didn't have the same drive. And Soldado missed about 3 half half chances. Soldado contributed to some build up play but on the whole looked lazy and his head is gone. Whenever he's 1-1 with the keeper, he loses it. Just needs to get rid of the emotion and focus on putting the ball into the corner of the net.
Second half we should have won the game from 60 mins. Palace tired and spaced opened up. But a number of things stopped us doing that. 1. Lamela should have stayed on at least until 60 mins. He wasn't hugely effective first half, but he has guile that Chadli lacks and at least he looked fresher and able to pose questions to Palace. Some things didn't come off but some did. 2. The anxiety in the stadium and pressure on the young team really stopped us from just playing OUR game. It all became so desperate. Rather than keep calm, pick the passes, move well and finish, we were trying to force shots which weren't on, or run the ball when a pass was better. We lost our composure and game plan. That let Palace back in. 3. Our fullbacks were not good enough in attack. Dier had a bad game. Always standing off his man, even before the ball reached the Palace player! Then he got beaten almost every time. But we needed the full backs to provide width in attack. Davies did nothing wrong. Was ok. But Rose might have provided Palace with more to worry about. 4. As mentioned above we needed to rotate Mason today. Say Dembele might have provided some freshness and strength.
Eriksen, Lloris, Vertonghen, Fazio, Bentaleb were okay. But ultimately, and many may slate me, having Adebayor available either as a sub or starting, could have won us the game.
