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Ratings - Stoke

Maltese Falcon

Maltese Falcon

Niko Kranjcar
Lloris: 7 Two excellent saves and no at fault for either goal
Walker: 8 MOTM - best player on the pitch. Was constantly isolated against two players yet still coped well
Toby: 6 Decent but no more than that; rush of blood for the penalty - what a f**** rash challenge!
Verts: 6 Not solid by any stretch - Stoke players constantly finding space between him and Toby
Davies: 6 Only gets that for his run in the 2nd goal. Constantly losing Diouf and allowing him to get goal side
Dier: 6 Can we forget this DM role. The guy is a Centre back; possibly our best one.
Mason: 7 Actually had a pretty decent game; unlucky not to score
Dembele: 6 pressed well and won the ball but he was SLLOOOOOWWWWW last year and will continue to be so
Eriksen: 5 Flatters to deceive is an understatement. PRITCHARD - where are you?
Kane: 7 So unlucky not to open his account; brilliant pass to put Davies in space for the second. The second he pulls off, we fall apart!
Chadli 6: Decent first half and as usual our goal getter but he does not really contribute to much else

Lamela: 0 Is it possible to give a player a minus score? What a f****** waste of space!
Bentaleb; 1 People talk about Ade switching off as soon as he signs a contract; I think Bentaleb is taking private lessons. Needs to be benched presto

Poch - rabbit in headlights impression in second half was mightily impressive.
 
Lloris: 7

Walker: 7
Toby: 6
Verts: 7
Davies: 6

Dier: 6
Mason: 7
Dembele: 6
Eriksen: 6
Chadli: 6

Kane: 7

Lamela: 3
Bentaleb 3
 
Maltese Falcon said:
Lloris: 7 Two excellent saves and no at fault for either goal
Walker: 8 MOTM - best player on the pitch. Was constantly isolated against two players yet still coped well
Toby: 6 Decent but no more than that; rush of blood for the penalty - what a f**** rash challenge!
Verts: 6 Not solid by any stretch - Stoke players constantly finding space between him and Toby
Davies: 6 Only gets that for his run in the 2nd goal. Constantly losing Diouf and allowing him to get goal side
Dier: 6 Can we forget this DM role. The guy is a Centre back; possibly our best one.
Mason: 7 Actually had a pretty decent game; unlucky not to score
Dembele: 6 pressed well and won the ball but he was SLLOOOOOWWWWW last year and will continue to be so
Eriksen: 5 Flatters to deceive is an understatement. PRITCHARD - where are you?
Kane: 7 So unlucky not to open his account; brilliant pass to put Davies in space for the second. The second he pulls off, we fall apart!
Chadli 6: Decent first half and as usual our goal getter but he does not really contribute to much else

Lamela: 0 Is it possible to give a player a minus score? What a f****** waste of space!
Bentaleb; 1 People talk about Ade switching off as soon as he signs a contract; I think Bentaleb is taking private lessons. Needs to be benched presto

Poch - rabbit in headlights impression in second half was mightily impressive.
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Highlighted was the painful to watch

Disagree re Erisken, when the team allowed him, he looked extremely dangerous (in 1st half), its similar to blaming Kane when he doesn't get service. The team has to give Eriksen the space and runs to be effective.
 
lloris 5 tried to give stoke an early goal
4 this pratt gets done by a stoke player early in the game and gets silly yellow
toby 5 good first half then gives away a pen then misreads float of the ball
verts 5
davies 6
dembele 7 good game
mason7 superb
eriksen 5 went missing second half again
chadli did nothing second half apart from be offside
dier. 3 wtf he doing in the middle
kane 8 was outstanding untill he got a calf strain

game changed when kane went off but still we let them in
thanks to toby.
stoke deserved a draw from the second half display
 
Using a new (patent pending) system for ratings this week. As I watch the game I have a sheet with the player names and four columns - "Good play", "Great play", "Bad Pass", "Bad play". Then I just put a tick in the column next to each player if I feel they deserve it. They all start on 6/10 and get +1 for Great Play, +0.5 for Good Play, and -0.5 for either of the other two.

All of which results in...

Lloris: 7.5

Walker: 7
Alderweireld: 7.5
Vertonghen: 6.5
Davies: 7.5

Dier: 7.5
Mason: 8
Dembele: 7.5
Eriksen: 8.5
Chadli: 8

Kane: 9

Lamela: 5.5
Bentaleb: 6

(Note: If I hadn't done it that way and just used a "general feeling" as usual, then I'm certain Eriksen and Walker would have gotten lower scores and Vertonghen would have scored slightly higher. Not sure what that means, but there you have it.)
 
8 - Kane, Mason
7 - Lloris, Walker, Davies, Verts, Dier
6 - Alder, Dembele, Eriksen, Chadli
3 - Lamela, Bentaleb
 
The only ones that stood out as poor were Bentaleb and Lamela. Our starting XI was solid, even if the game itself was quite boring at times, we were in control.
 
Lloris 8
Walker 6
Alderweireld 6
Vertonghen 6
Davies 6
Dier 7
Mason 7
Dembele 7
Eriksen 6
Chadli 6
Kane 6

Bentaleb 5
Lamela 3
 
Lloris: 7 Hugo are you sure, why wouldn't you want to go to Man Utd?
Walker: 6 Prefers to be up against speed rather than up against trickery like that of Arnautovic. Struggled defensively.
Toby: 6 Was an difficult home debut but then completely ruined it with that brainfart moment.
Verts: 6 both Verts and Jan struggled against the aerial threat from Diouf. If only Hughes started with Crouch instead.
Davies: 5 I'm not sure about him . A full-back that struggles to make a tackle.
Dier: 6 Good goal. As a DM not I'm not so sure, allowed to many crosses into our box from just outside our area. Would've headed more balls away from our goal had he played as a central defender.
Mason: 8 MOTM for me . Busied himself up and down the pitch, looked a threat going forward. Harsh to be subbed unless injured.
Dembele: 7 centrally was good along with Mason, but then faded once Mason was subbed.
Eriksen: 3 completely out of the game in the second half.
Kane: 7 Ala Teddy Sheringham performance until he came off, but at times still needs to release the ball quicker. A couple of delicious passes.
Chadli: 5 Scores a goal but offers little else.

Lamela: 1 That were an awful sub appearance. He seemed to have that, 'rather be somewhere else' look, perhaps envious of his mate Robby. Worrying .
Bentaleb: 4 Need him to rally the players like a captain when coming on but after last weekend's poor performance, his own play looked rather sheepish.

Poch - Perhaps just prior to the end of the first half, but certainly within minutes of the re-start, it looked to me that the team had stopped moving the ball as quickly as in the first 40 odd minutes. Maybe Tom Carroll should've been bought on around 55 minutes. I'm also sympathetic towards Poch for being handicapped, in not a having striker on the bench in our first two games of the season. Wtf, how amateurish from the 11th richest club in world football.
 
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Lloris - 6
Walker - 7
Toby - 6
Jan - 6.5
Davies - 6.5
Mason - 6
Dier - 7
Dembele - 7.5
Eriksen - 6.5
Chadli - 6.5
Kane - 6.5

Poch - 2
 
Lloris -7- Typical Lloris performance although that misplaced pass early on scared me.

Walker -6- Silly early yellow meant he had to play the rest of the game in his shell. Still made some good challenges but Arnautovic had him today all too often.
Toby -7- Aside from the pen I thought he did well.
Verts -6- Was the weaker of the two CB's.
Davies -6- A good assist but he got caught wrong side of his man too often.

Dier -7- Played well, kept it simple but knew when to get forward and when to sit back. Scored a goal and put in some great tackles.
Mason -7.5- Had he scored either of those chances I'd elevate him to 8, he did everything asked of him.
Dembele -6.5- Really good first half, pretty weak second half.
Eriksen -6- As with Dembele, he was pulling the strings in the first half and looking the business. Second half he was no where.
Chadli -6- WTF was that first touch about in the first half?? He was a good outlet all game and you can see why N'jie and someone like Berahino are being linked. In the same positions these two would be doing way more. Well taken goal though.

Kane -6.5- I thought he looked off the pace at times, but his movement is what makes our team tick. Butland make a cracking save which deprived Kane of a MOTM no doubt.

Lamela -3- I'm finding it hard to find positives with the lad. I want him to succeed, but at this rate he's not showing us why he deserves more minutes.
Bentaleb -5- Can't say I noticed him too much, but I expected him to shore up the midfield which he did not.

Poch -5- Credit to him for the way he has us playing and the football of the first half. The second half was terrible and he didn't respond to the change in shape from Stoke. If we had the pacy players on the field to play on the counter at 2-0 then I'd probably agree with the defensive mindset from the 60th minute, but we don't so we shouldn't try it IMO. He will hopefully have the players to try it in the coming months.
 
Did Lamela play awfully? No. If he deserves a 3 then toby should have been 0. he actually gave awy the penalty whihc ultimately gifted them the momentum to push back. Benty, who failed to protect the back four, has more guilt.
 
Can you imagine if Lamela or Bentaleb had given away the penalty? The outcry against them would have been biblical. Just shows: they are both spacegoat of the month.

I thought Dembele did well for an hour. Held the ball well, and drove forward sucking in players. Kane was his usual self - happy to say that as people were still concerned, was he a one season wonder? Eriksen is a key player, he gets marked out of games, and you want him to run games rather than brilliance in pockets.

A good performance for an hour. But even prior to the pen, our defending looked suspect. We need a set compact formation that the team can fall back on when games swing away from us. Get two banks of 4, keep the lines tight and make it hard to attack our box. Momentum in games will always change, we'll rarely dominate the whole 90 minutes, so we need to be ready to defend, stay tight and from there win back possession and control.
 
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Where did Dembele play? I still have hopes for him, but have only seen highlights of first two games. How is he looking?
 
harr1984 said:
Where did Dembele play? I still have hopes for him, but have only seen highlights of first two games. How is he looking?
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Like a lot of the team - Demebele was playing all over the midfield. He started on the right wing. But would take a position in the centre or the other wing as well. I thought he did well on the right. He's so difficult to take the ball off. He commits men, and tends to leave them on the turf. He needs to stay involved for the full game tho.

We had great chances to score a 3rd and then a 4th! And then pen was the turning point. But our defensive setup needs more work. Work in progress....
 
SpurMeUp said:
Like a lot of the team - Demebele was playing all over the midfield. He started on the right wing. But would take a position in the centre or the other wing as well. I thought he did well on the right. He's so difficult to take the ball off. He commits men, and tends to leave them on the turf. He needs to stay involved for the full game tho.

We had great chances to score a 3rd and then a 4th! And then pen was the turning point. But our defensive setup needs more work. Work in progress....
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From what I've seen of Dembele before this season I've liked him on the right...Just haven't seen enough of the games so far this season to evaluate,glad he's being given a chance though...
 
Coys300 said:
What? Are you for real? Lamela did everything wrong.
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The whole team were on the back foot - doing everything wrong. Yes Lamela was the epitome of that, giving away fouls not getting into a tight formation with Walker behind him. Its unfair to blame Lamela for the draw though. Poch has to shoulder some of the blame. Had us dominating the game, but we were not able to repel Stoke when the game turned. Lamela should have been prepared to tuck in and make it impossible to pass him on the right, protecting Walker. But instead he was chasing back too often. That was a symptom of the teams lack of defensive comfort. We don't transition into a solid comfortable defensive unit. Its all panic and reaction. It will come.
 
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