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Ratings v WBA

So Dembele is absolved of all responsibility because he was 'targeted'?
Dembele a player we all know doesn't fancy it some days. Its no surprise when the opposition decide to get into his face and give him an excuse to revert to type. If he cant cope with the physical attention without fading out of the game he shouldn't be in central midfield.
Dembele was easily one of our best players, why he's being focused on I have no idea....
 
Because he didn't play very well. Had lots of possession, but did nothing with it. Hhe reverted to type by hanging onto the ball for too long and slowing our play down. You get the plaudits when you do well and the brickbats when you do poorly.
 
Because he didn't play very well. Had lots of possession, but did nothing with it. Hhe reverted to type by hanging onto the ball for too long and slowing our play down. You get the plaudits when you do well and the brickbats when you do poorly.
Slowing our play down? What play?! Everyone was poor, and there were several who were a hell of a lot worse than Dembele as can be seen looking at the ratings. If you're going to single out Dembele then it's more a compliment of how well he's been playing and how high he's raised the bar because we had far bigger performance concerns than his yesterday....
 
Dembele was the best player on the pitch for us

He was the only player who managed to actually retain the ball once passed to him and he past more successfully than most

It was a crap game and not a great performance but if you want to focus on poor performances we had Kane and Eriksen the whole game and All second half/Lamella first where they were awful too
 
Dembele was the best player on the pitch for us

He was the only player who managed to actually retain the ball once passed to him and he past more successfully than most

It was a crap game and not a great performance but if you want to focus on poor performances we had Kane and Eriksen the whole game and All second half/Lamella first where they were awful too
I've already commented on Eriksen, said he should be dropped. In the match rating thread, I scores Kane either a 4 or a 5, can't remember which. Just checked, it was a 4.
 
Dembele was targeted, go read Pulis' comment pre match ..

We reverted to 80's hack job brick on opponent's influential player.

Lamela was non existent for large parts, Poch should have started Son.

He should have started Son agreed, but for Eriksen, not Lamela
 
That's the conundrum with Eriksen though. Even if playing poorly he still has capability to pull something out of the bag. Yesterday's game would be exactly why we needed him on the pitch, tight game where we aren't playing well, only takes one free kick being awarded 25 yards out or one through ball to Kane and we are all lauding his qualities....
 
People still as dismissive now of my pre-match suggestions of playing Wimmer to give us a more physical CB, and resting Kane/using Son's fresh legs at CF?
 
People still as dismissive now of my pre-match suggestions of playing Wimmer to give us a more physical CB, and resting Kane/using Son's fresh legs at CF?

Not up on events around here, but as far as I can tell, people were dismissive of your suggestions because you wanted to see a stronger side against Monaco than you did against WBA. I'm not sure if that's your actual position or not (if it isn't, I apologise), but if it is, then they were probably at least somewhat right to be dismissive: those are some considerably skewed priorities, mate.
 
People still as dismissive now of my pre-match suggestions of playing Wimmer to give us a more physical CB, and resting Kane/using Son's fresh legs at CF?

The idea, in theory, is fine. I just think you overestimate the effect of it and underestimate the negative effects of breaking up a highly functional centre back partnership with higher quality overall players. Particularly when Wimmer (and Fazio) as the backup option is lacking match fitness and is still new at the club, in the league and hasn't played a lot next to our other players.

Rondon caused us some problems, but ultimately it wasn't what lead to the goal. From what I remember one decent chance came from the situations where our CBs were bullied by Rondon. Quite likely that our defensive problems in that game with Wimmer would have been greater all things considered. Though he probably would have been somewhat more likely to win a duel with Rondon.
 
That's the conundrum with Eriksen though. Even if playing poorly he still has capability to pull something out of the bag. Yesterday's game would be exactly why we needed him on the pitch, tight game where we aren't playing well, only takes one free kick being awarded 25 yards out or one through ball to Kane and we are all lauding his qualities....
Which begs the question, if we have such a free kick threat as Eriksen, why don't we try to win more fouls just outside the box? We seem to win one every 2-3 games only, yet we play the ball in that area quite often. Maybe Moose should camp outside the box, wait for the ball, and keep it until he can get fouled. Granted, not a tactic to base a game on, but why not try it in spells of the game where we're having a hard time breaking down the opposition?
 
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