CBA to rate all the players from yesterday as there were so many heroes. Dembele MOTM for me. Walker, Son + Kane not far behind.
Two things I'd say from the narrative of this thread:
No, Lamela doesn't deserve to be "dropped", he has been much improved this season. However, it's hard to say that that wasn't our strongest XI yesterday. Every player looked bloody brilliant. And the player who came into the side instead of Lamela was Son, who was excellent. We've won every game that he's started for us and he's been outstanding in our two most impressive wins of the season (City and West Ham). The most impressive thing about yesterday's performance was the ability to break down a team that were defending deep - something we've struggled with badly for a long time and I truly believe that Son is a big part of the reason we were able to do that (that lay-off for Walker's goal was excellent).
This is 100% right and is my concern for what we see as the easier game coming up - how do we deal with this bricky teams that play not to lose. It was why I haven't been screaming from the hills about howell lamella has done as he hasn't done it yet against these teams. Cant wait to see him have a go now though as he is playing better and sharper.
Eriksen is also absolutely not a weak link. I think people expect too much of him sometimes. He really helps keep us ticking over and moving the ball around quickly, and his goals/assists contribution has been very good once again this season. Just look at how much better we've been from an attacking perspective since he returned from his injury. It's really good that we're even having these sorts of conversations as not very long ago it seemed as though we had far too many players in the starting XI who clearly weren't anywhere near good enough. Now the likes of Chadli, Bentaleb and Mason who were among our better players last season are going to really struggle to find a way back into the side, given the amount of competition there is for places right now.
For me its no coincidence that we look even better with the players behind Kane all capable of putting a real shift in. We can't have lazy players or players who simply dont put in an equal amount of effort as the system requires everyone to press and run from front to back. It needs all players to be switched on at all times too. Personally i think certainly Bentelab and Chadli are both players that I feel switch off at times and that allow sis to be countered and overloaded. This season that hasn't happened at all
it also means that those players have to work harder to get a sniff of a start which means we have depth