Kane has scored 2 in 5 this season, one of which was a crucial opener against Man U. Llorente has only ever scored one league goal for us and barely looked like doing that. Janssen had enough chances. He’s just not good enough. We bought those two on the (relative) cheap. They were big gambles in terms of whether they were good enough and they haven’t worked out.
Eriksen was shredding defenses regularly last season. He’s had a couple of bad patches playing for us and played his way into form. Hopefully this is another one of those and not him being burned out. Either way, as much as I like Lamela, he will never do what Eriksen does and isn’t a like for like replacement.
Trippier has looked decent up to today and was rested for the first game. Hes better than Aurier and KWP but not as good as Walker.
We’ve all been asking why buy Sissoko. He’s had chances and just isn’t good enough. The game against Saudi Sportswashing Machine laid bare his limitations.
And that’s been our problem. When we’ve bought, we’ve bought a lot of players who we’ve gambled could develop into fellas good enough to cover Kane/Eriksen etc. and they aren’t. And we sold a top, top right back. This season we made it worse by signing no one at all.
Poch can only do so much. He’s done exceptionally well to get us where we are. But he can’t keep defying a harsh reality of football. Eventually, money talks.
Levys grand plan may work out in the end. But when it does, this team will have broken up. Time will tell if this summer was a mistake in the scheme of things but in the short to mid term, I think he’s failed this manager and these players.