Tom12345

Wow. Mads!

Get another creative attacker on, in place with Ndidi. Ndidi is a bit lost, and his touch is too heavy. Go for it.

Get Ndidi off for El

El on for Ndidi

So long as he doesn’t play Ndidi in any DM role, I will give him more time. He has been inconsistent in this regard, but it is a positive light that he has played Ndidi higher up on occasions so far. Anyone who plays Ndidi in a DM role is so out of touch with modern football that should not be coaching at this level. There is a reason why no club came in for Ndidi even though he was on a free transfer. He is a different proposition at AM, but we also have other options.

Quite possibly Cooper will have 9 defensive players out there if he can.

Not sure why we are only comparing Ricardo and Justin when we can do a comparison between Justin and Kristiansen as well. Justin can play LB too. Question is is Kristiansen better than the other two?

Great work as always, but I like to point out that BEK being somewhat ineffective as you said and him having to drop deep is actually a symptom of what we have been discussing previously. Ndidi. Ndidi is simply not a good build up player - Skipp is so much better in this regard. As a result the left mid often has a hole to fill which is why BEK felt he needed to drop back. But it means he is not higher up as he should be. Despite Ndidi playing ok, this weakness of his cannot be overstated. He makes Winks and the left side of midfield much less effective, but it is easy to focus on Winks, BEK and those around Ndidi. His weakness has already been well said and demonstrated in the past so there is no need to repeat here. Ndidi, if he is to be used, can only be used as an AM.

That is true. Changing shape to counter opposition is all well and good, but not if you are simply changing shape and putting defenders on without regard to opposition tactics and simply trying to defend a lead.

We definitely should not have Ndidi back to being part of any double pivot role. We would struggle to get the ball up otherwise. I think it has to be a choice now of either having him as a no 10 (but also dropping back to help out in defense in the middle) or we play one of the other two. Or they can play instead of Ayew. We have tried and failed for years with Ndidi playing as part of any pivot - unfortunately he just does not have the attributes required for that role in the modern game. The costs clearly outweigh the risks.

By the way, as you said, why is this not offside? We were never shown how the line was drawn! From this angle, Justin with his leg was still quite far back!

When we were winning 2-1, I thought we looked more likely to score again and also thought that: - given Cooper started Mavididi, maybe it was time to bring Ricardo on for Justin on the other side - we should push on by replacing Ndidi with one of the other attackers we have - Mavididi was looking a bit jaded late in the game and so he could make way for one of the other attackers we have Instead, we got 2 defenders on. First, Hamza was a very poor sub as I can’t remember him doing anything of note and he is also not the attacking player I thought we should introduced. We instantly lost all attacking momentum or indeed any threat at all. We were just giving the ball straight back from this point. Then when Coady came on, I thought Cooper is a loser, even though I was pleased (before the penalty) to see Coady get some minutes. Our tactics was not only piss poor but it was demonstrably League One. It was like we were a League One side that got lucky with the lead against a Premier League side and we were just throwing everyone behind the ball because we can’t play football. This is the most disheartening - I thought Cooper is better than League One.

Excellent work again. Agree with everything you say. At the end of the day, attack (or just playing our football) is the best form of defense, instead of just sitting back and inviting pressure (and be nervous). I don’t know why our managers (Rodgers and now Cooper) keep failing in this department. It is also bad for confidence if we don’t trust our own football to win games, especially if it got us to a winning position in the first place (as you say, we were doing well for 2/3 of the game!).

I didn’t watch the first half. But from all accounts Ndidi did well. Please read my posts. I said playing him as a DM is a mistake and handicaps the team - Cooper had Skipp and Winks there. I said however I can have Ndidi play AM.

Palace had no attacking rhythm until we had 9 defenders on and we couldn’t string a passes together. Hamza is so crap at this level he should really not play anymore. Did nothing. Then after Coady came on, Palace was attacking us left right and center. Coady giving away the penalty is just a symptom of very poor tactically mindset. Defend 20 mins with 8/9 defenders is never going to work. Palace had nothing other than the one goal before that. Very poor subs and very poor mindset. This is all on Cooper.

Clueless.

What a waste of a possession, Justin!

We asked for it. Bloody Cooper. Clueless.

He has done nothing

Geeze. Having 9 defenders on is really inviting pressure.

Is Buonanotte that much better than Alves? Why not give our own home grown player of the same age a chance instead of grooming another team’s player on loan to us?

Just as a separate note - appreciate for a moment the club and the owners did lose millions year after year. Can’t really blame the owners for not putting money in because they have.

But if he didn’t choke CL qualification for 2 seasons running and if he didn’t allow the downfall the two seasons thereafter, despite the squad being so much better than the one now and despite having the most expensive squad to ever be relegated in EPL history, we could have also avoided PSR issues. Or maybe not. In any event, no club would wish to be relegated and go into a downward spiral, just to avoid PSR issues. The downward spiral could multiple PSR issues tenfold. The PSR are designed to keep you down and stamp upon you while you are down. Look at the likes of the clubs that have gone before us - relegated, financial trouble, PSR rules means you are further penalised and so create more financial and performance issues, which in turn create further PSR penalties … until you go bankrupt. I think if you get relegated and are in financial troubles, naturally you would need to cut back etc and you don’t need to be penalized further.

Part of this may be: - whether Cooper prefers Fatawu as the flying winger or Mavididi - if Cooper prefers Fatawu, it may mean that he prefers the right back to stay behind and mainly defend, in which case he has preferred JJ - if Cooper prefers Mavididi, then it may be that he could prefer JJ as LB which means that he would need a RB that goes up and down, which is where Ricardo would excel At the moment, Coopers seems to prefer the Fatawu/JJ combination on the right and Kristiansen on the left all by himself. I guess the debate is that for some fans, this selection leaves the better player amongst them, ie. Ricardo, on the bench while we have an average player in Kristiansen flying on the left all by himself. The question, is this better? It seems Coopers prefer to supplement through having a creative player around Kristiansen, but I am not sure Kristiansen is a good enough passer to make that work. With Ricardo on the other side, he is not only great at dribbling and roaming forward, he is also a good passer of the ball especially in tight spaces often doing one-twos with other creative passers.

Rather than hate the bloke and generate more bad vibe, I actually hope he has a really good talking to by Coopers to calm his head. This will be better than having a player ostracized and create bad mood in the dressing room. He can improve if he can cut out his rashness and more importantly accept responsibility for mistakes. If he can’t see his mistakes, it is difficult for him to learn from them.