funkyrobot

Hope you don’t mind my addition to your comment. 😂

Very unlucky not to score with a great effort. I thought he worked his way into the game and was looking quite useful after an anonymous start. You just get the impression with him like with the rest of them that they are having to make it up as they go along on the pitch with minimal game management by Cooper. At times it looks a mess out there as a team and that’s difficult for a new player to come into, particularly a player who has been given minimal game time.

The Daka is fast debate isn’t really relevant. What is relevant is how many goals he scores and up to now he’s simply not scored anywhere near enough goals at Championship or Premier League level to justify selection when fit. He will probably end up ahead of Edouard on the bench purely because the latter has been so poor in his first few games in a City shirt.

Would love Fatawu to start but it’ll be 1 winger for Cooper, ensuring Southampton can double up on Mavididi and minimising his effectiveness. Ayew will start on the right for his unique ability to win free kicks in and around the halfway line. This seems to be a key part of Cooperball, nullifying any attacking Leicester momentum that might be developing and allowing us to harmlessly restart play with the opposition back in a good defensive shape. Ayew will blow a gasket in the 60th minute but will play the full 90. BDCR will sub on for Mavididi in the last ten minutes with us needing a goal or two to try and gain an unlikely point. Ladies and Gentlemen, Cooperball is back!

Carsley put his best available eleven footballers in but played many of them out of position as he had 3 number 10’s playing at the same time. Cooper doesn’t play his best team despite those players easily slotting in to their actual positions.

Im clearly an outlier on this subject but I actually prefer the signing sessions for the kids how they are now organised. It does prioritise the kids that attend matches regularly but surely that’s a good thing? It makes the events more manageable from a queue size and actually stops the stress (at least for me) of potentially having to buy expensive merch to get signed like balls, shirts etc as they only sign the cards. It has also stopped adults that were previously just trying to profit by getting loads of merch signed to then flog for profit on eBay. I watched that happen at a Wes Morgan signing a few years ago.

Yeh I’ve heard bits about a poor relationship between them both too.

Very harsh assessment of Vestergaard. For actual ability on the ball, footwork and passing, he’s definitely not limited. He’s a better passer of the ball than Okali. It’s his pace that really lets him down and where Okali is better. Looking at heading, from what I’ve seen of both, neither Okali or Vesty are as good in the air as their height would suggest. The fact Vestergaard’s behind Coady in the pecking order probably hurts him the most. This must be down to off pitch personality and leadership skills as Conor is at least as slow as Vesty and visibly isn’t as good on the ball or particularly dynamic in the tackle. It’s also fair to say Cooper is less inclined to use the more possession focused deeper creative ball players like Vestergaard, Winks and Ricardo, preferring the more pragmatic attributes of Okali, Skipp or Ndidi and Christiansen. I don’t like how we now play personally and I thinks it’s been awful to watch but I guess results will dictate the future of Cooper and as such the future of Vesty.

I think the point is it’s either one or the other. Mavididi and Ayew or Fatawu and BDCR. At home, against a side like Bournemouth, play with your best attacking width and that should be BOTH Mavididi & Fatawu.

10 responses not 10 posts tbf. It’s even more strange to die on the Ayew has been great hill too. For those on that hill I’d suggest cutting down on the beers.

Where have I stated that Mavididi played well today? He didn’t. If you want my thoughts on him in this Ayew thread though, I’d say Cooper’s system doesn’t help him as he plays as the only wide winger, making it easier to mark him out of the game. I’d still select him over Cooper’s other fave left sided player (BDCR) every day of the week though.

I’ve not, I’m just responding to some of the remarkable praise he’s had on here today. He played well against Palace, but today he wasn’t outstanding, he was pretty average, didn’t look dangerous and he didn’t press well. I don’t dislike the guy, he’s miles better than BDCR for a start!!

I think there’s a very large number of Premier League footballers who would say they offer significantly more to their team than the your definition tbh 😂

Okazaki pressed and pressed, defended from the front and ran himself into the ground. Ayew does not press.

Isn’t a number 10 expected to create and have chances then? I’ve always thought that’s exactly what they should be doing-particularly at home, particularly against a team like The Cherries. I didn’t realise that the main aim of the number 10 was to win free kicks in non dangerous positions. If that’s what a number 10 does now then yeh well done Jordan!! 👍🏻

You think he pressed well then? Did he have a shot at goal playing as our second striker? I just saw a player who can look after the ball but is mainly happy to win free kicks. That’s great but we aren’t very good at doing anything with free kicks. We usually win a free kick and shuffle the ball backwards with the stoppage having let the opponents reset their cover.

I’m not pinning it all on Ayew, I was responding to the people who somehow thought Ayew was an 8/10 today. He certainly wasn’t. As a striker he offered zero threat. He won a few free kicks and at times he looked after the ball BUT he offered minimal (dialled in) press. That’s not great when the other team is dominating like Bournemouth did for the majority of the 2nd half.

He was part of the reason we barely had a sniff of the ball in the 2nd half. Looked knackered and no closing down.

He looks after the ball well and can win a free-kick or 3. Sometimes he wins them when actually trying to stay on his feet and play might be more beneficial to us though! - We aren’t particularly good at attacking set pieces! He doesn’t press well though. He goes through the motions at times, as if his closing down is blocked by a lorry load of spilt syrup.

Seems to suffer with the same heading issues as Vestergaard. Gets beaten aerially a lot despite being tall. I’m also not convinced with his passing. He’s obviously faster than Vesty but certainly not at the same level as the Dane with the ball at his feet. He’s miles ahead of Coady though! Tbf it should be Vesty competing with him when fit but I’ve heard on the grapevine that Cooper doesn’t get on with Vestergaard.

He looked slow and lacked physicality, two flaws that don’t help a player when their touch deserts them like it did with Edouard today 😂😬

The depressing thing for me is Cooper will only ever play one winger. His obsession with his method of creating the central box of four has to include a wide player so he’ll go with Buonanotte or Ayew as the non winger when he plays Mavididi or BDCR or Ayew as the non winger when he plays Fatawu. They’ll very rarely play together. For me, this system makes it easier to defend. You know where the wide danger is and can overload in this area as the spare attacker becomes one of the the two fullbacks and neither are usually likely to have a day like JJ did last week. This is in part because neither are particularly skilful attackers and also because they have significant defensive duties as they play in a flat back 4. Today he seemed to play a 442 but even then preferred a non winger and a pragmatic 2nd forward foil in Ayew. This when we are at home against Bournemouth. He could’ve played Fatawu wide right, with Buonanotte central behind Vardy.🤷🏻‍♂️

Surprised by the ratings. I thought Ndidi was better than Skipp today. Skipp was less effectively defensively and bar a nice run in the second half didn’t offer the creativity that you’d hope he would offer.

Love to see the stats that show Reid did well. He lost the ball twice trying to do a silly turn in dangerous positions and didn’t offer the threat going the other way that Fatawu did.

BDCR walks into the Rhodri or De Bruyne position at Man City for starters. 👀