I’ve come to the conclusion that there were one too many ‘experiments’ yesterday, and that’s ultimately why we came unstuck. I think he tried to be a bit too clever and it’s ultimately landed him with egg on his face. For example:
- JJ trying to ‘invert’
- KDH on the right
- Not starting Coady and bringing in Nelson
Neither of the 8’s could turn to play their passes (Akgun was poor and KDH on the wrong side), and neither provided running support either. You had two poor ball players in Hamza and JJ given way too much time on the ball, and all of the above ended in a shit show.
No Pereira, Ndidi and a second 8 (Casadei) means he’s going to have to look for some inspiration out of the academy for Tuesday’s game. Please god don’t try and get a tune out of this system team with round pegs in square holes. It’s clear from yesterday that doesn’t work.
If he goes back to basics and Sunderland don’t get ridiculously statistically lucky like QPR did, we’ll be fine this week. If Wilf is indeed back for Saturday then we can survive with one senior player out in Pereira, but not both. Yesterday we carried 4-5 players.