I feel exactly the same. I was f**king raging on Sunday and still am. And it was at our players and manager rather than the ref and Rudiger. Aurier, Gazza, Dier and Son deserved kicks in the balls for their mistakes and performances. The rest, bar Sanchez, Sissoko and Ndombele, weren't much better. But it was the complete lack of control in the game that got me. I don't think we had a spell where I felt we would get back in the game. Maybe when Son and Harry missed sitters but they came in quick succession and other than that, we were absolutely horrible.
I really expected better from Jose. The fear is that he is a busted flush and yesterday's man. I really don't believe that but Sunday certainly was a strong piece of evidence to the contrary. We were f**ked on our own patch by the most odious of football clubs. Utterly sickening.
I agree with this. It was an absolutely horrible performance.
Jose is here to allow our players to take the ‘mental step’ of believing they are winners, and he’s here to help us get points on the board after a bad start to the season. I think on the winners thing, working on the players’ intensity, I see some signs of that. Even in the Son reaction, the Aurier reaction to various decisions, Dele scrapping again for the first time in a while. I think the players were up for it. I can’t see it all behind closed doors, but I’m assuming he’s doing some good work there. Whatever he does tactically in this day and age, he’s always been good with the psychology because he carries himself like a winner. He has that arrogance and our club needs it, where as United didn’t. It should be good for the players to be in this spotlight, under this pressure, if they are as good as they think they are.
So I thought our intensity and desire on the pitch against Chelsea was alright. I thought our tactics were horrible. I don’t blame the Dier / Sissoko midfield per se, I think Lampard had just studied what we had been doing, both how we like to progress the ball forward with long balls from the back and how we adapt to a back 3, and he totally nullified us. We had no way of progressing the ball forward, of getting in dangerous areas. And our players have forgotten how to build from the back - those patterns are gone. Side note, I found it interesting that Dier played an easy ball back to Toby when he had just gotten it from him, and you could see Toby was exasperated. But I think the problem was lack of options to move through midfield, not that the players are all incapable. And I think that was down to Chelsea nullifying the system we have been playing.
And because of that, I’m surprised at Jose. Surprised he didn’t do more to change it during the first half when they clearly had us, and we showed no signs of coming back in. The penalty and the red card he can’t legislate for, but that first half was as bad as anything I’ve seen from us. Utterly terrible, no hope of creating anything in their half. We needed to change something and do it sooner, and I’m surprised he didn’t take the initiative.
