Well that was fun...
I see there are some who claim there were green shoots to behold on todays game. That is putting it to a stretch, and what's more, if there were any more than one single green shoot, it would jump above our "shots on goal"-tally on the statistic.
My word, that was an abyssmal performance!
Now, I get the "rebuild, settle, and missing players"-arguments. I'm fine with Thomas learning on the job, if indeed he is actually learning.
What I'm not fine with, is the lack of clarity, direction and plan. If we learned anything from the Ange-debaucle, it is that it is very possible indeed to get your plan, your idea and your direction across even if you have half your squad on the sick list. It didn't work, but no-one could doubt what our plan was, or how we were going to implement it.
What we have right now is a situation I dreaded more than a second coming of He Who Must Not Be Named. A situation where we just as well could have had a second coming of He Who Must Not Be Named. His whole style of football, his whole plan, was to be thight, compact, hit on counters with players largely at their own accord to build attacking moves. He created the foundation, and expected the creativity to come from the players.
But then atleast he created the foundation, and held up his side of the bargain! We were rather difficult to break down, we did defend rather well for long periods of time. And we were as interesting as the life and reproduction cycle of amoebas are to the general public.
This version with Thomas Frank? We're not hard to break down, we're not press resistant (to the contrary) and we're certainly not more interesting than the life and reproduction cycle of amoebas. We have no apparent attack plan beyond getting the ball wide, and cross. There seems to be no base play, no patterns or even any of Contes automations (thank ghod, though.)
And for all those who were screaming for a plan B, a plan C, from Ange last year... in the words of Delia Smith: "Where are you? Let's be having you!" Surely you are out there shouting your heads off from the rooftops for even a concept of a plan A this time?
At a point late in the second half I was yelling at the telly to get the players to start aiming their tackling at the players legs. Not because I wanted them to hurt anyone! But because we were so off pace that by aiming at the ball-carriers legs we might accidently end up tackling the person receiving the pass instead. Why are we constantly being outrun, outfought and outmuscled regardless of who we play? What on earth are we doing on the field and in the gym? We certainly aren't working our socks off on defensive organisation or attacking patterns, that much is clear.
(yeah, yeah, midweek-games, restitution, yadiyadiyadi)
I'm not calling for anyones head. Not me. Not yet. But someone will. And they will be baying for blood louder than ever since they've been successful twice in a year already, first with Ange, then with Levy. They've tasted it now, the blood.
Something has got to change. Fast! We've got Liverpool, Palace and Brentford next in the league. By this rate, we will start next year in the bracket of 14-17 place, on a steep downward spiral, with a bottomless pit below us. We might even drop deep enough for the filthy hammers to get within striking distance where they think they can relegate us. Imagine the boost they would get from that thought...
Do not think this team can't go down!
