Wanyama was a match fitness thing imo, and a one off. By far the worst game I've seen him have.
Hugo, imo, doesn't have many below par performances but when he does, they seem to be when we play good teams in the 'big games.' I think it's fair to highlight that. You'll notice that those of us who have discussed that in this thread don't advocate selling Hugo or whatever, I for one acknowledge that I don't think we could get a better goal-keeper, the handful of better ones play for much bigger teams than us. I've talked before in other threads that I don't think Hugo's distribution is that great (whatever pass completion stats might say) and that seems to be more of an issue in these types of games. The throw to Wanyama was a poor decision imo and getting done at the near post is never great for a goalkeeper, I think he himself would be disappointed with that.
Let's break it down since you seem to think no one is
- Wanyama was fitness probably, but Dier played Poch's hand by getting an early yellow.
- To say that any player finds it tougher against better teams would seem to be an obvious statement, they are playing against higher quality, pressure likely to be on for longer periods of the game. My issue with the Lloris criticisms are the belief that other top level keepers don't make mistakes.
Let's really look at what cost us
- Silly foul by Dele that led to free kick. If you look at the free kick itself, if Toby & Kane had switched positions in wall, Kane would have headed that over.
- The second goal, main issue was Wanyama giveaway, secondarily Hugo could have held on to ball longer and calmed the game down, we were obviously believing we could win it. Re the actual shot itself, 9 times out of 10, Alonso crosses that, he decided to bang it directly at Hugo, scores, if Hugo had saved it, we would have said great save. How many of those Harry/Son scored last season? we didn't say the opposition keeper was brick.
At the top, its a game of fine margins, we found ourselves on the wrong end of that this time, nothing more.
In the past, better teams have let us control the game, give sense of false control and had another gear when they wanted. That was not the case yesterday, Chelsea was holding on at moments (end of first half example), lots of last ditch blocks/tackles, David Luis gad the best game I have ever seen from him and they needed it to not be overrun.
This isn't about real fans, its about an appeal to not overreact, we are a good team, 1 loss against the champions doesn't change that.