We know the defense is not rock solid, that's not news to anyone. Wasn't last season either. But not too many complaints when the lads down the other end kept knocking them in. I thought we played the best footy I'd seen us play in years, brilliant to watch sometimes, I remember typing 'we are f**king brilliant' or some such when beating Stoke 5-3 away
5-3!!!!! And there were plenty of other games like that. We were a scoring machine.
That's why it's hard to understand why BR didn't bring in a better strikers. Left that too late in the summer window. The way BR wants us to play, quick passing, attack, stretching our own defense - to play that way, you need strikers banging them in, making runs, opening up space. Mario/Lambert/Borini are just not doing it -- and that lack of quality up front is having a big knock on effect. Not just the dropped points, the wasted chances, the moves that were clicking last year, breaking down. But can see the players getting frustrated, not on the same wave-length. Their body language isn't what it was, their getting at each other.
We get Studge back though, a few things click back into place. Leaving aside the defense (which DOES need serious work), we still have players who can open teams up. We just need someone at the top end making sh*t happen. Which we don't have now.
Bit surprised at the reaction to the Madrid game. We've not been good for a while, but it's not a tap you just switch on. So was always going to be tough. We needed things to go for us. They have more quality players - they were on top form - we continued our poor form - the perfect storm. Was way more pissed after the Basel game, they were there for the taking, and we should got a result, that one still f**king grates.
It's too simple to blame Mario. He's a tw*t, but if he was knocking in goals, the other sh*te that goes with him is less of a problem. He's not playing well, even by his own standards - but neither are Lambert or Borini - though they're out of sight, out of mind - still, they are our other strikers and they're doing f**k to warrant a spot. BR needs to hope one of them starts scoring, Studge comes back quick, or he'll need to go out in January and do what he didn't do properly in the summer - get better quality in the forward line.
The other end is a head scratcher. Think there we have enough players there to be defending better than we are (though keeper is a concern). But we're not organised. Can BR sort that? Dunno. We know he can get a team playing good football in the other direction - but not much evidence yet that he can make us hard to beat. Didn't really need to, when outscoring teams. So not sure how that's going to resolve itself. Like, if we get a top striker or two, think he can have us scoring again - but no matter who he brings in at the back, would he have the nous to make them a bus parking defense?
I want to see us playing last seasons footy again, so am behind BR to see if he can bring that back. But we need to knuckle down in this bad patch and grind out the points. Hull next. Then maybe when things start to go his way, maybe striker hits form, keeper starts commanding etc ... when we turn that corner, we're not far off contention. Might need to do some business in Jan, but we've done decent business at that time in the past too. And the end of the storm, there's a golden sky ....