The performance itself wasn't that bad but the decisions of the bench were startling to me.
I think the midfield that started today should be our starting three week in week out, we looked so much better defensively off the ball and each of them know where to be when on the ball. The only issue is keeping the ball, Keita and Thiago both gave it away far too often, that needs to improve.
I liked that we didn't have our full backs bombarding forward, think Trent had a decent game, he is going to get beat by wingers who have that high level of trickery about them, so I don't hold his performance defensively today against him. Robbo was a bit erratic down the left, and thought Trent was the better out of the two. Konate was back in beast mode today, Gomez was ok but does look poor in the air.
Harvey Elliot was our best player and have 0 clue as to why he came off, unless he had a concussion from hitting his head earlier, Gakpo grew into the game and actually did look half decent in the second half, Salah looked hit and miss. I would have had Nunez start the game or come on at H-T at the very least, would have definitely had him out on the left, Salah through the middle and Harvey out wide right.
The substitutions really did baffle me as they not only didn't make sense on an individual level, i.e Milner, Henderson, Fab & Jones I think added nothing more than the players coming off, but also because they also came with a change of tactics from our coach. We went from being compact and having our full backs sit back to the complete opposite, leaving us vulnerable to the counter and conceding again.
I don't think we get top four unfortunately, so I would be rallying the team week in week out about one thing, Real Madrid, that needs to be our focus, in the CL anything can happen for us, let's write another story for the history books.
YNWA
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