I don't know, I'm not as optimistic. We were poor during pre-season, and now poor during our first competitive match of the season. And please don't start with the whole "pre-season doesn't matter" business, lest anyone forget, last season we were woeful during pre-season, and, lo and behold, it carried over into the regular season.
The scariest part about this match at Gomel was that far from showing signs of progress, we actually looked even WORSE than last year, with even MORE hoofing. I didn't think that was possible. I mean, no one knew what they were doing, Stevie was playing deep, then hoofing it forward, losing the ball deep in our own half, Enrique was doing his headless chicken act again, Henderson was no where to be found, Downing did his usual "I don't take on full backs" routine for 99% of the game except for the goal. Borini looked like a fish out of water (was he really the "exciting" player?!). I mean, the most composed player we had on the pitch was Carra. Really, considering how poor he was last season, I honestly don't think I've seen him hoof it once this pre-season or the other night. Brad Jones was also immense. Sterling did a great job when he came on for Cole as well. Those three can hold their heads up high.
But they were just coming with wave after wave after wave, we looked like amateurs. They could have easily had 4 or 5 within the first half alone. They probably should have. Really, we were so, so poor. I posted it in the match thread, but our so-called tiki-taka was more like "tiki-taka-tiki-taka-tiki-taka-tiki-taka.... okay I've had enough, time to hoof it." The first half, you would have thought they were Liverpool. I mean... we were under siege, by... the third place team... in the... Belarussian league. It's not like we had a bunch of kids out there either. Of the starting XI, Enrique, Skrtel, Johnson, Stevie, Henderson, Borini, Downing... they'll probably all start the season unless we bring in more players. We had no chemistry, none at all, people just running around, poor touches, lazy passing, miscommunication, it was really bad. Of course, it'll take time, but really, these are a lot of the same players from last season, and even if we're not going to look like freaking Barcelona overnight, you would at least expect us not to look any WORSE, right?!
If we play anything like that at the beginning of the season we're going to be in a lot of trouble. We've got West Brom, City, Arsenal, Sunderland and the mancs in our first five matches. If we play like that we'll get played off the pitch by West Brom, let alone City and the others.
I'm not a follower of the a win is a win is a win philosophy. When you lose, you take things from it so you can improve and try to win. When you win, you rarely do things perfectly, so you should take things from it then too to make sure it's not a fluke. But when you win and yet you were piss poor, you should really look at what went wrong, or else the next time that win could be a loss. If we play like that during the beginning of the season we'll be in big trouble. We'll be lucky to hang on to all of our key players THIS window---but if we don't get CL next season we could really see a mass exodus. So we have to get every point we can. And we have a huge challenge right away at the beginning of the season, with only one match, against Gomel, before it starts.
Unless we're magically going to improve, we need some serious changes in the squad.
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