What's new

Match Ratings Ratings vs Shkendija

MOTM

  • Hart

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Aurier

    Votes: 9 4.5%
  • Sanchez

    Votes: 2 1.0%
  • Toby

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Davies

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Winks

    Votes: 3 1.5%
  • Ndombele

    Votes: 119 59.2%
  • Dele

    Votes: 1 0.5%
  • Lamela

    Votes: 29 14.4%
  • Bergwijn

    Votes: 1 0.5%
  • Son

    Votes: 29 14.4%
  • Kane

    Votes: 2 1.0%
  • Lo Celso

    Votes: 4 2.0%
  • Moura

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 2 1.0%
  • None Deserved

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    201

Neon_Knight_

Well-Known Member
Jul 20, 2011
3,975
6,608
Son has scored/assisted 7 goals in the last 2 games, but somehow I can't quite bring myself to give him MOTM for either game. Deserves MOTW though.

I'm going for Ndombele tonight. I'd say completing 90 minutes without fading was as important as the quality of his performance. By Christmas, everyone will be pretending they never wanted to offload him to the highest bidder (for a fraction of his value).

Lamela had a good game. If it wasn't for Bale, I wouldn't have been shocked to see him force his way back into the starting XI, ahead of Moura & Bergwijn.

Positive performance from Aurier too - especially considering being displaced as first choice can't have been great for morale.

Dele showed good movement and vision at times, but it still feels like nothing is quite going for him.

EDIT: MOTW = Man of the Week.
 
Last edited:
Aug 9, 2008
4,910
8,415
TANGUY NDOMBELE .. come on down!!! ????????? My MOTM , wow he is truely begining to show why he was so sort out for. Getting there slowly and amazing thing is, much much more to come still.
 

JCRD

Well-Known Member
Aug 10, 2018
19,153
30,013
Son has scored/assisted 7 goals in the last 2 games, but somehow I can't quite bring myself to give him MOTM for either game. Deserves MOTW though.

I'm going for Ndombele tonight. I'd say completing 90 minutes without fading was as important as the quality of his performance. By Christmas, everyone will be pretending they never wanted to offload him to the highest bidder (for a fraction of his value).

Lamela had a good game. If it wasn't for Bale, I wouldn't have been shocked to see him force his way back into the starting XI, ahead of Moura & Bergwijn.

Positive performance from Aurier too - especially considering being displaced as first choice can't have been great for morale.

Dele showed good movement and vision at times, but it still feels like nothing is quite going for him.

What os MOTW? Im wracking my brains here
 

cjsimba

Well-Known Member
Dec 5, 2006
2,563
9,450
Lamela for me. Can we stop criticising him now? He's a really excellent squad player to have.

Ndombele first half was out of puff again. Incredibly, in the second he found some and was pretty damned good. He almost looked like a fit footballer, almost. But we got a real taste of how good he can be.

Aurier had a really good game. If he played like that consistently we wouldn't have needed Doherty. He put in two phenomenal crosses in succession.

Son is in a rich vein of form and continued tonight. He is razor-sharp right now.

Lo Celso, as we know, is a classy player. Him and Kane came on and changed the game.

Dele worked hard, should have scored. But I've just forgotten what he brings to us. It's such a long time since he was good and I don't know what his role is.

Hart had nothing to do and had no chance with the goal.

The rest were pretty average with Davies and Winks poor.

We are strange to watch at the moment, I can't work out where we are at.
Summed it up perfectly
 
Aug 9, 2008
4,910
8,415
Dele was decent, not bad not great but better than before. he was defo trying and not hiding.

Disappointments for me were Winks and Bergwjin.

Winks a total passeneger, if wasnt ther and we played with 10 im not sure we would have seen any difference, he needs step massively, i like him and have defended him, but its getting hard to do so now.

Bergwijn - he lacks any initiative and creativity, he seems to offer nothing, content with passing back to davies at very opportunity. No proactiveness at all. With the speed, dribbling and skill he has he doesnt do anything with it, its quite frustrating watching him... we dont need passengers, he passes then hides in space were he would be marked. I know he was coming back from injury but this display was just plain poor
 

Phomesy

Well-Known Member
Aug 20, 2013
9,188
14,102
Ndombele for a cracking second half when the chips were down.

Dele excellent first half given he had no striker to work with.

Son was pretty anonymous until Kane came on - was excellent after that.

Lamela was decent if a little quiet first half. Didn't track back and get involved for their goal which was a minus but re-doubled his efforts afterwards in true Coco fashion. Should have scored a second.

Kane and Gio showed their class when they came on.

Bergwijn was anonymous throughout. He can do much better but must be hard being in and out and not knowing what his true position is.
 

spud

Well-Known Member
Sep 2, 2003
5,850
8,794
It was pleasing to see Ndombele get 90 minutes and he is obviously class, but I don't see how he can get MOTM. He overhit several passes (including whacking them to players a short distance away which made their control more difficult) and was functional rather than spectacular.

I was disappointed to see Alli get subbed off. He was always finding space and made several good contributions when he was found. There were other occasions when he made good runs but the pass to him was poor. He was better than several of the others. He needs minutes and I would have been far happier if Bergwijn had been taken off instead of him.

The clear MOTM for me was Lamela. He was tireless, good on the ball and tenacious in defence. A very good all-round game.
 

Neon_Knight_

Well-Known Member
Jul 20, 2011
3,975
6,608
What os MOTW? Im wracking my brains here
Sorry, Man of the Week. Not sure why I didn't type it out in full...especially after moaning to colleagues about acronyms earlier today haha!

He was our best player over the two games combined.
 

Neon_Knight_

Well-Known Member
Jul 20, 2011
3,975
6,608
Lamela for me. Can we stop criticising him now? He's a really excellent squad player to have.

Ndombele first half was out of puff again. Incredibly, in the second he found some and was pretty damned good. He almost looked like a fit footballer, almost. But we got a real taste of how good he can be.

Aurier had a really good game. If he played like that consistently we wouldn't have needed Doherty. He put in two phenomenal crosses in succession.

Son is in a rich vein of form and continued tonight. He is razor-sharp right now.

Lo Celso, as we know, is a classy player. Him and Kane came on and changed the game.

Dele worked hard, should have scored. But I've just forgotten what he brings to us. It's such a long time since he was good and I don't know what his role is.

Hart had nothing to do and had no chance with the goal.

The rest were pretty average with Davies and Winks poor.

We are strange to watch at the moment, I can't work out where we are at.

It's unfortunate that his crossing is so inconsistent. Last season something like 80% of them were misplaced / blocked (someone posted stats on here during preseason).

The other problem is that, even when he's having a great game, he always has a mistake in him. He was one of our best players tonight, but almost gifted the opposition a one-on-one scoring opportunity with a sloppy pass inside to the CBs (it was almost as bad as Davies' last week) - fortuantely he got away with it this time.
 

Bulletspur

The Reasonable Advocate
Match Thread Admin
Oct 17, 2006
10,690
25,246
It's unfortunate that his crossing is so inconsistent. Last season something like 80% of them were misplaced / blocked (someone posted stats on here during preseason).

The other problem is that, even when he's having a great game, he always has a mistake in him. He was one of our best players tonight, but almost gifted the opposition a one-on-one scoring opportunity with a sloppy pass inside to the CBs (it was almost as bad as Davies' last week) - fortuantely he got away with it this time.
You just do not like him do you?
 

St José Dominguez

Well-Known Member
Jul 15, 2014
3,592
11,648
Lo Celso is a wonderful player. So composed on ball and makes us tick. He’s a vital player to keep fit and play week in week out.

1st half I thought Lamela and Dele by distance our stand out players.
2nd half subs improved us greatly and Ndombele played excellently, he’s my motm.
 

TheHoddleWaddle

Well-Known Member
Dec 13, 2013
11,289
20,289
Only caught the first half. Was pretty laborious. Ndombele must have had a great second half was shocked to see he got motm above son who scored one and assisted 2. Again not seen second half, just commenting on poll results.
Ndombele had a reasonable second half. But i dont think it was much to get overly excited about. News flash, professional athlete plays poor first half, better in second and lasts a whole game? Ndombele doesn't do half the work and graft he needs to. I'm sure there is more to come.

Lo Celso turned the match in my opinion. The minute he came on the CM changed. He is the real jewel of our CM in my opinion. Head and shoulders above all our central midfield options. Still got plenty improvement too.

Winks getting slated again, but he made a few lovely passes and one particularly clever chip into the box, which Lamela.
Probably could have done more with. Wasn't as bad as being made out, but wasnt particularly great either. Gave the ball away a couple of times. Bergwijn was the poorest performer today.

Son was fairly quiet by his standards, but won us the match. Would get my motm.

Dele, played well. On another day he gets a couple of goals.

Edit. lamela had a great game.
 
Last edited:

Finchyid

Well-Known Member
Jun 27, 2017
3,769
11,975
N'Dom or Lamela for me. Davies was shocking. His attempt to block a shot was embarassing.... We need a left back....Oh wait
 

Neon_Knight_

Well-Known Member
Jul 20, 2011
3,975
6,608
You just do not like him do you?
That's really not the case. I'm actually in the camp that would like to keep him as back-up (assuming Doherty actually proves to be better) - although I'm not sure that's financially viable. Back in 2018-19 when Trippier was off-form, I was frustrated that Aurier didn't get a proper run of games to earn the starting spot.

In terms of "always has a mistake in him":
If he was making repeated mistakes each game, was generally sloppy in his play or I simply didn't rate him, I would just call him a bad player. What I mean is that Aurier generally performs well and demonstrates the ability to play at the level we need/want from him in all areas of his game, but has a tendency to let himself down a bit by switching off and playing a loose pass / hashing a clearance. If he didn't make those mistakes, he'd probably be a £40m player.
I used to say the same about Walker (but was gutted when he left), Kaboul, Gomes (I thought he more than cancelled out his mistake with his incredible shot-stopping) and currently think the same of Dier at CB (often solid for 99% of a game but then makes an odd mistake, like losing his man on a set piece for no discernible reason or switching off and not holding the line). I rate and like all of those players...that doesn't make me blind to their imperfections though.

Aurier's crossing is inconsistent. Note that I didn't say his crossing is bad - inconsistent means it's sometimes good and sometimes bad.
If you disagree, you should go away and look at his stats compared to other fullbacks. His assist stats are quite reasonable (4 or 5 last season?). He gets himself into crossing positions far more frequently than many other fullbacks (a positive), but is less efficient with his final ball than. Trippier got a similar number of assists for us, but from considerably fewer deliveries. If you compare Aurier's assists to other fullbacks who play as high and cross as frequently (e.g. Liverpool's fullbacks) they get more assists.
What I'm not too sure about is whether the inconsistency is a result of his technique and accuracy (execution) or his vision and timing (picking the right option at the right moment). As some of his crosses are quite beautifully executed, I'd say it's more likely to be the latter.

Last season, the wonky fullback system resulted in us putting a very high a proportion of our attacks through an inefficient outlet (particularly when combined with Moura, who did not have a productive season, on the same flank). It often looked like a good tactic, as Aurier kept getting into dangerous positions, but the end product was often lacking. So far this season, we appear to be using the left flank more, which means Son has more of the ball out wide. None of that is directly Aurier's fault though...
 

DenverSpur

Well-Known Member
Sep 25, 2011
1,915
5,508
NDombele for me but it was a close call with Lamela who had one of his best games for us. He released the ball much quicker than he normally does. NDombele gave us a glimpse of what he can do for us. He was very disciplined in the midfield pivot alongside Lo Celso in the second half.
Berwijn was disappointing and I was surprised when Dele was hooked instead of him. Dele tried hard but he looked a little leggy to me(?).
Should have had the game down up by half time. Made loads of chances but didn’t take them.
Bemused as always at all the negative views about Winks(and to a lesser extent Davies). He’s asked to play an unspectacular role - to shield the back 4 and recycle the ball to NDembele and Lamela so why does everyone demand a spectacular performance from him. He carrys out the remit he’s given and works hard, always putting in a shift but every misplaced pass is jumped on to demonstrate that he isn’t good enough. Kane missed a sitter of a header so obviously he’s not good enough!
It’s just boring that every season there’s one or two players(nearly always one of them is home grown) who get scapegoated every game regardless of their actual overall performance. There’s too many people on here who think the team should be full of superstars when in reality all great teams are made up of star players and water carriers- players who work hard to try a make a platform for the stars to shine. So give players like Winks a break. He works hard for the team and if everything he tries doesn’t come of we’ll just accept it. Even stars like Kane and Sin miss sitters.
 
Top