Frank Grimes
Full Member
The butcher.
- by the time he's finished the defence is a bloody mess.The butcher.
Pretty good in the first half, but starting with diving in when he couldnt even see the ball and was turning in the buildup to the Kulusevski goal and then a late slide tackle on Maddison, he had a poor 2nd half
Edit - Rewatching the 2nd half, despite his error on the 2nd goal and booking he was still our best player as we came back into the game in terms of creating chances and going forward. Several good passes and getting forward to get some shots off
Obviously down to individuals and nothing to do with the managers tactics and set up...He's a great player having a terrible time. All of our players look absolutely shite at the moment.
I think he’s always had that tendency, even first season where he was quite often overplayed far out or losing duels. It was not as bad as last season or this season where he is now at 46% win rate in ground duels, but it happened fairly often. One major difference is that in his first season he had a very good Casemiro in front of him and a very good Varane who covered for him so it didn’t cost us like now. DeLigt doesn’t have the same mentality to fall back and Ugarte is not the same level as the good version of Casemiro. The new thing this season seems to be that he is also dragged too far to the side, partly because there is no Dalot around.Mentioned it in the match thread but I think he looks stiffer in his movement than he was 2 years ago. His lack of pace and aerial power was always a problem but in his first season he was much better in 1 v 1's and in the press, was nimble enough to make up for his lack of pace and acceleration. At the moment he is getting beaten regularly in the duels he was once doing well in, over committing and taking himself out of the game. Some of that could be rust, needing to dial back the aggression a touch, I really hope it isn't the injuries biting because he can't afford to lose any physical edge.
Not slightly. In the Summer you'd be killed on here for saying he's not a top 5 defender in the world, because Pep said so and he must be.Good footballer but slightly overrated by the fanbase imo. Maybe because he's Argentinian and has a cool nickname.
Hasnt had the best start to the season but who has?
Hopefully he finds the form he had in his first five months at the club, before the injuries.
Yep. Going to be a very short list of managers who will voluntarily play a ploddingly slow, wrecklessly rash centre-back who's overmatched physically in every game.This guy is bad. If we get a new manager, then Martinez is out the door.