After the horror show vs Brighton


Game 1- Man U 5-1 defeat (2/10)

Fairly drab 30 minutes then embarrassing, toothless and pathetic sadly a cracker from Ayling will be forgotten. Brief chink where thought we might get back into it before collapsing like a deck of cards.


Game 2- Everton 2-2 draw (8/10)

A good performance, probably deserved a win but were also indebted to Meslier for some quality saves. Cooper with one of the dumbest penalties of the year.


Game 3- Burnley 1-1 draw (6/10)

A tough one this, they were dirty and made it a battle. Fairly toothless throughout but plugged away and in a normal season a result you wouldn't be too disappointed with.


Game 4- Liverpool 0-3 defeat (3/10)

Crap, they made us look like a Championship team. The result was hidden by Struijks ridiculous red card but the game was long gone by that point. Toothless going forward, again.

Game 5- Newcastle 1-1 draw (6/10)

A garbage Newcastle team and we let their one good player run rings round us for 90 minutes. Looked good going forward, should have been ahead but didn't take chances then paid the price.

Game 6- West Ham 1-2 defeat (6/10)

A trend that seems to befall us currently. We played well for 45 minutes actually looked pretty good then West Ham changed something, upped their level and we looked hopeless, unlucky to concede in 90th minute but it had been coming.

Game 7- Watford 1-0 Win (8/10)

A good performance, dominated them but again just couldn't score, took Llorente at a corner with a bit of luck to get us the win.

Game 8- Southampton 1-0 defeat (1/10)

Where to start with this one, embarrassing, spinless, toothless, pathetic. Missing Phillips, Raph, Bamford, Ayling, Koch all in this one but didn't excuse how bad they were.

Game 9- Wolves 1-1 draw (4/10)

Crap for 70 minutes then turned it on with Gelhardt providing the spark. As per this year, toothless going forward.


Game 10- Norwich 2-1 Win (7/10)

Absolutely dross Norwich team, nearly gifted them a point after a poor first half limited with nothing happening took Raphinha to do what he does and take the game for himself and score. Some stupid play at back then gifted them a corner and a goal before we got back into it.

Game 11- Leicester 1-1 Draw (8/10)

Actually one of few games I've enjoyed, took once more Raphinha class to get us on the scoresheet then gifted them a goal straight from kick off. Sloppiness nearly cost us yet again.

Game 12- Spurs 2-1 defeat (3/10)

Really struggled with people praising this performance, they literally didn't try first half they stood off let us have the ball and never tried to get out of their half. Second they bothered we looked horrendous and as soon as they went 2-1 up game was over and we never for a second looked like getting back into it.

Game 13- Brighton 0-0 draw (1/10)

Possibly the worst of the lot and what is more worrying is we couldn't even blame injuries. Abject and embarrassing, they should have routed us 4-0.



Players
Meslier 9/10- As usual keeping us in games, distribution poor at times but what options does he have

Cooper 6/10- Classic Cooper moments but hard to criticise a guy working beyond his capabilities
Llorente 8/10- Has genuine class and in a better team would really stand out
Struijk 8/10- Solid, dependable and someone I've glad we've got for years to come
Firpo 2/10- I want to give him a chance but it is carcrash tv watching him 'defend' he is never where he should be
Dallas 6/10- Never fault his effort but just looks off it this year with passing, defending etc sure he'll get it back
Koch- LOL
Ayling- LOL

Forshaw 9/10- To come back from what he has and do the job he has is outstanding
Phillips 7/10- Not seeing the same Kalvin too inconsistent can be brilliant but also poor
Klich 3/10- Odd good spell but generally poor
Shackleton 6/10- Hard to criticise him, nobody knows where he should play or what he is good at anymore
James 2/10 - Works hard but I struggle to remember a player with worse end product that we've paid for.
Harrison 2/10- Looks lost, can't track his man, constantly running into dead ends.
Rodrigo 4/10- Really not convinced anymore, I tried with him, I so want him to do well but just don't see it
Raphinha 9/10- Need I say more, we'd be below Norwich if he wasn't playing.
Roberts 3/10- Look, you can't blame him, it is like putting me on the pitch and being surprised I'm not good enough

Bamford- LOL


Overall the gist of it is we can't attack and look leaky at the back the second a team really puts the squeeze on us, we've bottled it four times this season and looked panicked on the pitch, gifting goals away or being under the cosh and just being lucky not to give goals away.

Questions need to be answered as to why we've not replaced likes of Pablo, Berardi and Alioski. Pablo issue has been 2 years in the making now and still I'm sat here waiting for it. I love Bielsa but his obsession with Roberts being that guy is costing us. The fact we spent 25m on Dan James, who is genuinely one of the worst players I've seen us pay money for, but couldn't find a striker or CENTRAL attacking midfielder in the window is beyond me. At some point we have to realise the squad needs to evolve and we can't depend on 18 year old kids to make up those numbers. Signings this year just don't look like working we've added James and Firpo and both look horrendously bad, I will give them benefit of the doubt but Raphinha joined and has looked different class.

Do I think we will go down? No, I do think we will be bottom 2 come January though. I think we will just be fortunate that Norwich/Newcastle are utterly garbage and we have enough individual quality to get us wins. We need 4 points if not 6 from our next two games, anything less than 4 and we will be in big danger going into a horrific run of games where we'll be lucky to get 3 points from 4 games.