On reflection tonight

My thoughts and opinions on the state of the club and on today’s match in general.

To start, Sarri – do I want to see him replaced, as I see a lot of people talking about on social media – absolutely not. I actually think as a personality he’s a breath of fresh air after the sulking disposition of our last few managers.

Do I like possession based football - not particularly but we’ve invested in Sarri and his brand of football now and believe we need to see it through and back him over the next few transfer windows. The last thing I want to see is yet another change in direction and delay in the end result – whatever that may be.

Do I think he has his faults; definitely. I have sympathy for him in that he’s inherited a squad that suffered from poor investment by incompetent board members and has deteriorated over a number of years now. I don’t think it’s a matter of not spending money but more the quality of players procured, leaving Sarri with a small core that he now has come to depend on despite their inability to produce the form they’re capable of.

His reluctance to drop underperforming players is, in my opinion his Achilles heel. He does have options however but he’s failed to utilise them, the most high profile being Hudson Odoi and Loftus Cheek (Ironically when he appears to be winning Sarri over he gets injured). We had the option to recall Abraham from loan and despite him being the leading goal scorer in the Championship, he’s neglected to push for his return.

In defence Alonso has been a shadow of the player he was last season, yet Emerson despite promising performances in lesser games hasn’t been given the opportunities he’s probably deserved.

Midfield is an area of concern for us. Jorginho has come under a lot of criticism from many quarters and while I admit I don’t find his role ‘sexy’, I do understand the reasoning behind it. He does help us retain possession albeit it in areas that don’t hurt the opposition. Kovacic and Barkley are not poor footballers but for me I find them both uninspiring and unable to command the midfield.

But by far the biggest cause for concern for me is his steadfast insistence in using Hazard in the awful false number 9 system, I think I’ve only ever seen Barcelona use it to any effect and it’s never worked for us under three managers. As ineffective as our two main strikers are I’d much rather see one of them up front.

As for yesterdays game I didn’t see a vast difference in the two teams with the main difference being in that the opposition had a striker that could carve out and emphatically put an opportunity away. The substitutions, well I’d be lying if I said I understood two of them, the first, was there really any point in exchanging Kovacic for Barkley? And CHO was bought on far too late to have any meaningful influence on a game that was already lost, why wasn’t he bought on with at least 30 minutes left - in fact I’m left wondering why he didn’t start.

I think my main sentiment is that, If we make changes for games that don’t work out, fine I can live with and understand that, what frustrates me though is continuing with the same inadequate team and system, time and time again.

So what do I think of the future? I don’t see us getting 4th spot, for me Man United look to have a momentum and self belief about them again now Mourinho has gone – how ironic that he’s still having an impact on us after being sacked. I’m not expecting Hazard to be with us next season and I think we’ve done too little to late to keep CHO.

What would I like to see for the future? An end to spending large amounts of money on average squad players such as Zappacosta, Barkley, Emerson and Drinkwater when we have excellent youngsters that could fulfil those places.

I don’t claim to be right about any of this but It’s how I feel about my club in this moment in time. As always sing loud n proud inside the stadium, a negative atmosphere never made a footballer play better.

COYBs