A whole new team but no improvement by AndersS
Just a couple of weeks ago, I argued it looks like we have improved, but the real test would be if we could perform better against Liverpool and Man Utd in the upcoming matches. I was confident that we would see some good signs.
As we all know, they were not there. We were as bad as ever, and to top it off, we now have delivered one of the worst performances of the season against Everton.
So how does that look with that improvement overall? Not good I am afraid.
The hard facts are, after 15 games we are lying 7th in the table, and compared to last seasons 8th, it must be deemed as status quo. If you try to look beyond the hard facts, and start judging on performances, it would be hard to argue there is any improvement at all. We are really struggling to create chances and score goals, and our defense isn’t that great either. In our matches against City, Chelsea and Liverpool, we generally seemed to be light years behind and more or less humiliated. In fact I almost see only one bright performance, our game against Spurs. That is not enough.
As it happens, last season we played Everton away on December 19th and lost 2-1. So 12 months on, we lost with exactly the same score, and to make matters worse, at a time when Everton was in their worst crisis for more than 20 years.
There is an interesting comparison in last years game away to Everton and this years.
Our starting line-up last year was:
Leno
Holding
David Luiz
Tierney
Maitland-Niles
Ceballos
Elneny
Saka
Pepe
Nketiah
Willian
Only 2 players from that team was in the starting 11 this year; Tierney and Saka. 9 new players in the team this year. And if you add to this that Tavares and Auba came on as substitutes this year, but didn’t play in the fixture last year, we actually had a new and full 11 man team playing this year. Might be some kind of record to change a full team from one season’s fixture to the next, and all within 12 months.
But what did it help?
I suggest, instead of changing the whole team for next seasons fixture, we might try changing something else?
AndersS