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Brentford vs Chelsea (PL) Friday 18th September 20:00 GMT

Have somehow been roped into a sitcom-level double date tonight so will be missing this.

I wish both myself and the boys luck.
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I can't believe @PloKoon13 probably had a better night double dating than us watching the match 😣

 
Well if Hull was a bit of a wake up call, last night was a major one. In the space of 90 minutes I have gone from thinking we will definitely be top 4 to god knows where we will finish.

That second half was dreadful. Asbad as anything under Maresca and Rosenoir. Just about evereyone was a 1/10 bar Palmer and Barco. Barco had a decent first half and was everywhere but pretty much disappeared second half. Palmer kept trying and showed some great touches but you cannot do it on your own unless you're Maradona or Messi. His mate Rogers had an absolute shocker - should have been subbed early in the second half.

I knew Brentford would cause us problems with loads of balls into the box and it was inevitable we would concede, but I didn't expect to concede 3. I was hoping it was players like Gusto that are the problem but it seems whoever we put out, manages to f**k up.

Can only hope the return of Caicedo and Palastra and Pedro back as well, will give us a massive lift but I feel I'm already clutching at straws. Weekend ruined on a Friday and going to be seething for 3 weeks until the next game.

 
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Well if Hull was a bit of a wake up call, last night was a major one. In the space of 90 minutes I have gone from thinking we will definitely be top 4 to god knows where we will finish.

That second half was dreadful. Asbad as anything under Maresca and Rosenoir. Just about evereyone was a 1/10 bar Palmer and Barco. Barco had a decent first half and was everywhere but pretty much disappeared second half. Palmer kept trying and showed some great touches but you cannot do it on your own unless you're Maradona or Messi. His mate Rogers had an absolute shocker - should have been subbed early in the second half.

I knew Brentford would cause us problems with loads of balls into the box and it was inevitable we would concede, but I didn't expect to concede 3. I was hoping it was players like Gusto that are the problem but it seems whoever we put out, manages to f**k up.

Can only hope the return of Caicedo and Palastra and Pedro back as well, will give us a massive lift but I feel I'm already clutching at straws. Weekend ruined on a Friday and going to be seething for 3 weeks until the next game.
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Spot on for me.

Had my balloon well and truly popped having (naively) thought we may get a reaction from the Hull game and come away with a win lol.

Front 3 just doesn't have the same effect without JP it seems, totally agree with you about Rogers, particularly disappointed in how many times he was so easily eased off the ball , could have been mistaken in thinking that it was Gittens out there in that respect.

 
If he was getting the support he needed why would he engeneer an exit I don’t buy that he was being dictated who to play and a team of kids he was being hamstrung he’s a top coach hence he got the city job and had us bossing PSG
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I think the way we played against PSG was a breath of fresh air for many , me included, but just like previous times Maresca defaults back to the tedious default way of playing next season rather than evolve what we saw against PSG. As for engineering an exit surely the need to have a clause in the contract stating that he has to make the club aware of any contact by City should raise a few red flags as to his thinking.

 
Last night I put club loyalty above money and now regret it. Bookmakers somehow had us as favourites for the match, whilst Brentford were 8/5…this was the best bet of the weekend, it pains me to say.

As for the match, when the lineups were announced, it showed just how poor a summer window we had. It looked weak both in midfield and up top, defence speaks for itself…letting in nearly as many goals in 5 matches as our record breaking team of 04/05. Standards have dropped! We cannot rely just on out scoring the opposition. The spine of the team is weak.

The coach though now has to work with what he has. He quickly needs to decide on a settled defence and stick with it, personally I’d ditch the back three…though we appear to have bought system players. Pray that Caceido gets fit quickly and find a way of getting our best players into attack. Estevao only getting 5 minutes again( he will only improve by getting minutes on the pitch) when chasing a game is a joke. How is Neto is getting so much game time?

We now have three weeks to sort this shambles, hopefully our injury list will improve and our new shiny set piece coach can come up with a scheme to stop us conceding so many poor goals.

 
As bad as it is, I would take a leaf from Arsenals book and just bed in a solid defensive back 4, full backs barely crossing the line.

Maresca tried to complicate it with inverting full backs, and now Alonso has us playing a weird 3/4 atb hybrid.

We are asking basic players to do complicated things.

Solid back 4, 2 in front, and then we actually have 4 good attacking players that you can give some freedom to.
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Alonso is giving Amorim at United vibes. This is my system and I will play it irrespective of whether I have the players to do it - and I don’t have them.

 
That was as bad a performance as any from last season.

Martinez is no upgrade on Sanchez, I’m all up for rolling with Penders for better or worse.

Colwill might be ‘technically’ a good player but he’s an absolute pussy, get him in the boxing ring during this break to toughen him up.

Fofana has nothing going on up there, the kind of bloke to pull a push door.

Lacroix is OK

Chav did OK

Neto is a better defender than he is an attacker.

Barco did OK.

Henderson is borderline Benayoun levels of not being able to take to him.

Rogers & Palmer were both quieter but I think that was down to the ‘link’ of JP being missing.

Welbeck isn’t starter level anymore.

Internal enquiry required into what’s going on with Estevao, the kids got all the talent in the world and from the outside the right attitude as well. Borderline criminal how he’s being treated.

 
I don’t know if I’ve got the fight in me for another season of trash hoping for 6th place. I already get little enjoyment from most stuff i used to and this is just making things worse.

 
Thought I'd feel better today, I don't im still miserable and dont know where we go from here. To make things worse the finance director is making me take her to the shopping centre to buy boring housewares.

 
I like Alonso and want him to succeed but he’s got to sort out the defence. Consistently not being able to defend set pieces is one thing. But it’s not clear that a back three is going to work and Colwill is struggling at LCB and Fofana is a liability.

It’s going to help having Caicedo, James and Pedro back. Palestra and Emegha too. But James is a defender and playing him out of position makes no difference to his injury record apparently, so either he’s a right back or forget it.

Also, if you’re going to play Welbeck up front then you need wingers to provide him with crosses. You can’t pretend he’s Pedro and expect him to come deep. So many other questions of Alonso, including his weird subs. Where was Lavia? Why did we lose the initiative in the second half so soon after the break?

Three weeks break couldn’t come at a better time for all concerned really.

 
I can't believe @PloKoon13 probably had a better night double dating than us watching the match 😣
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It was interesting. Also turned out not to be a double date, there were maybe eight people there.

 
Martínez

James
Lacroix
Colwill
Hato

Err...

Palmer
Rogers
Pedro

 
It was interesting. Also turned out not to be a double date, there were maybe eight people there.
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I think that used to be referred to as an orgy. Oh and if you are not certain how many people were there, it was definitely an orgy.

 
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I think that used to be referred to as an orgy. Oh and if you are not certain how many people were there, it was definitely an orgy.
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We'll take your word for it.

 
These defenders aren’t willing to put their bodies on the line like JT. I haven’t seen us have a commanding presence in defence since Silva.

It’s like Colwill, Fofana etc don’t know how to defend.

 
And leadership is a problem as well. I never see anyone yelling and encouraging their team mates to defend or attack.

It’s like watching a team with no personality.

We are also easy to figure out as well.

The team’s a mess.

 
So optimistic at the start of the season, my target was top 4, a cup maybe and some decent football.

That didn’t sound to outrageous to me, although all still very doable it’s also easily undone by our defending. Our midfield is killing us, our squad is paper thin in terms of real quality but I hoped with one game a week etc etc. I f**king hoped…. Still, sort the f**king defending out, keep key players fit and with our front three blah blah blah.

I hope XA is given time but I have to say if LR had made some of his questionable decisions I’d have been kicking the cat. XA has to pull his finger out as well.

 
I think that used to be referred to as an orgy. Oh and if you are not certain how many people were there, it was definitely an orgy.
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Just in case my missus reads this, I want it on the record that I more or less behaved myself

 
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