What follows is heresy. Please believe me when I insist that I am in no way a Mou supporter. But...I thought we played quite well in the first half. Our forwards couldn't finish, Aurier got skinned a few times and Hojbjerg needs a rest. Winks is what he is (Scotty Parker redux) and Sanchez is no better than "pretty good". Ndombélé and Reggie were terrific.
Then Lookman changed the game. Aurier couldn't live with him, Sanchez was out of his depth, and Hojbjerg was knackered.
Not a great game, but I think it's more that Fulham played out of their skins. I actually think the precious one might be right when he claims he's not coaching them to sit back.
We need to get better, and need an upgrade or two. And the Dele thing mystifies me. But as much as I loathe Mou, I think there's plenty of blame...and a fair bit of praise...to go around. We're six points off the lead, two games from the halfway mark. We're in this (and the cups)!
It's not heresy, your opinion is as good as anyone else's, even when it's flawed
. We did play well in the first half and so did Fulham, we were skinning their left back unfortunately Auriers crosses were mostly poor, but their keeper made a couple of world class saves and we only led 1-0, fantastic pass from Hojbjerg to Reguilon for the goal. I'm afraid that i don't agree with your N'dombele assessment, I thought he offered very little last night and got bullied occasionally by a big strong Fulham team.
There are no real excuses for the second half however, where we once again, for no obvious reason stopped playing and going forward. Why? to defend a 1-0 lead again? and then guess what, we got another Newcastle, West ham, Crystal palace, Wolves repeat. What's that definition of stupidity about doing the same thing and expecting a different result? That's 8 points right there, 6 if you say fair enough one of those is going to happen anyway.
I get the tactic against City - it was executed perfectly, Chelsea away, same, Arsenal same and blimey we had a cjance to beat Liverpool....but a manager assesses the opposition surely and develops a tactic to win. would anyone put City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea in the same bracket as Fulham, Palace and Newcastle. why not keep playing, maybe we might concede but I'd bet we'd score a goal or two more and they wouldn't be able to come at us for 45 mins because we'd be pushing them back.
Finally last nights team selection in my view was a shambles - 2 attacking players in Kane and Son at home to Fulham. Sissoko playing right wing, and often ahead of Kane and Son, plus Winks, Hojbjerg and N'dombele, all of whom lacked Fulhams work rate and then when we needed a goal, with Bale, Dele and Moura on the bench Mourinho brings on Lamela - seriously? Why was Sanchez and Aurier on the pitch (at fault for their goal again),not Toby? None of it makes any sense to me and honestly it's killing me.
Sorry but that's the third time of watched a sorry story unfold after a bright start. How many more times does he need to see it before he decides to let the team play. We saw what we could do against Leeds - do the fucking same every week and we'll win games and score goals. Fuckety fucking fuck Mourinho.
