Deco
Player Valuation: £40m
Agreed, but I’m confident he has it in him and I think tactically he’s the “win the ball, play it safe” player in the middle for now.
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Agreed, but I’m confident he has it in him and I think tactically he’s the “win the ball, play it safe” player in the middle for now.
TheBigIguana
Player Valuation: £100m
And I'd be ok with that if he would just do a little bit better job at not letting balls get played into the area directly behind him.
I mentioned the same in the game thread. His distribution was excellent in the first few matches and for stretches today.
It's no question that he gets stuck in and he made a couple of recoveries today that were remarkable - but with someone of his quality in this role you want to see the ball getting out fast and into space to alleviate pressure on the back three today and when the team couldn't put together two passes I kept looking for him to take charge. When not playing Gomes it's becomes really important that Allan provide clarity in the midfield.
Drumblue
Player Valuation: £8m
He's a Pitbull.
...spot on, Allan and virtually the whole team were poor in possession when we were under the cosh and we stopped carrying threat. I think we sat too deep, hanging on to what we had and not breaking as a unit. Tiredness and mentality might have played a part in this, but it’s what sets the better teams apart.
hktoffee
Birds of a feather flock together
He does seem rash at times jumping and selling himself then ends up chasing
Stephenlloyd
Player Valuation: £40m
I think we need to see him with that sitting midfielder behind him, for me he’s trying to get out and go after the opposition, while also trying to be the sitting midfielder, which I didn’t think is his game really.
It’s like stick or twist and sometimes he gets stuck between the two.
Dreary me, criticising Allan. He try’s hard, you can’t doubt his desire to play and when things are not going well he leads by example by rolling up his sleeves and getting stuck in. As for him not distributing the ball well, when you are in the middle of it you don’t get time to look up and see what is around you to discover you have one man up front and the rest behind you in no space and then wait for them to get into space. A midfield battler needs his team to be showing for him, this broke down in the second half against Fulham. He needs a confident team around him showing for a pass or else he is going to drill it forward or get caught. If Allan was our problem we would be in Europe next year and challenging on all fronts.
vinvinvin
Player Valuation: £1m
In Serie A he probably nicks the ball more often than not in those situations but I don’t think he’s fully adapted to the pace / strength of the Prem yet so has occasionally been caught. Ditto having to adapt to new teammates. He seems the determined type though (that’s an understatement) so I expect he will get better and better as he figures the league out.
Papa Shango
Player Valuation: £70m
Is he in the "doesn't offer enough going forward" category yet?
Totally agree here
catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
We seemed to get into a mental block, which we are proned too. Reminded a bit of that cup tie against Liverpool, where we just seemed to invite them onto us and with each minute that went by, you could see a poor team grow in confidence.
I remember playing in sides, as a young fullback (in tghe days of 4-4-2) and the dilemma was always whether to go forward ten yards and mark the opposing left sided midfielder, or tuck in 5 yards and help the CB mark the forward and full the midfielder back to do it. When you were playing well and confident, you'd just wave the midfielder on. In fact you would be thinking "he needs to mark me". When you were under the cosh, you'd pull the midfielder back and invairably the centre back would pull you back. It shifts through the entire team.
I think Ancelotti set us up really well and managed the last 15-20minutes well but that period from halftime to their goal he got wrong for me. Thats fair enough as well,Parker made some alternations-notably Loftus Cheek who gave us problems. I don't think we were set upto do anything in that period. We were sitting deep, but because we were carrying James (and required him to have a defensive role) we weren't particularly effective at killing the game. We didn't try and keep the ball to kill it. Nor did we make any real effort to spring on the counter. I remember Keown rightly saying "we've stopped running forward". We seemed to be caught between different approaches and not doing any massively effectively. After Davies came on, we at least were effective at defending our box.
Anyway I digress, I think Allan got caught up in a lot of that as well. Clearly he was very tired. Doucoure was being pulled to cover James and he was being isolated with a much bigger and stronger Loftus Cheek. There's no shame in that, he competed and his experience and positioning was important but for that period he was a big ragged. Once Davies came on, and allowed Doucoure to push 10 yards inside and sit next to him it helped both. I didn't think Doucoure had it in him, but i thought he was magnificent as a tackling midfielder in the last 20 minutes.
Yes it was strange that the team stopped attacking. I was wondering whether Carlo was happy with the 3-1 lead but was still concerned about the defence. Maybe he told Iwobi and Digne who both had a great first half to stay back and stop attacking. All that did was nullify our attacking threat and invited Fulham onto us.
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