Napoli H Post Match Thread 2-2

[Fox92]

I really enjoyed the game. One of the best I can think of in recent years given Napoli just came and attacked us, they were fast and willing to put everything into closing us down.

 

On the other hand the referee was one of the worse I've ever seen. Still not sure what Ndidi did for either card  

[CosbehFox]

Defended the notion of playing out from the back on Saturday but they were playing a very high with two centre backs who appeared to have very little off the mark acceleration. 
 

Failure to keep feeding Barnes who clearly had the better of his full back was annoying too. 
 

Last night could have done with the occasional longer ball which pushed their defensive line back and subsequently their whole team deeper 

[worth_the_wait]

Now that the dust has settled ....

 

Apart from throwing a 2 goal lead away, it was a fairly interesting evening.

 

A great atmosphere, some good goals and saves, cheating foreign players, a dodgy referee, a sending off, a bit of crowd violence.

 

What more could you want from an evening's entertainment?   (apart from a win, of course).

[CosbehFox]

4 minutes ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

I don't think this group win be as easy as people think. What is clear is that we lack the experience of European football and can't handle it when the opposing team start with the dark arts.

 

We were lucky not to lose this by a few goals yesterday but a real worry is how nervous we were on the ball and without the ball we just couldn't handle their press and wouldn't change our style. 

 

Can anyone remember the last time we dominated a game?

I take you didn’t watch the game between Legia and Spartak or note they are 14th and 9th in their respective domestic leagues 

[Blue Ed]

Lots said. Just to give my thoughts on the substitutions. I can understand why Daka and Evans ones were made for Cags and Mads, but I thought they weakened us.

[Houdini Logic]

The ref made me feel like we were back in our championship days. It goes to show how good the premier league refs, are as they largely go unnoticed and I can't remember the last time I was so angry at a referee

 

[stu]

5 minutes ago, Blue Ed said:

Lots said. Just to give my thoughts on the substitutions. I can understand why Daka and Evans ones were made for Cags and Mads, but I thought they weakened us.

Madders came on for Soumare, not Daka.

 

This is the sub that cost us the game in my opinion, we missed his physical presence in midfield after that. If he needed subbing it should have been for Hamza, not Madders.

[Stuntman_Mike]

Who were the arseholes booing Madders? 

I'm certainly not his biggest fan, but that was completely ridiculous and unjustified. 

 

[Ric Flair]

How did we play lads? I was absolutely steaming and can't remember any of it. Had to take my contact lenses out an'all so I couldn't see, which is a good job as Perez scored.

[ealingfox]

To the bloke in the row in front of me pissed out his tree trying to get 'Maradona, what a w4nker, what a w4nker' going - you're a hero and it's a travesty the whole ground wasn't belting it out.

[lcfcsnow]

32 minutes ago, stu said:

This is the sub that cost us the game in my opinion, we missed his physical presence in midfield after that. If he needed subbing it should have been for Hamza, not Madders.

Another kick in the teeth for KDH, came back fresh and ready, best player in pre season but still seemingly behind Maddison in any match situation.

[Ric Flair]

2 minutes ago, ealingfox said:

To the bloke in the row in front of me pissed out his tree trying to get 'Maradona, what a w4nker, what a w4nker' going - you're a hero and it's a travesty the whole ground wasn't belting it out.

Hahahaha oh god, I hope that weren't me? I was annihilated.

[Lako42]

15 minutes ago, Stuntman_Mike said:

Who were the arseholes booing Madders? 

I'm certainly not his biggest fan, but that was completely ridiculous and unjustified. 

 

Probably booing the idiotic substitution rather than the player. 

[mod hero]

18 minutes ago, Stuntman_Mike said:

Who were the arseholes booing Madders? 

I'm certainly not his biggest fan, but that was completely ridiculous and unjustified. 

 

Yeah I thought I heard some boos when he came on but I was a bit pissed

[Number 6]

One thing that has become evident recently is that we prize possession above all else. When you see a team like Man City or Napoli pinging the ball around you can see them stretching and working openings and then striking when the time is right. We seem to be keeping the ball for the sake of it and I'm not sure what our aim is with it. We often end up going back to the back line and we then have to break down 11 and often attempt to beat a well organised high press which we seem to struggle with.

[Hammo]

'Morning after' reflections

 

- Napoli were better than us in every aspect apart from shooting at goal.

- Rodgers' decision-making (tactics and personnel) is beginning to look shaky, to say the least.

- The atmosphere was wonderful (apart from that squeaky horror film kid's voice on the PA - wtf was that?!).

- We have a lot of players struggling for form. Not one of them is one top of his game right now.

- Can we stop persistently trying to play it out from the back against a team that hems us in with a collective press (basically every visiting team nowadays; the blueprint is out there, they've all got us sussed) when around 50% of the time we lose the ball, leaving our defence out of shape and under immediate threat? Without Fofana the current defenders (and the goalkeeper) are just not good enough on the ball to pass their way out with any degree of reliability.

- We've played two very good teams in the past few days; the next five opponents are no pushovers but these are games that, given our ambition and quality of personnel (if not current form), we should be winning.

- The referee was a w****r.

[Stuntman_Mike]

19 minutes ago, Lako42 said:

Probably booing the idiotic substitution rather than the player. 

It didn't feel that way, but you could be right.

[Jazzy_Jeff]

Some positives to take away, looked a lot better going forward, Daka and Soumare really impressed and Barnes looked back to his old self.

 

Defensively we do look fragile. An unsettled cb pairing can’t be helping. I worry that Evans won’t be fit enough to play for long periods so I’d stick with Vestergaard and Soyuncu going forward. Both have had bad moments and made mistakes but I feel this will change once they have built up an understanding. Until Fofana is back we need to steady the ship defensively and I though they were great against Man City.

 

Maddison sadly offered little when he came on. I would have gone for KDH or Choudhury if Soumare needed taking off. Just gave more impetus to Napoli. 
 

If offered a point at the beginning I think I’d have taken it and some pleasing performances give me optimism that our squad is stronger this time around.

[filbertway]

I'm still amazed that lad scored 2 goals last night  He looked like a pound shop Akinbiyi first half.

[Stevosevic]

3 minutes ago, filbertway said:

I'm still amazed that lad scored 2 goals last night  He looked like a pound shop Akinbiyi first half.

He cost 70m

 

He's a very good striker. 

[enmac]

7 hours ago, Gubbins said:

Annoying to blow a 2 goal lead but I can't say we deserved to win that.Napoli were far better overall.  Napoli reminded me a bit of Liverpool in regards to their fierce pressing of our defenders turning our pissing about at the back tactic from mind numbingly ineffective to suicidally incompetent! Also and I hate saying this but if we want to go far in this tournament, our cheating has got to improve. Couple of feeble dives from nacho and tielemans were never going to be given and we have to get better at it. Rubbish as it is screams, rolling around, smacking the turf with your fist in faux agony etc will all make a difference in European competition and if we don't do it the opposition sure will. Modern football is f**king horrible. 

Exactly. We are too nice/naive for this Euro lark. We didn't do enough to slow the game down once it got to 2-1. I only remember Bertrand going down for any length of time after getting struck by the ball. Hopefully, he'll give some instruction in this regard.

[CrispinLA in Texas]

Worring that our defence of Vestergaard and Evans couldn't cope with the pace of their attackers, really think we should have also signed that young Japanese lad that we were linked to, but went to Arsenal

Edited 17 September 2021 by CrispinLA in Texas

[st albans fox]

42 minutes ago, filbertway said:

I'm still amazed that lad scored 2 goals last night  He looked like a pound shop Akinbiyi first half.

 

36 minutes ago, Stevosevic said:

He cost 70m

 

He's a very good striker. 

He had a game of two halves ……akinbiyi first 45 and shearer second !

[Pliskin]

14 minutes ago, CrispinLA in Texas said:

Worring that are defence of Vestergaard and Evans couldn't cope with the pace of their attackers, really think we should have also signed that young Japanese lad that we were linked to, but went to Arsenal

Evans is injured, he was still injured last night. 

[jerry]

2 hours ago, Blue Ed said:

Lots said. Just to give my thoughts on the substitutions. I can understand why Daka and Evans ones were made for Cags and Mads, but I thought they weakened us.

Evans looks to be knackered unfortunately and Cags is a car crash waiting to happen continuously losing his man and ball watching.Why not bring on a defensive midfielder to see it out rather than Maddison who offers nothing in those circumstances.B R tactics seemed to be hang on to the ball in our last third of the pitch, having said that we really managed a draw against a stronger team but was a missed opportunity.