2 goals up after 11 minutes then you know we're in trouble.
Da Costa, the player that impressed me most in the last game certainly had a troublesome first half. After making questionable decisions in several situations he daftly fouls some harmless Hull player after 25+ minutes ... 1-2. We all knew what was about to happen didn't we?Even if the collective nervous breakdown was not as obvious as in previous games, Hull certainly found all the motivation they needed.
Gabbidon wasn't the best player on the pitch but still my MOTM. He's been out for so long and is played in an unfamiliar position and he puts in a great performance. With a Stanislas in front of him, who was not really up to his defensive duties, he didn't have an easy task but did very good considering.
I'm a bit disappointed with how we play the game. Even one man up we don't have the skill to run the show, and we are talking about Hull for crying out loud! I'll come back to this in a later post. But the short version is that I think we are not trying to dominate games with short passes. We are a team that plays on the brake but in stead of outside players darting along the sidelines as we've had in Konchesky/McCartney-Etherington, we now play a high speed passing game. The result is pretty much the same though - after 8 seconds of possession we either have a chance or lose the ball to the opposition. We seem un-capable of using the passing game to put a lasting pressure on any team, not even a one man down Hull!
I hope you all noted that the future was on the pitch for the last 20+4 minutes! Starters Stanislas and Collison was accompanied by Hines when he came in for Behrami. I think they all did well.
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Zola wants us to play the Arsenal way but he forgets we don't have Arsenal type players.
That's what I've been saying, but then playing on the break is not an Arsenal trademark. Most of the time when our midfielders come under pressure they play the ball backwards, start over and try play the blitz again.
I saw the game on a stream that worked badly, still I do not agree with you on Da Costa. I think he did very well. Well, first of all you do not mention he did his first goal for us, a goal that at least gave us one point. So if you think that the first goal was his fault, at least he played 1-1. But as I saw it it was not a freekick at all (well, my computer may not tell the whole truth, but anyway thats how I saw it) and it was just a random goal with both Parker and Cole involved. And how many tines haven't Neill or Collins given away freekicks like that?? The two players we do miss "so badly" (I do not, even if I rather have sold Upson for 12 millions than Collins for five).
I think our best players yesterday was Franco, Parker and Da Costa.
But I agree with you when talking about how to play (or not) the game. On the other hand we did actually dominate parts of the game which the statistics gave us. We had 15 goal attempts, Hull 6. (How the home team just culd have had two attempts on goal, when they scored three is a bit of a mystery though. We had nine on goal).
I think we should hav won this game, of course and we can no longer just talk about bad luck. Still we dominated the game during long periods and Hull is not that easy to play at their home. They have only one loss in their last six at home. And now they have "our" Bullard back. It's not easy. The penalty was certainly no penalty and their first was not a freekick as I saw it, and ended just unlucky. IT's not an excuse, but we did not play soooo bad. But sure we can be disappointed. Just that we need to stop seeing things just in black or (no so common) white...
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