Randolph: No chance with the goal and little else to do 5
Byram: By and large looked decent but some worrying moments and a card 5
Reid: Skipper for the night and showed some intelligent defending, Feisty at times 5
Ogbonna: Coming back to full fitness – looked strong 5
Burke: His loss of control eventually led to the goal – shame. Did well otherwise 5
Nordtveit: Just a holding midfielder with little more to offer 3
Obiang: Largely annonymous 2
Tore: Poor…very very poor. No pace, no trickery, no delivery no thanks 1
Callieri: Great early chance missed – a player seriously short on confidence 2
Kouyate: No better than average 4
Antonio: Not one of his better nights – couple of narky fouls 4
SUBS: Fletcher: Fabulous for the 35 mins on the pitch – great runs, great touch, and one outstanding effort brilliantly saved. He cannot be allowed to go out on loan 7
Collins: Some wild lunges and much complaining 2
Valencia: As usual – minimum impact desperately disappointing 3
Team selection tonight was wrong on a number of fronts. Firstly Bilic have you not learned you do the right things in football, ffs you should have played Oxford tonight. Secondly this guy Nordsvelt, he is absolutely out of his depth. He was brutal at the weekend, how could you play him in such an important game. Thirdly, we needed more attack wise so should only have played two defensive players Kouyate and Obiang. Our team selection reeked of negativity. By playing two in midfield we should have then played two up top. Very disappointing team selection leading to a disappointing result. Only positives for me was the return of Ogbanna and the display of Fletcher. FFS do not send him out on loan.
Rumour has it that we’ve signed Zaza. A great pity, maybe. After seeing Fletcher deliver a very encouraging performance, I think that we’d be better off giving him some serious game time, rather than trying to sign all & sundry – most of whom are crap ie Tore, Nordtveit, Calleri. The team are much worse than last season but managing to show a little improvement in some areas game by game. But, not from these 3.
By the way, is Payet REALLY injured, or were we trying to avoid him being cup tied – so that we can sell him more easily ?
If the club are planning to sell Payet the whole pack of cards will come tumbling down…can’t believe that. We have been unlucky with injuries but there was no creativity in the side tonight, I would have had Samuelson and even Quina on the bench at least to give us an option.
“Firstly Bilic have you not learned you do the right things in football, ffs you should have played Oxford tonight”
You do make some random statements Johnham1 considering you are Valencias no1 fan.I mean where does that leave you where it comes to picking a side when you think Valencia is the mutts nuts.It pretty much discredits anything you say doesn’t it regarding what the team selection should be lol
Rick I am a big fan of Enner and I believe he has incredible ability but with BFS and now Bilic we are not getting the best out of him. I think he is very well liked by the players and staff and they all want him to succeed, For me he is then a crucial part of her first team squad. I am not saying he should be starting every game but we must be finding a system that gets the best out of him and Sakho.
And the most disappointing thing was no creative in the team selection. Kouyate is my favourite player but he is an 8 not a 10.
Well when you have Payet & Lanzini out it is a massive miss.We need them back asap 😉
It’s now time to off load the passengers before the train leaves the station. Window closes next week so hopefully we can get shot of Valencia, and Obiang for good. Sorry to say Tore and Nordtveit look seriously poor signings and if there is no purchase clause at the end of Calleri’s loan then that may be a blessing in disguise.
Only high light of tonight was young Fletcher a breath of fresh air, AC won’t be missed with him on that form.
Obviously not good enough for Europe yet, winning a domestic competition would be a step in the right direction though that’s if we can beat Acrington Stanley of course !
This proves we are not ready for European football and in hindsight, given the very poor start we have made this season, frankly we can do without another 6 games. Quite when we will see Europe again – another 20 years may be? Can’t see that marquee signing happening now!
Above all else we need to sort out 3 things. 1 we concede far too many goals and especially soft ones other teams don’t. 2 we are creating nothing from midfield. A real worry. Have to hope Payet (if still there) and Lanzini fix this. 3 never look like scoring didn’t Sun and not tonight. Have to sign a proven scorer and get rid of those who can’t do it for whatever reason ie ManBun, Valencia. Get Sakho fit and scoring and he will deliver what we need. I am very worried about this season. And hope I am proved wrong!
I’m not worried about it all.I read exactly the same thoughts after the LCFC & Bournemouth games last season.Difference this season is we have 7 or 8 players out atm.When they come back we will be fine imho.
Very disappointing but Fletcher has put himself to the top of the pile striker wise. That was the worst refereeing performance I’ve ever seen however.
Yes, I know that we are missing many of our “first eleven”, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of performance tonight.
I wonder what the difference in collective team salaries was?
With the exception of Randolph and Fletcher, they should all hang their heads in shame.
Astra Bunnies United.
Shocked you’ve given Burke a 5. I know he’s one of our own but he was poor tonight. Played out of position, with no ability to overlap or inject any pace.
Fletcher has been a bright spark everytime he has come on. Time to give him some proper game time and let him prove himself.
I’d rather have seen Oxford sit in the holding role today than Nordveit. Looks out of his depth to be honest.
And please god can we sell Valencia. It’s criminal that he is still refered to as a premier league footballer.
Poor show today. Missing key players and no one was willing to take any responsibility bar a 20 year old striker.
Maybe this result will end this really cringey feeling about our club at the mo? Since this stadium move malarky we’ve been acting like a bit of an embarrassment really.
Thinking we deserve the big time.
We didn’t even look like we wanted it.
Team Selection again the problem and I do not see what Slav has planned,
Burke Right sided CH playing left back gets wrong footed on the half way line,
Read Left footed with experience playing LB gets drawn to the left instead of leaving the forward to run offside leaves the right side empty for there scorer to run into,
Reid had a terrible game making loads of poor decisions,
Tore left footed on the right wing going no where does not attack the ball in the box,if he is Slav,s great player I give up,
Poor old Antonio this time stuck on the left wing where he can only do one thing cut inside,
Calleri 2 games 6 easy chances no goals and he is fit,
Is this our 20 goal a s a son saviour ?
Noveld played ok doing exactly what Noble does and no more,
Obiang played ok but as always Kouyate taken out of the game with overcrowding,
We should have won but hay ho,
Back to square one,
I agree Fletcher looks worth keeping but will he be given the chance to play ?
Randolf 6
Byram 6 Reid 4 Ogbonna 6 Burke 6
Novedt 6 Kouyate 5.5 Obiang 6
Antonio 6 Tore 3 Calleri 4
Fletcher 6.5
Valencia 3
Collins 3
Slav 3.5
Randolph 6 Byram 6.5 Reid 5.5 Ogbonna 5.5 Burke 6 Nordtveit 3.5 kouyate 5.5 Obiang 4 Antonio 6 Tore 4 Calleri 4 Fletcher 8 Valencia 4.5 Collins 4 Bilic 2 – other than bring Fletcher on, he did nothing positive at all 7 looked out of his depth – as did 5 of his team.
Those ratings are very low in general Hugh, I am at least as disappointed as you probably more so because I am not a season ticket holder so that is a whole lot of chances to see our team gone up in smoke. Nordveidt played ok, Obiang wasn’t anonymous and perhaps if we had players giving him options through the centre he would look even better as it is all he is expected to do is make the odd interception and pass it to whomever is closest to the touchline, how Reid got a 5 I am not sure he should have been substituted after 20 minutes I would give him a 2 out of 10, Tore I agree with, perhaps they speeded up his youtube showreel to give him the appearance of pace because he is almost as slow on the ball as AC and his set piece delivery is useless, Kouyate gave 100% and along with Fletcher when he came on would be my choices for man of the match with 7 out of 10 Antonio a 6 for effort, likewise Byram and Burke, the young players in our team outperformed most of teh senior ones and Collins shouldn’t have been booked he at least showed some passion and got the players fired up. Slav I would give 2 out of 10 also, he should at the very least have had Payet and or Lanzini on the bench for exactly the situation that occured Astra played with a man fatter than Razor Ruddock and about as pacey up top so I am sure we could have carried Payet and we would no doubt have got a result if we had.