Tomas Soucek is – as we would expect – refusing to become negative over the defeat against Chelsea .
Much has been made – quite rightly – about the absence of Declan from midfield and yesterday it was again demonstrated by Tomas being forced to play a far more defensive role.
As the scorer of so many goals this season that was a considerable handicap against a Chelsea team which is always likely to grab at least one goal given there away record.
He of course barely put a foot wrong in front of the back three but the lack of impetus given to our front runners was obvious only corrected to some extent by the arrival of Said Benrahma as sub.
And speaking afterwards to www.whufc.com Tomas expressed his disappointment at the result whilst refusing to become too downhearted about things going forward.
He said: “It was a tough game for us. We wanted to win because we were playing at home and we have a very good record at home. We wanted to be back in the top four again, it’s our dream, so we were disappointed with the result.
“It was hard, and we didn’t create many chances. I had one shot in the first half which VAR could have checked for handball as it was going to the goal, but in the second half we started well and this is the way how we would like to play.
“We said in the changing room after the game that we should have played from the start like we did from the start of the second half. It’s a shame for us, but we were still only 1-0 down and we could have scored and drawn or even won.
“It’s a shame, but still I think that we played better in last 20 minutes, but the red card made it harder again.”
When asked for his thoughts on Balbuena’s sending-off, which was confirmed by referee Chris Kavanagh after VAR Peter Bankes asked the official to view the incident on a pitchside screen, Souček felt the Paraguayan was hard done by.
“I saw it in the changing room after the game and we all thought it was a harsh decision, so we are not happy about it, because he only kicked the ball out and their player stayed in front of him, so I don’t understand it, but it was bad for us.
Have a horrible feeling that the decision told hold back the money from the sale of Haller and not replace him in January, could come back to bite us in our attempt to qualify for Europe. The thought of playing with 5 defenders ( As we did yesterday) and being dependant on Lingard for goals doesn’t fill me with any confidence for the remaining games regardless of the standard of the opposition.
They spent it on making Benrahma permanent
On the contrary, our most prolific football has been played using a 3-4-3 formation, what is hampering its effectiveness is four major players, Antonio, Cresswell, Rice, Masuaku who is left footed and gives us balance attacking ( liability defensively I know). Add to that Dawson’s
aerial threat from set pieces. The combination of what these players collectively bring to the team cannot and should not be underestimated.
We need mobility to cover our defence, Rice is so good at this, when we play top teams it really shows how much we depend on him, I’d go as far to say that his positional sense would have seen him intercept the cross which led to the goal yesterday, as that is exactly what he has done countless times this season and possibly gone unnoticed.
Antonio too, drags central defence players all over the place which creates opportunities for the three players behind him.
It’s too simplistic to use the Haller departure as the only reason, arguably we have done better without him. We can cope without Antonio for a few games so long as all of the above mentioned are available.
I retain my faith that we can still make top four if we get our spine back together for the final four matches, but we’ll need to win at Burnley with what we have available now, no matter how we play, we just have to win!
COYI.
Why all this blind talk about brave fights. We played pass back and forward crap for a part of the game instead of attacking. We never put in the effort to beat Chelsea, like we fought Leicester.
Understand where you’re coming from Hugh but that decision to make Benrahmas loan permanent has resulted in a complete absence of a goal threat. We used similar tactics in the cup match against United and had no shots on target in 90 mins. The forum had so many contributions all making the same point. Expecting to go through the season without needing backup was naive to say the least.