I said it in the match thread, but that was fucking cowardice tactically. It smacked of, "if I lose this, I'll get sacked."
Hopefully, when he inevitably shits the bed again against Leeds and Inter, the board do what's necessary
Yeah but sorry, after the way we've performed over the past 2-3 months then we really needed a re-set and a 'back to basics' performance (West Ham) that was duplicated here in a 'safety first' mentality. The confidence that is clearly lacking in this team now (no surprise at all), and the deja vu every time we go behind, is paralysing. You can see it clearly in Konate and Virgil.
If we tighten up the defence first at least that gives us a base to work from - and Gomez has performed well in that regard (though he was far too high up the pitch in the 1st Half leaving a massive RM gap that meant it was difficult to progress the ball - if we were going to play a FB high then it should have been Robbo, instead Robbo sat back) as can be seen from both West Ham and yesterday, the defence has given up relatively few chances (regardless of the quality of the opposition).
Confidence is the killer at the moment. I was fine with the team put out. Szobo in his proper position, Salah off the pitch, Gomez at RB.
I'll also say that we really need some luck to go our way too. That was a horrible deflection (it doesn't matter that VvD gave the ball away or that he stood off - it was still a wicked deflection) for their goal. It's often been that way recently, unlucky or wasteful in attack when we should have scored and then a bit of luck going against us to concede.
I should make an xG thread - yes I know some here hate it and whilst it's imperfect it is an indicator of sorts - because for weeks we seem to be underperforming our xG whilst the opposition are overperforming theirs. For weeks I seen us having the superior xG only for the results to not reflect the supposed superior goal threat. Seemingly a failure from both our forwards and defence then to live up to the xG.
I think I want Slot gone, simply because I believe he's lost this team, however he isn't responsible per se (one can debate it's due to tactics or mismanagement) for some of the incomprehensible misses and defensive errors that basically, or likely, come down to a lack of confidence.