Lyon away - Europa league

[OneStevePerrin]

Much better second half. But we need to stop leaking such poor goals. We also continue to needlessly leave ourselves ridiculously open at times.

Positives
Great goal from Pino.
Kamada and Khalili really improved us.
Sarr looked very rusty but at least he's getting closer to full fitness.
Thought Osorio looked quite bright in his cameo.

Negatives
General defensive organisation.
The number of time we make a poor pass and gift possession back in central areas is worrying.
Mingueza looked poor, slightly better second half but nothing more than a back up atm.
Disasi does not instill the confidence needed to be playing in that position.
JSL hold up play and lay offs are infuriatingly poor.

Quite a lot to correct in a short space of time before Brighton.

On a side note Lyon CB Kluivert who we've been linked with I thought looked much better than most of our CBs.

I think you could add a lot more negatives than you have? Not sure why Pino isn’t in there?

 

[TheBigToePunt]

Fair point Izardi. I don’t really expect us to win the Europa League although who knows… hope springs eternal.

Sage is doing something right but I fear that it’s at the expense of a solid defence. I remember seeing him gesticulating to the players to keep pressing forward and the goal Fulham scored in the friendly where the scorer had acres of time and space to finish. Unfortunately, that has been a blueprint for many games this season. I think we should give him a chance but we have a run of losable games coming up 4/5 in a row. Time will tell and as a Palace fan, I hope the chips fall our way but I prefer a less adventurous, more measured approach personally. Just my opinion. ))

Don't allow yourself to be bullied into clarifying that what you've just said is 'just your opinion'. That's a sign of mental and social weakness, uncertainty of character, and possibly untrustworthiness.

That's just my opinion, of course.

😉

 

[MarkA333]

Don't allow yourself to be bullied into clarifying that what you've just said is 'just your opinion'. That's a sign of mental and social weakness, uncertainty of character, and possibly untrustworthiness.

That's just my opinion, of course.

😉

It was tongue in cheek… anyways. ))
On to more important matters, does anyone genuinely believe that Sage can turn this defensive nightmare around? Because I don’t.

 

[BromleyMonkey]

I would cut off my right arm rather than have Dyche at Palace. I love that we can play attacking football with verve. Like the second half on Sunday and this evening but we have to start defending like a Premiership mid table side not a non League or children’s side as another poster alluded. Frankly, it’s embarrassing.

And I would cut off your other arm🤣

 

[TheBigToePunt]

It was tongue in cheek… anyways. ))

In your opinion... 😉

 

[BromleyMonkey]

Like Ardiles at Tottenham and they got fed up was the that approach pretty quickly. It's difficult needing to score 4 in every game as he found out.

Unless you’ve got Shearer, Ferdinand and Ginola up front 🤣

 

[Teddy Eagle]

Unless you’ve got Shearer, Ferdinand and Ginola up front 🤣

Trouble is we could have Kane, Messi and Ronaldo up there and still lose.

 

[Canterbury Palace]

Like Forest, first half awful and second half good.

Our defending is incredibly suspect and we need to wake up earlier in games. Fix those things and we could be dangerous.

Disasi is woeful and Richards looks shocking without Guehi or Lacroix next to him. Sage needs to pick a three and stick to it, for me it should be Tomiyasu, Riad and Canvot.

 

[BromleyMonkey]

I’ve just clocked the stats, even stuff really 50% each possession, 4 on target each and we actually had one more effort at goal than them in total

But I know the only stat that matters is 3-2

 

[eaglesdare]

Like Forest, first half awful and second half good.

Our defending is incredibly suspect and we need to wake up earlier in games. Fix those things and we could be dangerous.

Disasi is woeful and Richards looks shocking without Guehi or Lacroix next to him. Sage needs to pick a three and stick to it, for me it should be Tomiyasu, Riad and Canvot.

Umm.......... Both are injured?

 

[MarkA333]

I’ve just clocked the stats, even stuff really 50% each possession, 4 on target each and we actually had one more effort at goal than them in total

But I know the only stat that matters is 3-2

In reality, the scoreline is almost irrelevant, in my opinion. )

It’s the utter chaos that happens about 5/6 times a game that usually leads to goals. Is there a metric to measure this? Because we would be at the top of the league in this department. 😂

 

[Houston Eagle]

A disappointing result and performance that mirrors the whole season so far.

I don’t see an unbalanced gung-ho side, but more a side that consistently loses the one on one battles at the back.

Richards’s has lost all confidence since the World Cup, Canvot thinks he’s Guehi at bringing the ball out of defense and Disai loses the ball in critical areas.

That is a recipe for losing games. Is that Sage’s fault or the players for incompetence.

I like a lot of what I see (except JSL) but individuals need to up their games for us to be consistent at this level.

Is it easier to fix a defense or find an answer to creating chances and scoring goals, which has been our longstanding problem with previous managers.

 

[park the bus]

A disappointing result and performance that mirrors the whole season so far.

I don’t see an unbalanced gung-ho side, but more a side that consistently loses the one on one battles at the back.

Richards’s has lost all confidence since the World Cup, Canvot thinks he’s Guehi at bringing the ball out of defense and Disai loses the ball in critical areas.

That is a recipe for losing games. Is that Sage’s fault or the players for incompetence.

I like a lot of what I see (except JSL) but individuals need to up their games for us to be consistent at this level.

Is it easier to fix a defense or find an answer to creating chances and scoring goals, which has been our longstanding problem with previous managers.

Also of concern is the amount of times Mitchell, usually reliable, is getting turned inside out. I think this stems from the chaos throughout the defensive unit and the instruction to play higher. At the moment both wing backs are a liability, and that's a fault of the system.

 

[BelfastEagle]

Like Forest, first half awful and second half good.

Our defending is incredibly suspect and we need to wake up earlier in games. Fix those things and we could be dangerous.

Disasi is woeful and Richards looks shocking without Guehi or Lacroix next to him. Sage needs to pick a three and stick to it, for me it should be Tomiyasu, Riad and Canvot.

Except Tomiyasu is injured more often than not and Riad is out for the season.

 

[Painter]

Thank you for your advice. I am always respectful when posting. Shame that others can’t be the same. Anyway. Terrible performance. I THINK Sage needs to go.

Lyon have a very good home record in Europe, its obviously not an easy place to go away and win, they are probably our hardest of our current away fixtures. We should of had a draw from Kamada penalty claim, but the ref compounded his poor performance.
Calling for Sage or any manager after a defeat is a bit reactionary. A manager needs time to sort things out, its obvious the defence isnt settled, its a different 3 every game due to injury or suspension. Glasner had the luxury of a settled 3 and 2 of them outstanding, but he still lost matches. There is no magic formula, but on balance I prefer watching Sage's style as its more adventurous.

 

[MrRobbo]

I understand this stance as it is infuriating however I hold hope that things might improve.

The defence actually looks as though it’s worse than if you didn’t coach the individual players and let them get on with organising themselves. It’s looked like that all season, a coaching problem.

We’re in probably the most competitive domestic league in the world and the second biggest European competition. Looking all over the place organisationally and tactically is something no collection of individual talents can overcome, and we have looked like that all season asides from the odd moment.

We lost some key players, brought in quite a few new faces, have a new manager and have a ridiculous schedule.

I think some expectation of a rocky start and hope for improvement is justified however the fear of languishing in and around the relegation zone, and out of all cup competitions, is looming.

We're in the league cup. 12th in the league, and 8th in the Europa league table. Objectively thats pretty good no?

 

[JHB]

One of our matches this season will actually be 7-6, and maybe a 6-7 too

Wouldn’t bet against 76 - 67

 

[Teddy Eagle]

Lyon have a very good home record in Europe, its obviously not an easy place to go away and win, they are probably our hardest of our current away fixtures. We should of had a draw from Kamada penalty claim, but the ref compounded his poor performance.
Calling for Sage or any manager after a defeat is a bit reactionary. A manager needs time to sort things out, its obvious the defence isnt settled, its a different 3 every game due to injury or suspension. Glasner had the luxury of a settled 3 and 2 of them outstanding, but he still lost matches. There is no magic formula, but on balance I prefer watching Sage's style as its more adventurous.

And of course he hasn't had a fully firing Mateta and/or Sarr to call on.

 

[Teddy Eagle]

According to the weird BBC scoring system Kamada was Man of the Match and we had six players with higher scores than any of theirs.

 

[MarkA333]

Sage has had to deal with a lot of transition and an inability to work with a settled squad of players. This is true. However, I feel his mantra of forward pressing especially having the wing backs so far upfield inevitably leads to chaos at the back. I will try to dig out a metric tomorrow to look more deeply at this. Pretty sure we are top of this particular league. Meaning that it’s Sage’s system rather than Mitchell suddenly becoming a bad player overnight because I don’t believe this to be true.