100%. I’m just not of the opinion that every one of these problems is down to Carlo. Ultimately he has to carry the can for them as a manager but take the Burnley game for example, until they scored we were in complete control, passing it round confidently, defensively secure, and we’d created a few openings. That is a perfect set up. That Davies then gives the ball away and we concede would not have been in the manager’s game plan, then a lot of players started to lose confidence and just passing balls backwards. I’m sure Carlo would like to pick different players but we don’t have them or they’re not fit.
There are a few things I will criticise him for. He’s played players who aren’t fully fit which i just think is a no no in the premier league. For some reason he doesn’t seem to value Walcott Kean or King as any type of attacking outlet which I think is a mistake. He doesn’t seem to want to give the likes of Onyango or Gordon game time when I think they’d probably offer more than Iwobi or Siggurdson.
So I think there’s room to say that his selection of his trusted core of players is open for scrutiny. Then there’s been the odd game I think he’s got it tactically wrong (Newcastle home and away, Fulham at home) but not many.
After this though it really does come down to the performance of players. Pickford dropping balls in his net, Holgate/Coleman having concentration lapses or struggling to play simple five yard passes. Gomes not tackling or over hitting simple passes. Davies dwelling on the ball too long and being weak in losing it. DCL missing simple chances, Richalrison consistently miscontrolling it. These are the mistakes that tilt games against us. I’m sure Carlo doesn’t ask his players to do any of these. He’s tried dropping most of them or rotating them but there’s quite simply no one else. The front two know they’re playing no matter how poor they’ve played, same with the midfielders as their competition has now gone due to injuries and lo and behold their performances have nosedived again.
Too much in my view is assigned to ‘mentality’. The players just need to ‘have a go’ then we’d
suddenly win games we’ve been second best in. I don’t think Carlo ever tells the players not to try and win. You can’t ‘have a go’ though against top quality opposition if 1-11 you have one of the slowest teams in the league. No matter how much the players might ‘want’ to, a better faster stronger set of opposition players also are wanting to ‘have a go’ and they have the tools to carry it out. It’s a lazy criticism that just annoys me, as though any football problem could be solved by the manager throwing on eye of the tiger in the changing room before the game and big Dunc screaming ‘get into them’ a bit harder. It’s nonsense. Pace power technique are the keys to winning and from that comes mentality. We don’t have nearly enough of any of those qualities.
