Towie wrote:
Antonio was absolute pants tonight and was just as bad as Tore.
Astra are shocking team and if that's what is served up in European competition you can keep it.
Fletcher must start vs Citeh on Sunday.
I fear a spanking Sunday.
Astra might be "shocking" but they were better organised and had a better game plan than us. We have a very arrogant view of the PL imo. Many of the people around me last night had the attitude that we only had to turn up to win. Judging by our first half performance I would say many of the players had the same attitude. There was an improvement second half but unfortunately it was only in attitude and not technique. Astra's players, generally, showed better technique and certainly put in more effort than most of ours. Which is why I can't quite agree that Antonio was as bad as Tore. True his performance was pants but he did, at least, break sweat.
I thought Obiang and Fletcher were the only two who performed anywhere near the standard necessary and on the evidence of that game Calleri may as well go back to South America because all he is going to do is prevent Fletcher getting pitch time. Tore must have something if Bilic was so keen to bring him here but his performances to date have been abjectly pathetic. And please no one come out with the "he's got to settle in" argument. Not being settled in shouldn't stop someone doing the basic things like covering a colleague's run.
Their goal pretty much summed up our overall performance as a collective. Byram's crossfield ball lacked accuracy, Burke's control was awful and Tore was still scratching his arse on the halfway line instead of getting back to cover the space Byram had left by pushing forward.
And finally, if as Bilic said, we were hoping for a decent run in this competition to raise our profile why were Payet, Lanzini and Noble left out? Allegedly they were all 95% fit but were being held back for Sunday. If that is indeed true Bilic has to take that one on the chin.
