No Spine
Firstly the board have failed to build on promotion and construct a squad capable of fighting in the Premier League. The spine of our team is considerably weaker than it was even two years ago with a shambolic defence, a nonexistent midfield and a lack of teeth up front. Man for man we are weaker than we were in our first season back with the possible exception of Wober, who is injured. Last night our midfield gave the ball away cheaply, Liverpool ran through our defence and a slotted the ball past Meslier who it now utterly devoid of confidence. There is a talented young keeper in there but with a poor defence in front of him, poor coaching and lack of competition he is regressing.
The other is backbone, there are no leaders on the pitch, no one to step up and fight. Too many times we gave the ball away softly, too many times we failed to press and get in Liverpool’s faces. We looked timid and lacked any kind of bite or threat.
The next three games are crucial, if we can take points we can stay up, the four teams below us are equally as poor. If we do stay up though, the club needs an awful lot of work to ensure we don’t end up back in this position season after season.