stevegrant

Man United spent a decade neglecting the holding midfield role, and now they have one of the world's best players in that position, so all of a sudden they look like quite a good team again. Absolutely insane how that position isn't one of the first recruitment wishes for any team with suspect defences. Think of the players we've had in that position over the last decade - Schneiderlin, Wanyama, Hojbjerg, Romeu, Lavia. None perfect, but have all done excellent jobs (to date, in Lavia's case) in that role to the extent that you really notice when they're not there.

Imagine if Ralph had two new attacking players worth a collective £40m at his disposal in August. Given what he was left with and how things were going, a change was probably necessary, but that change didn't have to be someone with zero pedigree or any sign of being remotely good enough to step up to this level.

Neither Alcaraz or Orsic play as a number 10. Again, you've heard words, jumbled them up and come to a weird conclusion.

I mean, that's a pretty conclusive post to show you didn't actually listen properly. I said that Villa had prepared for the game having watched our recent games, realised that JWP is now playing further forward, and put a system in place to counter it. That's just a fact, it's what they did, it's why he hardly saw any of the ball for most of the game. I didn't say "we shouldn't play him there" at any stage

Not ruthless enough at this level, I'd suggest. Had some great results in that run before the break, but most were by the odd goal which gives you such fine margins. Today felt a bit sluggish for the most part, against a side who weren't especially ambitious in attack and scored with basically their only real chance in the first half, we just didn't move the ball quickly enough, whether that was through quicker passing or simply dribbling at/past the Lewes players. Everything was in front of their defence which just made it too easy for them.

Insane traffic levels (strange how nobody ever has anything to say when we're good, isn't it? ) and a bit of a glitch with one component on the server that was causing a bit of a headache. Hopefully that's resolved now, been much faster in the last hour or so after I tweaked a few things.

Again, tonight has been an opportunity for him to demonstrate that he has the ability to do it now, when as you say we need an attacking threat. Has he done anything?

Is it really that puzzling, though? None of us see what goes on behind closed doors at training - perhaps Edozie has only shown glimpses, just as that's all we've seen in his appearances off the bench, and the management believed that wasn't enough to justify picking him from the start. Let's be honest, a few people got very excited by a handful of stepovers and a nutmeg in that cameo at Wolves and declared him the Second Coming of Christ. Those who are paid to make the decisions have to be a little bit more objective. Has there been any end product from him this evening, despite supposedly being our "brightest" player in a turd of a team performance so far? Certainly doesn't sound like it. He may well turn out to be brilliant, but the club can't win - play the kids and "we're taking too many risks with this lineup", don't play them and "why can't we throw the raw but promising nippers into the team".

Goals have been the only thing really lacking so far this season, good to see them finally being a bit more ruthless, albeit against comfortably the weakest team in the division. They'll need that cutting edge against the better teams in this division if they want to go up again.

Decent start this evening, 1-0 pretty much straight from kickoff

Correct, but I suspect it was more a realisation that even a club like Man United couldn't be granted a WSL license and expect to compete in the first season - not even sure they got promoted at the first time of asking. United got the license ahead of us based on assumed spending because they're a big club and they would naturally be able to attract big crowds and therefore use that revenue to drive growth, whereas what ended up happening was that after they got promoted, the club basically left the women's team to rot, with constant complaints about poor facilities, a lack of kit and equipment, a lack of duty of care, etc, to the extent that the manager walked away after that first season. Meanwhile, we have invested the money that we said we'd invest during that application. In truth, perhaps building from lower down has allowed the club to build up a bit of momentum - we all want to see a successful team that represents the club, whichever team it is, so if we'd started in the Championship and just bobbed around at a low level there, perhaps we wouldn't have what appears to be the well-oiled machine with excellent attendances we have now.