Shooting Star
Well-known member
Sanchez - 6 Our keepers don’t save penalties, fine but the glove to Burn needed to be harder in another direction.
Webster - 8 MOM His now obligatory cross bar smash was accompanied by a wonder block in the box and great attacking surging runs and mostly immaculate passing.
Dunk - 7 Missed out on MOM by inextricably allowing the cross to come in for Wolves opener. Why?
Burn - 1 Scores a single point for having the balls to stay on the pitch and not sub himself.
Veltman - 7 Thought he had a very good game all round. Great positioning and a few good tackles.
Bissouma - 6 Was doing fine until he got the card and subsequent ban. Potter then removed him in case he saw red. Great management.
White - 5 Nice crisp passing but lost his man yet again leading to a goal.
March - 7 Pretty good most of the game. Threatening Wolves a lot with his positioning and running. Needs to keep learning about the art of defending though.
Maupay - 8 Huge French balls to take that penalty after his recent record. Great craft to get the penalty and ran himself into the ground as usual.
Connolly - 8 Great goal and was looking a massive threat with his runs prior to the inevitable injury.
Trossard - 8 Solid game, ref denied him our winner as he touched a diving Wolves defender.
Subs:
Pröpper - 7 Looked back to his best for us. Maybe it’s the haircut or the arrival of the transfer window?
Zeqiri - 6 Very useful actually. Just missed that cutting edge and should have tapped in a rebound.
Lallana - 7 Really controlled our direction of ply very well from midfield. I’d like to see him score one day.
Potter - 8. What a fight back after his misplaced confidence in Burn. Webster will be back playing that position I’m afraid.
I agree with pretty much all of this.
On White, I’d echo what one of the commentators said: he risks being a Jack of all trades but master of none. As with all his midfield performances, he rarely puts a foot wrong from open play, but from what I see he doesn’t get the ball and then drive forward looking to put us on the attack. Very often he’ll tap it backwards. In the second half Trossard and even Maupay were having to come so far deep to get the ball when really White should be the one getting it and then driving forward. Lallana showed what a natural midfielder brings to the table when he came on.
I’m not blaming Ben because really he should be a CB and a game like this showed how useful it is to have somebody so versatile when sudden formation changes are required. However, his versatility does come with drawbacks for me.
On Potter: his use of substitutes today should definitely be applauded and the second 45 minutes was a very, very good managerial display. However, conceding three goals when half the outfield are natural CBS (Dunk, White, Webster, Veltman and Burn) highlights that isn’t working. I do concede his life will be a heck of a lot easier when Lamptey returns!