I was worried that we could be in trouble this year when we were leaking goals incredibly easily and managing to make scoring look like an impossible science but to be fair to Bilic, he has identified the problems and come up with an almost perfect stopgap to fix them. The change to a three-at-the-back formation comes as a bit of a masterstroke from our manager who has implemented a new 3-4-3 formation. This has not only provided us with more defensive solidity but has also given more room to our creative players while our strikers have been unfit, injured or simply not firing. Payet and Lanzini are afforded far more room and flexibility to move around freely in the 3-4-3 formation which has been incredibly useful as shown in both games after the international break as both have affected these two games massively.
Alongside this freedom that our creative players have gained, our central midfield has been far more effective with the Noble/Obiang partnership. Obiang has been brilliant in these last two games and if it wasn’t for an outstanding performance from Reid against Crystal Palace, he would have easily clinched my MOTM award for both. He’s not only added a brilliant knack for winning the ball back in key areas but he’s also brought good vision and incisive forward passing to the team and these two factors have really driven us forward in the games against Palace and Sunderland. Noble has also stepped up his game massively and whilst many (including myself) may still complain that he is often too slow to release the ball and that those passes are often sideways, his general play is more assured and he picked up his highest passing accuracy of the season thus far (98%). With things ticking over in the middle of the park very nicely, it provides us with a very solid base to attack from.
Zaza still hasn’t stuck the ball in the back of the net and it’s getting tight now with the amount of games left on his loan deal diminishing before we’re obliged to buy. Everything is there apart from the goals. It must be said that his service from wide has been pretty poor but then again his positioning in the box has also been pretty poor and the middle was so congested against Sunderland that it was understandably difficult for him to find space to receive the ball to feet. He has to get a goal in the next game or two because it surely isn’t viable to splash out £20million+ on a striker that hasn’t scored consistently. There’s talk of us being interested in Icardi following his recent fall-out with the Inter ultras and if Zaza doesn’t find the back of the net soon, it could be a good option to return him to Juve and spend that £20-odd-million on Icardi.
It would be wrong of me to not mention Reid’s performances because he was wonderful against Palace at containing Benteke and scored the winner against Sunderland. He’s an unlikely hero but a hero nonetheless and for that he deserves great credit. With Cresswell back from suspension and Ayew soon to return, things are beginning to look more positive.
The League Table:
Antonio – 40.5
Reid – 36.5
Adrian – 36
Payet – 29
Kouyate – 25
Noble – 22
Lanzini – 21
Collins – 18.5
Masuaku – 16
Ogbonna – 16
Obiang – 10.5
Nordtveit – 10.5
Tore – 7.5
Byram – 7.5
Calleri – 5.5
Fernandes – 5
Zaza – 4.5
Fletcher – 4.5
Valencia – 4
Cresswell – 2
Arbeloa – 1.5
Carroll – 1.5
Feghouli – 1.5
Ayew – 1