pre-season visit Malta weekender

[aindro]

First half against Leverkusen, I think Estevao will adapt very well to Premier League. He was impressive. Skillful and quick and he showed zero hesitation in whatever he did. Really happy that Maresca started Acheampong & Tyrique George. I hope both of them will stay (especially after Colwill’s long term injury) and get opportunities. I don’t think we have any need of Garnacho or Xavi Simons with Estevao, Neto, Gittens and Tyrique George as our wingers.

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[aindro]

Estevao & Colwill the goalscorer. Both new players. Gittens was good with the ball. (Less so without though). Essugo was decent. It’s only Delap who wasn’t getting much involvement amongst our new players

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[aindro]

I think it was an encouraging performance against AC Milan. What disturbs me though, is that we performed better when they played with 11 men. We played much worse when they were reduced to 10 men. Let’s start with GK: a really good long pass that caused their red card, it was not too dissimilar to the pass to Malo Gusto in the CWC final. But their goal, Sanchez shouldn’t have been beaten at his near post. He was sleeping IMO. And the defense, while I rate Gusto ok after the final of CWC, it wasn’t the same when Reece James was playing. Gusto did not close but Tosin did not either. And not sure about Chalobah injury, I just can hope that he will be fit after we lost Colwill for probably the whole season.

Up front the outlook is way more encouraging. Cole Palmer was clearly unlucky. I am backing him to score in our first game against Palace. Joao Pedro looked really good. Neto was sharp too. Gitten showed a lot of potential but his finishing was IMO very poor. He also often took wrong decisions. I don’t think he is ready as a starter, I would prefer to start Estevao who is younger but looked more mature in the game. Happy that Delap scored. I hope we will have our real no:9. He looked hungry and yesterday he played much better than against Leverkusen.

All in all, we outplayed AC Milan who had started the pre-season a month earlier than us. So not too bad. And I did not see anything special in Maignan. If we look for a GK, it’s seriously not him. Our first goal, he should have come out and caught or punched that cross. He is almost 30 and I did not see him in the same pedigree as before Cech or Courtois.

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