Before I start on this - feck off if you think this is blindly bashing the manager, he's done good job all things considered this season, and we are in good position in the league at the moment. But like all managers, Ole will also be held to account, and this is something I've thought about for a while. I wanted to defer my opinion until after this match to see if something were to change from today.
In our games vs the traditional top 6, we've been absolutely passive against Liverpool, City, Chelsea (reverse), second 45 vs Chelsea today, and Arsenal (x2). We've mustered what a 0-0 vs Arsenal, City, Liverpool and Chelsea twice whilst being spanked by Spurs. Our only goal in these big games have been in a 6-1 drubbing to Spurs and we haven't scored a single one from open play.
I took exception that the soak and counter approach was the right approach in many of these games, I felt we should have been more bold vs Chelsea at OT, vs Liverpool when they were dogshite, vs and Arsenal both times. I've seen Ole make changes far too late which tells me where his intention lies - today for example Tuchel would bring on Pulisic earlier and look to Werner later on. Ole didn't bother with Martial until 70-75 minutes and left it as is.
Although choking in semi-finals is just bad luck in isolation, it's still undoubtedly going toward a weak mentality when we have big games when you consider how torrid our form is this season in such games.
Our record vs top 6 worked last season because our fast counters under Ole was still a surprise factor. But teams are smarter to it now and will just nullify us. Today for the first 45 I thought OK, this game looks completely different to the others so maybe he's changing it, but the shitness of the second half just made it obvious that he was happy to settle.
Was it right to maybe settle for a draw today? Perhaps - losing would have put Chelsea 3 points behind us. Was it right to settle for a draw vs City earlier? Perhaps. Liverpool at Anfield? For me given how they were, no, but you can see the other side.
But, to play so passively for large portions of every game against the top 6 is not what we are about. It's not even a quality thing, we have players who can do damage, who can hurt teams but we play like we're too fecking scared to go at teams now.
If we played in our previous big games like how we did in the first half against Chelsea today, we'd have undoubtedly clocked up 6-9 more points than we have. But I look back on a large sample size of "big" games and can only really deduce 45 minutes of proactive football taking the game to the opponent. And it's not good enough - he needs to address this.
In our games vs the traditional top 6, we've been absolutely passive against Liverpool, City, Chelsea (reverse), second 45 vs Chelsea today, and Arsenal (x2). We've mustered what a 0-0 vs Arsenal, City, Liverpool and Chelsea twice whilst being spanked by Spurs. Our only goal in these big games have been in a 6-1 drubbing to Spurs and we haven't scored a single one from open play.
I took exception that the soak and counter approach was the right approach in many of these games, I felt we should have been more bold vs Chelsea at OT, vs Liverpool when they were dogshite, vs and Arsenal both times. I've seen Ole make changes far too late which tells me where his intention lies - today for example Tuchel would bring on Pulisic earlier and look to Werner later on. Ole didn't bother with Martial until 70-75 minutes and left it as is.
Although choking in semi-finals is just bad luck in isolation, it's still undoubtedly going toward a weak mentality when we have big games when you consider how torrid our form is this season in such games.
Our record vs top 6 worked last season because our fast counters under Ole was still a surprise factor. But teams are smarter to it now and will just nullify us. Today for the first 45 I thought OK, this game looks completely different to the others so maybe he's changing it, but the shitness of the second half just made it obvious that he was happy to settle.
Was it right to maybe settle for a draw today? Perhaps - losing would have put Chelsea 3 points behind us. Was it right to settle for a draw vs City earlier? Perhaps. Liverpool at Anfield? For me given how they were, no, but you can see the other side.
But, to play so passively for large portions of every game against the top 6 is not what we are about. It's not even a quality thing, we have players who can do damage, who can hurt teams but we play like we're too fecking scared to go at teams now.
If we played in our previous big games like how we did in the first half against Chelsea today, we'd have undoubtedly clocked up 6-9 more points than we have. But I look back on a large sample size of "big" games and can only really deduce 45 minutes of proactive football taking the game to the opponent. And it's not good enough - he needs to address this.
