Willy Kambwala | 2023/24 Performances

[K Stand Knut]

If, and that was debatable, it was a foul then it probably should have been a penalty because he was on the line so technicslly in the box, I think VAR scored one for us this time though I didn't think it was a foul in the first place!

Well, that’s debatable in all aspects.

His front leg, which committed the first ‘foul’ was firmly planted outside the box and I think it’s the right decision.

Still no need to lump in on the kid

 

[AshRK]

I would loan him out to a decent championship side and let him get some game time.

 

[ArbeitervonWien]

We should discuss his performance in a level-headed manner, not try and throw a young kid under the bus who is doing a half-decent job in a position he is learning. He hasn’t been any worse than any other CB we have played this season and people just need to remember that when they are being so heavily critical of him.

Is he the future, who knows but give him some leeway. There are people who avoid any criticism whatsoever in this team and deserve a lot more criticism than WK does

I agree that we should give young players who just play their first few games at professional level more leeway. Sadly, the performance thread are always toxic. But in my eyes he really had a bad game and was the weakest part of a weak team.

 

[Bestofthebest]

He wasn’t great tonight, not all his fault though. However, I think he should have tried pushing Solanki out onto the left wing on his one on one which caused the first goal. Solanki only has a right foot and anyway it would have narrowed the angle. By twisting and turning it just caused Willy to loose traction and fall over. He won’t be doing that again I hope, I really like the lad.

 

[Red in STL]

Well, that’s debatable in all aspects.

His front leg, which committed the first ‘foul’ was firmly planted outside the box and I think it’s the right decision.

Still no need to lump in on the kid

Indeed, if they want to lump on a kid the Garnacho should have been today's choice, don't see the point myself

 

[arthurka]

Thought we left him exposed all game long one v one on numerous occasions. Thought he did ok apart from the Solanke goal where he was left to defend against a inform striker with no help in sight what so ever. Want him to get games over Evans and Lindelöf.

 

[always_hoping]

Won't be too harsh on him, young and thrown in at the deep in. If Evans is fit next Sunday he'll start the FA Cup semi final instead of him.

 

[E-mal]

We need to loan him next season and get some cash from him when the loan goes well.
Adarabioyo is available on a free

 

[A-man]

He was doing poor things and good things but as a cb you are evaluated on the poor things and the mistakes as they could be costly and today they were costly. In that sense it is more difficult for him as a cb than for a young attacking player where the mistakes are not seen as costly. In the end he has shown good things to build on but he is not there yet.

One thing he has to improve is his decision making, when to push and when to back home. He’s often pushing way too high up leaving a gap behind him when he’s overplayed. Must value those situations better.

 

[K Stand Knut]

I agree that we should give young players who just play their first few games at professional level more leeway. Sadly, the performance thread are always toxic. But in my eyes he really had a bad game and was the weakest part of a weak team.

And I politely disagree.

Garnacho was fecking horrendous today and caused that first goal.

It’s by the by. It’s a shite team where youngsters are coming in and being expected to carry seasoned internationals who can’t be arsed or do simple basics

 

[hobbers]

Dreadful game but good to remind everyone we need to send him out on loan for a season, probably to the championship, and sign a top drawer replacement for Varane.

 

[criticalanalysis]

Yikes.

There's potential but so raw. Good thing for him is that he's probably gonna to get more games and I'm not particularly fussed about it. The season is over for me. Might as well use this time to get him so much needed experience and evaluate whether he can grow to what we want.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Nightmare display. Needs a loan

 

[reddevilz007]

Nightmare display. Needs a loan

Maino didnt have his best game. Casemiro was non existant.
Any young defenders would have had a torrid time with an inexistent midfield.

 

[ArbeitervonWien]

And I politely disagree.

Garnacho was fecking horrendous today and caused that first goal.

It’s by the by. It’s a shite team where youngsters are coming in and being expected to carry seasoned internationals who can’t be arsed or do simple basics

Garnacho also had a shocker. The thing is, as a CB there is little room for errors. Concentration and consistency are so important, which makes it such a difficult role for youngsters. Garnacho unnecessarily lost the ball, but it still took 2 mistakes from Kambwala for Solanke to score.

It's hard to disagree with the second paragraph.

 

[Fortitude]

I think a young CB needs more slack cut for him than literally any other position in a ten Hag United side. If you're a quality young midfielder, you're just one of many (midfielders) who will be wholly bypassed in the farcical midfield setup. You won't be isolated for criticism because everyone can see that the midfield is set up for you to fail.

For a CB, however, just imagine: you are coming up to the first team from a team that actually has a midfield in front of it - where everything you've been trained to do is in order and enables you to focus on your own job to the best of your ability. You come up to this shitshow, and most of what you worked behind and have been taught has not only been removed, it has been eviscerated. So suddenly, you're in no-man's land having to make snap decisions against far superior opponents with none of the protection you were afforded at a lower level. There can be nothing more surreal and bizarre, What good are your runs to cover a forward or two or wide attacker when you have a squadron of players bombing straight into your zones as well as whoever it is you are supposed to be marking. Under these conditions, mistakes should be extensive unless you have something very special in your ranks.

Playing CB in this team as a full-fledged pro must be stressful enough; for kids, it's a joke, so when you scrutinise this player, try to to envisage the learning curve he's on and what it entails as well as the fallout for mistakes under those amateurish conditions.

 

[K Stand Knut]

Garnacho also had a shocker. The thing is, as a CB there is little room for errors. Concentration and consistency are so important, which makes it such a difficult role for youngsters. Garnacho unnecessarily lost the ball, but it still took 2 mistakes from Kambwala for Solanke to score.

It's hard to disagree with the second paragraph.

Whilst I agree about Kambwala, if Garnacho just retains possession, we don’t put Kambwala in that position.

But, irrelevant of all of this, he made a mistake, at 19, in his 100th-ish minute of his PL career.

 

[didz]

Was at fault for the first goal. I blame Dalot more for the second. IMO he was better second half.

Yesterday I would have disagreed with you about the second goal, but I've just seen it again. Kambwala points out Kluivert straight away and Dalot literally throws his arms out like "wtf do you want me to do about it??" At least the kid saw where the danger was.

Honestly I'd accept anyone blaming either of them or Garnacho for that sequence of play, but out of the three of them, you would expect Dalot to be taking charge. Instead, he was the one acting like a stroppy teenager.

 

[Ballache]

Our CBs have to face runners all game, every attack against us looks like a counter attack for the other team due to us not having an actual midfield.
He didn't have a good game but the worst thing we could do now is put him on the bench. He needs to play the next match (not that we have much of a choice).

 

[A-man]

And I politely disagree.

Garnacho was fecking horrendous today and caused that first goal.

It’s by the by. It’s a shite team where youngsters are coming in and being expected to carry seasoned internationals who can’t be arsed or do simple basics

We have been losing the ball in midfield like that several times per game for a few seasons now. It puts the CBs in a very difficult situation where they have to face a forward at good speed 1v1. But Casemiro, Bruno, Dalot, … they all lost the ball in similar ways yesterday and hundreds times before. I really believe that’s one of our main problems.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

Yesterday I would have disagreed with you about the second goal, but I've just seen it again. Kambwala points out Kluivert straight away and Dalot literally throws his arms out like "wtf do you want me to do about it??" At least the kid saw where the danger was.

Honestly I'd accept anyone blaming either of them or Garnacho for that sequence of play, but out of the three of them, you would expect Dalot to be taking charge. Instead, he was the one acting like a stroppy teenager.

Indeed

 

[Crashoutcassius]

squad is so thin and injury prone that we have to put in someone that is so far from ready... the geniuses solution is to get rid of our only permanently fit defender

 

[K Stand Knut]

We have been losing the ball in midfield like that several times per game for a few seasons now. It puts the CBs in a very difficult situation where they have to face a forward at good speed 1v1. But Casemiro, Bruno, Dalot, … they all lost the ball in similar ways yesterday and hundreds times before. I really believe that’s one of our main problems.

No shit!!

Don’t lose the ball, don’t concede goals. Who’d have thought it

 

[A-man]

No shit!!

Don’t lose the ball, don’t concede goals. Who’d have thought it

That’s not what I wrote. I wrote that I think it’s one of our biggest problems.

 

[K Stand Knut]

That’s not what I wrote. I wrote that I think it’s one of our biggest problems.

I know.

And I agreed

 

[izak]

When he fell over just before that first goal, I couldn't help but laugh and I came to the conclusion he'll never make it here, he should be move him on in the summer for a decent fee.

 

[FootballAI]

Give him some time please, he has only been playing 2 matches recently. One great match and one not so good match. Remember how long Vidic had struggled before he became our most prominent CB.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

When he fell over just before that first goal, I couldn't help but laugh and I came to the conclusion he'll never make it here, he should be move him on in the summer for a decent fee.

When I read this post I couldn’t help but laugh.

 

[Bondi77]

The guy made a mistake and tripped over FFS!
The previous week he was one of the best against one of the best teams in the league and he looks a lot better on the ball than Sicknote so let us all calm down and enjoy a young talent that has just broken into the first team squad.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

The guy made a mistake and tripped over FFS!

He was also horrendous on the second goal but who cares really at this point, he’s been thrown in at the deep end and we were absolutely terrible all over the park at the weekend, so even if he’d been excellent we likely wouldn’t have been worth of a win.
I’ve seen tonnes of seasoned pros like Trent and even Gaz Nev made worse errors, shit happens.

 

[dcrompton]

Mainoo let the ball slip under his foot against West Ham leading to a goal. Good job it wasn’t his debut or he’s be labelled not good enough and we’d have to get rid.

 

[FootballAI]

The guy made a mistake and tripped over FFS!
The previous week he was one of the best against one of the best teams in the league and he looks a lot better on the ball than Sicknote so let us all calm down and enjoy a young talent that has just broken into the first team squad.

Exactly, he tripped one time in a match and people start calling to sell him. Must be the same people who were calling to sell Vidic or Pique, the later became one of the greatest CB in Barcelona history. Vidic struggled really hard for 20+ games in his 1st season and most of the fans believed he was clearly not United quality.

Solanke is no joke, he is the top striker who is outside of the top 6 and he can trip up any CB in the world on his normal day. Beside, the pitch was terribly wet in the early first half if I hear the commentators correctly during pre-match

 

[Bondi77]

Exactly, he tripped one time in a match and people start calling to sell him. Must be the same people who were calling to sell Vidic or Pique, the later became one of the greatest CB in Barcelona history. Vidic struggled really hard for 20+ games in his 1st season and most of the fans believed he was clearly not United quality.

Solanke is no joke, he is the top striker who is outside of the top 6 and he can trip up any CB in the world on his normal day. Beside, the pitch was terribly wet in the early first half if I hear the commentators correctly during pre-match

The mind boggles at what Casemiro would have done if he was in the same position.

 

[FootballAI]

The mind boggles at what Casemiro would have done if he was in the same position.

He would've tripped up so hard that he would slide right outside of the stadium

 

[Acquire Me]

No problem with young players making mistakes in the Premier League. It is actually good learning. Keep your head up Willy.

 

[justsomebloke]

The pitch was water-logged and looked very slippery, could have happened to anyone. The second goal though was a really ugly mistake - he's going to have to learn from that real quick if he's going to get PL game-time. Also of course there's the very-nearly-penalty in stoppage time. All in all, I think he's shown considerable promise in those two appearances, and plays with spirit and courage. But he can't afford the number of feck-ups he had yesterday.

 

[Hughes35]

Garnacho giving the ball away for the first goal is bad but the defending from Willy is as bad as I've seen for a while. Solanke doesn't really do anything other than cut inside.

I've not seen anything from him to suggest he can a be a really good CB.

 

[NoLogo]

We have been losing the ball in midfield like that several times per game for a few seasons now. It puts the CBs in a very difficult situation where they have to face a forward at good speed 1v1. But Casemiro, Bruno, Dalot, … they all lost the ball in similar ways yesterday and hundreds times before. I really believe that’s one of our main problems.

It's not just that, it is one of our biggest problems though but it's also that our rest defence is all wrong when we lose the ball. Instead of being in a position to immediately counter press they are miles away and have to face loads of players running at them while they have to somehow reorientate themselves and are out of position. Good teams understand where to move in relation to their team mates to be in a good position to press after losing the ball, we completely lack that and that imo is a coaching problem.

But yes players running blindly into opposition players and losing the ball is infuriating and a big part why we look so bad defensively.

 

[Pericles]

If, and that was debatable, it was a foul then it probably should have been a penalty because he was on the line so technicslly in the box, I think VAR scored one for us this time though I didn't think it was a foul in the first place!

It is not about where the person who committed the foul was, but about where the player that was fouled was. Kambala's front foot was outside the box AND the player that was fouled was outside the box when initial occurred.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

The pitch was water-logged and looked very slippery, could have happened to anyone. The second goal though was a really ugly mistake - he's going to have to learn from that real quick if he's going to get PL game-time. Also of course there's the very-nearly-penalty in stoppage time. All in all, I think he's shown considerable promise in those two appearances, and plays with spirit and courage. But he can't afford the number of feck-ups he had yesterday.

The team can't afford them but that's for sure. In terms of his own future they mean very little. He's a kid promoted far too soon because of an insane injury crisis. If anything, going through this baptism of fire will be good for him in the long run.