Messi983
Senior Member
So much overreactions, lol. We were not as "great" as people said in first two games and we were not as "shit" as now said yesterday.
Some strange things are happening lately. United conceded 6 and Liverpool 7 goals yesterday while City conceded 5 a week ago and even Hoffenheim puts 4 past Bayern. Teams had basically no preseason, there will be more tiredness and injuries so I expect this trend of "unexpected and strange" results to continue. But this doesn't mean Liverpool, City, Bayern or even United (though not on their level) are now suddenly bad teams. They've just had a bad day which can happen to anyone.
We also didn't have our best day but still managed to get a draw. Sure, our goal is always to win, especially at home but I would say Sevilla is one of the top 3/5 teams in the world right now. Not by their status or quality of individual players but by the form they've been playing in recent months together as a TEAM. That team (besides Raki and Acuna) has been playing together for a year now. No great stars but everyone knows exactly what he's doing. A lot of credit to Monchi to build that team from basically the scratch (of last night's starters only Navas was there 14-15 months ago) and also to Lopetegui to make them play so well.
So getting a point against a team like that is not the end of the world. Yes, we looked poor and besides giving a deserved credit to Sevilla for that I think this was up to two main reasons.
1. Tiredness of the team after playing in tough conditions with a man down for a half just three days ago. We were just not physically on Sevilla's level which is what Koeman also pointed out. And which is not a surprise in itself as we've been a physically poorly prepared side for years and OTOH I'd say Sevilla is one of the most fit teams in football nowadays.
Now obviously Koeman could prevent some of that tiredness by making a change or two more in the starting lineup to have more fresh legs from the start but Sevilla is also not a team to experiment against too much and we could've looked even worse. Which leads us to my 2nd point.
2. No team chemistry after subs were made in 2nd half which again is not surprising at all (though we actually looked a bit better in the last 10 minutes just for having more fresh legs on the pitch). We've finished the game with 6 players who were not here or had limited role in the team last year. It will take time for newcomers to settle into the team and for the other players to adapt to their new roles, this can't happen over night.
This team is still a work in progress and there will be bumps in the road. We'll struggle against better teams (and Sevilla clearly is one of those) and sometimes even against supposedly bad ones (I do believe a lot of La Liga teams are underrated or not considered serious enough here and then people are surprised when we struggle against them; in other words there are teams who might not play well but they do know how to get results by defending as a team). And we'll look good in other games. I'll try to stay level-headed and not overreact to either good or bad performances for a few more months. Coming January/February we'll be able to evaluate things better and more fairly both from a team and indivudial players's performance standpoint. And also let Koeman have enough time we could actually consider this to be his team. If we'll consistently look as poor as we did yesterday in 3-4 months and against worse teams than Sevilla then it will be time to be concerned. Now it's not. Surely would be great to go on international break with another good performance and a win but yesterday's game will also give Koeman some home work to do over the next two weeks.
Some strange things are happening lately. United conceded 6 and Liverpool 7 goals yesterday while City conceded 5 a week ago and even Hoffenheim puts 4 past Bayern. Teams had basically no preseason, there will be more tiredness and injuries so I expect this trend of "unexpected and strange" results to continue. But this doesn't mean Liverpool, City, Bayern or even United (though not on their level) are now suddenly bad teams. They've just had a bad day which can happen to anyone.
We also didn't have our best day but still managed to get a draw. Sure, our goal is always to win, especially at home but I would say Sevilla is one of the top 3/5 teams in the world right now. Not by their status or quality of individual players but by the form they've been playing in recent months together as a TEAM. That team (besides Raki and Acuna) has been playing together for a year now. No great stars but everyone knows exactly what he's doing. A lot of credit to Monchi to build that team from basically the scratch (of last night's starters only Navas was there 14-15 months ago) and also to Lopetegui to make them play so well.
So getting a point against a team like that is not the end of the world. Yes, we looked poor and besides giving a deserved credit to Sevilla for that I think this was up to two main reasons.
1. Tiredness of the team after playing in tough conditions with a man down for a half just three days ago. We were just not physically on Sevilla's level which is what Koeman also pointed out. And which is not a surprise in itself as we've been a physically poorly prepared side for years and OTOH I'd say Sevilla is one of the most fit teams in football nowadays.
Now obviously Koeman could prevent some of that tiredness by making a change or two more in the starting lineup to have more fresh legs from the start but Sevilla is also not a team to experiment against too much and we could've looked even worse. Which leads us to my 2nd point.
2. No team chemistry after subs were made in 2nd half which again is not surprising at all (though we actually looked a bit better in the last 10 minutes just for having more fresh legs on the pitch). We've finished the game with 6 players who were not here or had limited role in the team last year. It will take time for newcomers to settle into the team and for the other players to adapt to their new roles, this can't happen over night.
This team is still a work in progress and there will be bumps in the road. We'll struggle against better teams (and Sevilla clearly is one of those) and sometimes even against supposedly bad ones (I do believe a lot of La Liga teams are underrated or not considered serious enough here and then people are surprised when we struggle against them; in other words there are teams who might not play well but they do know how to get results by defending as a team). And we'll look good in other games. I'll try to stay level-headed and not overreact to either good or bad performances for a few more months. Coming January/February we'll be able to evaluate things better and more fairly both from a team and indivudial players's performance standpoint. And also let Koeman have enough time we could actually consider this to be his team. If we'll consistently look as poor as we did yesterday in 3-4 months and against worse teams than Sevilla then it will be time to be concerned. Now it's not. Surely would be great to go on international break with another good performance and a win but yesterday's game will also give Koeman some home work to do over the next two weeks.
