20 minutes of relegation standard performance, followed by some marginally better stuff. Not a great showing by most, but who cares as that was 3 much needed points.

Big mistake not buying another central midfielder to support Doucoure and I’m not sure we can afford to play Zaha, Olise, Eze and Ayew in the same side and expect to have any sort of control over the midfield. However, the two magic moments were from Eze and Olise so maybe it’s more down to them to get more involved in matches.

I think Leeds will be bottom three or thereabouts and it was a massive three points.

The bench again spelled out how hard this season is going to be.

Aside from the obvious when he got caught I find the criticism of Guaita's kicking a bit of a head scratcher when he's put under pressure by such terrible back passes and the defence as a whole looked so panicked early on.

I'm disappointed by the impact of Doucoure. He doesn't seem particularly effective when we don't have the ball, doesn't seem to protect it very well under pressure or quick to pick out a forward pass. He rightly got hooked against Chelsea after letting Gallagher go a couple of times. Defensive mid is the easiest position on the pitch in the modern game IMO.

Edited by Rachid Rachid Rachid (09 Oct 2022 8.42pm)

I've watched him over a few games now. The doing it by yourself bit is overdone IMO and he should be showing more awareness and strength on the ball and moving it forward. He's also looked cooked before the end of the game too many times.

Today we brought on leggy Luka in his place and it barely made a difference to the team overall.

Probably our poorest performance of the season (bearing in mind the quality of the opposition) and yet 3 valuable points and hopefully the start of a decent run.

I like Doucoure BUT he needs support. We can't afford to have two flaky players as his midfield partners no matter how good they are on the ball - we need to have the ball first before they can show their skills with it.

Like last week - put the right type of ball into the box and our strikers will prosper. Hope Edouard can get a run going now and build up his confidence.

Absolutely agree.

Doucoure is not a 'defensive midfielder' in the Luka M or even say a Kante, K.Phillips, Busquets, Fabinho etc type.

CD is a neat, tidy centre midfielder. He has good ball control, a good footballing brain and can spot a pass, perhaps less so of the long range on a sixpence type but can play the shorter ball a lot better than most. He can defend quite well too within the limits of him as a centre, and not holding, midfielder. I think he's a fantastic addition but only one of a few we needed with some still missing - Hence the rotations of the likes of Schlupp, Olise, Luka, Hughes etc. No-one else is securing, or even wanting to secure long term, that other slot.

For me, going forward, I would like to see a somewhat staggered three man midfield with Eze slightly further forward, Doucoure as the CM and more of a holding midfielder (someone new) slightly behind him. Again a Kante type who has less sight on getting forward, scoring goals, breaking up the pitch etc and more on shielding the defence, breaking up play and picking the occasional pass from deep would be nice. Again, just my opinion but that's my wish.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

Sorry, to be clear (as probably the only poster to critcise him), my observations regarding Doucoure aren't based purely on today.

He's generally tidy but I think it's an exaggeration to say he's been doing it on his own over the course of the seven games this season.

I expected a bit more based on some of the narrative surrounding his signing and taking him off today for Luka didn't see to upset things much.

Edited by Rachid Rachid Rachid (09 Oct 2022 10.09pm)