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Asoro, who has attracted the attention of some of European football’s biggest clubs, impressed during the club’s pre-season tour of France and will start his second successive game in the League Cup.
Player Performance
Ingram - 7: All round was great, really made some fantastic saves and his kicking was good. But he's brought down by the second goal which he should have done better with regards to the parrying of the ball. Keepers are taught to aim to the sides under all circumstances and unfortunately, not doing that cost us.
Kakay - 8: Bright future this kid has. Looked great at most offensive parts of his game, from dribbling to crossing, his overlapping runs were an asset. Even defensively I thought he did extremely well, especially for his age and experience. Good in the air, a very solid tackle on him and generally read the game well, especially when we as a team were on point.
Caulker - 6.5: Solid performance throughout, did little to nothing wrong and won a lot in positions you wouldn't expect him to.
Lynch - 7.5: Very good start for him, showed a quality that we have been missing. He's got a great left foot on him and he's a huge aerial threat, as shown by his assist. Should be a regular alongside Caulker.
Hamaleinen - 6: Very mixed bag for the youngster. Had some good defensive work initially but later on in the game, started coming into the middle too much to shrink the pitch, leaving Ndong (a £13.6 million record signing) with plenty of space out wide.
Sandro - 7: Scored a very good goal and initially pulled off some good defensive work, but ran out of steam at the end of the first half in terms of defensive workrate. Needs to get up to speed but will be a good asset in rotation with Ariel this season (and hopefully not Henry)
Cousins - 6: Giving him the base score that I'd give anyone because every good thing he did was balanced by an equally bad thing. Would win the ball then play a poor pass; make a run to the edge of their box before running out of ideas and refusing to shoot or play a through ball, instead taking too long and missing the opportunity. The worst part was his inability to play under pressure from anyone. Should be used in rotation with Luongo this season.
Wszolek - 7: You can tell how valuable he is by the performance of the full backs when he was on their side. When he was right mid, Kakay had a great period where he attacked a lot and did a lot of damage, knowing he had this guy chasing everything behind him. When he was left side, Hamaleinen had a solid period where he didn't look under threat. We've yet to see his best offensively, but for the role we want our wingers to take in the side, he's probably the best one on evidence.
Nasser - 5.5: Decent opening 15 and had ok spells throughout but looked lost in attacking mid and looked tired after 15 minutes. Only reason he isn't rated 5 is because of the corner which led to the goal and a few of his free kick deliveries. When his delivery beats the first man, you're almost guaranteed a good cross. But he's too inconsistent to have 90 minutes of football.
Washington - 6: Ran a lot but with little intent. Almost did it just for the sake of running around. When he got the ball, he was alright, didn't really spark up. Covered a lot of ground in the final third in particular and went looking for the ball, but when he got it, he didn't create much with it. I respect the attitude but I don't think he's got the ability for anything above League 1 Level. I'd love to be proven wrong but it would have to be an immediate impact as he's (for me) used up all his "owed time" without doing much at all.
Sylla - 6.5: Only similarity between him and Polter is in the aerial ability. his style is very different, he doesn't run like crazy, most likely isn't as fit as he needs to be to play consistently and regularly just yet for the full 90, perhaps once he gets to that level, he'll do more running, but I don't think he needs to. He wins a lot in the air but he needs to time his jumps better at times. He took a knock 35 minutes or so in and didn't have the impact he did prior to the knock.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink - 7: I'm gonna rate the managerial performance based on what I saw and I'm going to do this more often after yesterday. Starting line up was about as good as we would have wanted yesterday given the need to rest Chery. 2 of the 3 substitutions were exactly what I would have done, but I would have taken Nasser off instead of Cousins and I would have done that earlier. Other than that, we had good fluidity and people saying we went to a 4231 in the second half, we were much more fluid than the players' starting positions suggested and that's what JFH has said he wanted to see. Yesterday we had 5 players attacking regularly (the attacking 4 and Kakay) and that kept them under pressure for most of the game. Once they took the lead, they looked comfortable because they could play more solidly in the middle and pass it around.
Bore off and Dullard in the same sentence....love it!
Interestingly, Inter - and sometimes CFC - didn't push, didn't close down. They shut up shop. They even gave it back. It was a solid game plan, everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing. You don't always get that impression with us. And that's where I differ from Naz - its fine to give up possession if you can live off scraps up top and shut the back door. But we do neither.