Morning. A quick flirt before breakfast.
A 1-1 draw with an MLS side with us displaying a slow moving awkward high line leaving wide open spaces for comfortable exploiting and a general lack of fluidity going forward. What is Villas-Boas doing? Has he not learnt a thing from his calamitous Chelsea tenure? End of days. Mid-table mediocrity awaits.
Two things. The first thing is a collection of things bunched together:
- Not all our (key) players are currently available for selection
- Some of the ones that are might not be available to us once the season actually starts
- New players bedding in
- High line movement and understanding hardly something to be achieved over night
- We've not finished our transfer activity (striker(s), Luka replacement etc required)
- The heat + Galaxy fitness at mid-season stage
- Our fitness levels still being built up
- Some of our players more keen to impress than others
The second thing?
It's pre-season, which accounts for all of the above. Who cares, save injuries. Talking of which Walker and van der Vaart picked up knocks. Nothing serious, couple of days out at best. We looked good in parts, couple of very decent chances to add to the one we got.
Most interesting thing to note is the reminder that Gareth Bale (who scored) pulled out of the GB Olympic team due to injury. Works for me.