We shouldn't disregard him outright but like you said he done well last season upfront and we splashed 19m on him. Then decided let's try Alexis up there. Utterly pointless. Surely he should have thought that out better. It was a panic buy and I think that's shown in his playing time.
Yeah, he came in with his leading elbow into Bellerin's head. All the pundits said it wasn't a foul, even Henry.
Gabriel is like a deer in the headlights when he gets in the opposition half. No idea what to do and limited skills.
Shocking hearing a commentator defending a challenge like that. How is leading with your elbow a fair header? Or being "too big and strong"? If that had been reversed and it was Bellerin that went in on Alonso like that, I bet my bollocks that Chelsea would have a penalty and Bellerin would be off!!
Without doubt.
Funny how that wasn't the case when Xhaka took out Joe Allen. Then it was "dangerous and clumsy", even though arguably Allen was just small and had his head at Xhaka's elbow level. Alonso's foul was much worse than Xhaka's even, it's not like they're even on the same level of recklessness ffs
NBCSN coverage was the same, commentators and pundits alike,, and they are supposed to have some big campaign type stance on curtailing head injuries, hypocrites.
The thing is we have a great squad where we fall down on is out and out quality. You can basically interchange our whole squad and it'll not go up or down a level. There are exceptions, Alexis, Cazorla, Koscielny and Bellerin those aside it's a top squad but limited on top quality. Chelsea have Hazard, Costa, Kante, Matic and Tibo. If they start losing those guys then it's a massive drop off same for us and the four I've mentioned.
It's that he clearly knows Bellerin is there (that's the direction he is facing and jumping in) and puts his elbows up anyways. Not higher, not lower, just pummels him right in the face. I know that could have been avoided, it was dirty.
