He calls for the ball and literally takes not one, not two but three looks over his shoulder and even though he had a picture in his mind of what’s around him he still decided that the best decision would be to pass to Xhaka for the sake of passing it was almost as brainless as Cech’s decision making for the first goal especially considering one of Xhaka’s biggest weaknesses is one on one situations yet Elneny still played him the ball with Ndidi in his face leaving Xhaka with two options play the ball the way his facing and hope Holding anticipating the situation or tump it out of play and have a go at Elneny for needlessly playing him into trouble.
Unfortunately Xhaka choose the former rather than the latter which is why Xhaka deserves his fair share of the blame for the second goal too but still I can’t help but feel the majority of the blame should lie with Elneny.
Congratulations to @Titou14, I haven’t noticed the bad pass from Elneny who caused the wrong ball passed by Xhaka in the space between Bellerìn and Rob Holding.
In my opinion he has a lot of responsability on the third goal for because was deputed to bloke Vardy before the header, but what Titou showed changes my opinion about his game. In my opinion he wasn’t performed enough to be in contention to be MOTM (differently than Kolasinac), but this fact changes something.
Elneny & Xhaka are both guys that like to receive the ball in those type of situations, dropping deeper to receive off the CB’s. Neither comfortable receiving higher up.
Why I’ve said previously on here that Elneny is a good alternative to Xhaka but not someone that I’d like to see play with him which is inevitable because Ramsey has spaghetti hamstrings.
Agree, they contradict when playing together trying to fill the same gaps. Someone like Ramsey is better suited. Coquelin can even do it at a push, he’s not a bad player on the ball at all.
I’d expect his pass completion to be pretty low, not to mention the harmful giveaways. Ramsey-esque, from Ramsey’s crap alter ego anyway. Currently Ramsey is far outshining his midfield partner and was comfortably our best player I thought.
This guy is the main fucking culprit. Two fucking weeks in a row now. By my count he’s now directly responsible for 3 goals of the 5 we’ve conceded. I have to endure the abuse by all of this guys apologist midweek when I call for him to be replaced by Ox, who btw was about the only guy on the pitch doing shit.
I know you guys have a hatred for Ox but if you can’t admit he was the catalyst on anything we did well today I have to start questioning what the fuck you are talking about. Two times early in the first half he put players right in on goal, once Welbeck fucked it up and second Bellerin was fouled and it should have been a pen. This guy is so clearly head and shoulders above Xhaka it’s infuriating he’s not getting a look in.