29 Oct 2025 11:27:02
Just a quick hot take I think hasn't been floated up enough around why our form has shifted.
Could it be the Allison injury?
At a high level our performance across the season so far have been pretty consistent. consistently average/ poor.
But when Ali was playing he would save those early chances (in my book he would have saved Mbuemo's, a few of the Brentford goals etc) . That then usually allows us to score first and get on top (which suits us more) .
Not throwing Mama under the bus as this is more about how good Ali is vs how bad Mama may be.
It's also not a sustainable tactic anyway so needs to be addressed, but I i do think explains the form - basically Ali isn't getting us out of jail every game.
29 Oct 2025 12:34:10
He has definately saved us plenty of points over the years. The young lad Pesci is highly thought of, it will be interesting to see how he develops.
29 Oct 2025 12:55:35
Ali has been a savour to us for many years so we inevitable suffer when he’s injured.
My concern is that he will leave soon.
29 Oct 2025 13:18:54
I was thinking about this yesterday actually.
The shot stopping is guesswork but if Ali saves just one of them goals a game then they are all draws rather than loses.
I think the biggest loss is his distribution and composure at the back though personally, marma doesn’t look anywhere near as good and this effects the rest of the team.
29 Oct 2025 13:20:46
We could certainly do with the big beautiful bear in goal right now. Frustrating that he picks up the same type of injuries at the same time of year like this!
29 Oct 2025 13:33:18
@Jimjam, seriously struggling with this one. Maybe there's a reason why no one else brought this up prior to now.
29 Oct 2025 13:45:07
Not going to mention how good Ali is at making saves, think we all know that. But going from Ali to Mama means a different style when playing out from the back. Basically Mama can't, so more often we will cough up possesion or at least fail to beat the press (if there is one) .
No idea why we bought a goalie not suited to how the team plays, but think that question could be asked about others too.
29 Oct 2025 13:50:18
Ali's injury is one of the factors. He brings a presence and calmness to the defence that other keepers do not. The defence should not fall apart just because he is missing though. Virg should have the same impact but that does not seem to be the case right now.
I don't think we concede 3 against Brentford with Ali and Gravenberch in the team but you have to deal with these situations.
29 Oct 2025 15:33:54
Thanks all for the input.
I guess my point was more that our game improves when we take the lead as the opponent has to open up more, so if Ali is saving chances, avoiding us going 1 goal down, we are more liley to take the lead etc.
But that's not the reason for the terrible football, and let's face it even when we were taking the lead we struggled to keep it. I was just wondering if having him in goal gave us more of a head start - hence better results, albeit not deserved and were papering over the cracks of poor performance.
Not suggesting bringing him back is the answer at all - its more that perhaps the team were getting away with poor tactics, zero pressing etc as he often got us out of jail.
29 Oct 2025 15:48:45
Alisson is a big loss, being the best keeper in the world. However, he was in goal against Palace and Galatasaray.
29 Oct 2025 17:01:42
Our new keeper isn’t great, especially with his feet, in fact awful wouldn’t be too harsh a work but to be fair we weren’t great before Mama came in.
29 Oct 2025 19:23:07
I think the performances were shaky when Allison was fit.
But certainly since he’s been out, at least in our build-up play we don’t have that same confidence at the back when playing out.
It is a factor.
29 Oct 2025 19:53:03
Mama should be called Dracula because he does not like crosses . The Maguire goal Ali would have punched the ball away mama stayed on his line . YNWA.