Well, that was everything we could have hoped for except for a few more goals. I won’t hold that against this team tonight because for the most part that was absolutely splendid. We dominated, we scored goals, we played brilliantly.
That was the performance of a settled, confident team which is motoring towards a title. That could have been a cricket score today, very easily, but I don’t think any of us can be anything other than delighted with what we witnessed.
There are partnerships which have been developing and which are now starting to bear fruit. The most interesting of them is upfront with Giakoumakis and Maeda. That opens up an interesting conversation which I think I’ll write about later on.
The squad strength is now obvious, in everything from the starting line-up to the substitutions which allowed us to take our foot off the gas a little bit during the match. Obviously, the midfield is now supremely strong, but we are strong everywhere at the moment.
Just look at the players who weren’t in the squad today; there was no Ajeti, as I said earlier. There was no Forrest. No Welsh. No Jullien. There was still no Kyogo. All five of them would walk into any other side in the country, comfortably. We didn’t even have them on the bench and we didn’t need them there. This team is incredibly strong now.
Of the manager’s signings, you could argue that there are only two we haven’t seen perform; McCarthy and Ideguchi. We know we’ll see both of them in the team before the season ends. McCarthy is an enigma to me. Ideguchi is someone the boss knows well and he’s taking time to settle in, but I’m certain that he will and he’ll come good.
Of the other three January signings, all have been a huge success and that’s part of why we’re so totally dominant at the moment. Hatate and O’Riley look like they’ve been at the club for years. It took Maeda a little longer to show us the quality that made the manager want him, but of all these players he is the one Ange knows best.
It is no surprise that he has shown us what he can do. He scores. He sets goals up. He is comfortable out wide and through the middle. He has pace, power and can cross the ball. He is a huge asset to this team and will only get better as he settles in.
Giakoumakis, I could write about all day. He is developing into an absolute beast of a signing, and now has two hat-tricks from his last two home league games. I’ll do a larger piece on him later, but talk about a footballer coming into his own at the perfect time … he is making his early season critics absolutely eat their words and along with Starfelt is a warning to anyone who ever again decides to indulge in a ridiculous rush to judgement on one of our players.
Overall, that was superb today. This is a team that is going to be difficult to stop. We all know where we are going next, and I think the manager will be very, very confident of taking three points from that and all but putting a ribbon on the trophy.
We’re down to seven games left now.
Good win points in the bag that’s a job done, just a note and this is not sour grapes but how the he’ll did the rangers win that europa tie against red star Thursday night match star missed a load of chances on the night should have been at least 6 goals also at the bigot dome and we now have to read tripe how well they played just hope they play that way against celtic come the home game at the bigot dome celtic will rip them apart .