It doesn\u2019t feel like Alexander actual Isak needed a head start in his battle for minutes at Liverpool but his \u2018needless and stupid\u2019 rival is awful generous.<\/p>\n
The League Cup third round resumed on Tuesday evening in an unexpectedly newsworthy series of games<\/a>.<\/p>\n While a fair few impressed<\/a>, these Premier League players botched their lines and made a right old mess of the opportunity.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Carlos Baleba<\/p>\n It might be time to place the spotlight somewhere else. As Fabian Hurzeler said at the weekend<\/a>, Baleba is \u201cnot a machine\u201d and there is a \u201cresponsibility\u201d for Brighton to help him.<\/p>\n A 6-0 stroll against League One opposition should have been an opportunity to raise his confidence levels but being taken off before the hour \u2013 bringing his average game-time in his five starts this season down to little over 54 minutes \u2013 indicates that letting him play through his problems is not working.<\/p>\n Brighton have enough options to cover a player who in his current guise has become a liability and needs time to recalibrate.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Every Burnley player<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really disappointed. I\u2019m disappointed overall with the performance, especially the first half, I thought we were way short of where we needed to be in every aspect of that game really.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were some tactical things first half, but as well as that I just felt there were generally a lot of things that we were really short on \u2013 intensity, duels, opening up big spaces for the team. With the ball we were sloppy at times and pretty slow in the way we played.<\/p>\n \u201cI just thought the fundamentals, the basics, the fundamentals of our game, we were just way short.\u00a0Just in terms of our general duels, in terms of the way we approached certain things, we were just a little, little bit short.\u201d<\/p>\n Scott Parker was not angry, just disappointed. But also possibly slightly angry.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Raul Jimenez<\/p>\n The only one of his six shots which hit the target was wonderfully innovative and forced the save from which Fulham eventually scored, but Jimenez also gave up possession hilariously frequently with poor touches and did little to earn back his starting place.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Filip Jorgensen<\/p>\n It was a chastening evening for many in Chelsea blue, with Trevoh Chalobah and Enzo Fernandez especially poor.<\/p>\n But Jorgensen\u2019s case was different: he had a legitimate chance to properly stake his claim and take advantage of Robert Sanchez being Robert Sanchez, and instead provided evidence that he too might well unfortunately be Robert Sanchez. Perhaps we all are deep down.<\/p>\n Enzo Maresca tried to excuse his stand-in keeper by pointing out that Lincoln tried to \u201ccreate chaos\u201d with throw-ins, free-kicks and crosses which meant \u201cyou cannot move, you cannot go out, you cannot catch the ball\u201d. But especially in light of his absurd indecision against Manchester United<\/a>, it became a glaring deficiency that a League One side was able to exploit.<\/p>\n Jorgensen made one punch in the first minute and claimed a high ball in the fourth. He did not manage to accomplish either a second time, but did achieve the remarkable feat of getting fans to clamour for Sanchez\u2019s return.<\/p>\n READ MORE AND LAUGH IN DISBELIEF:\u00a0Chelsea decide \u2018four high-quality goalkeepers\u2019 will \u2018compete\u2019 for No. 1 shirt<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Dwight McNeil<\/p>\n There will be no fourth season as Everton\u2019s leading goal threat. It is testament to McNeil\u2019s ability and durability \u2013 but also indicative of the club\u2019s general decline \u2013 that he has led the squad for combined goals and assists in every campaign since he joined.<\/p>\n In 2022\/23 he earned that honour outright with ten, before sharing it alongside Dominic Calvert-Lewin (nine) in 2023\/24 and Iliman Ndiaye (ten) in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n It is a feat he will not repeat. Everton invested so heavily across their attack this summer as to sideline a player whose work-rate, talent and versatility no longer stands out against your Jack Grealishs and the Tyler Diblings of this world.<\/p>\n Neither impressed against Wolves either; no-one did for David Moyes\u2019 side, not least the manager himself. But McNeil\u2019s slide down the pecking order was solidified across a thoroughly uninspiring hour.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Hugo Ekitike<\/p>\n The good news is that he has his celebration sorted and cleared by the manager in the event he ever beats three defenders before hitting it into the top corner in the 87th minute of a Champions League final. That must be a weight lifted.<\/p>\n But it is probably slightly sub-optimal to pick up a \u201cneedless and stupid\u201d red card in the process, securing a suspension for an upcoming game against the only other unbeaten side in the Premier League so far this season, having started wonderfully with five goals in eight matches.<\/p>\n Even more so when your main competitions for places cost a British record fee and is starting to find his feet.<\/p>\n Only Ekitike will know what truly compelled him to celebrate in such a manner but the hope at Liverpool is that he can use it as a teaching moment. Whether a player needs to be specifically taught not to remove their shirt and get sent off after scoring a tap-in against Championship opposition is a different argument, but we\u2019re here now.<\/p>\n MORE ON SILLY EKITIKE FROM F365
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Ekitike learns his fate after \u2018stupid\u2019 red card while a \u2018Premier League legend\u2019 lands surprise new role<\/a>
\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Five times players have massively over-celebrated against sh*t sides after Hugo Ekitike sees red<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It doesn\u2019t feel like Alexander actual Isak needed a head start in his battle for minutes at Liverpool…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[73444,35421,464,58885,25461,43576,106194,424,24663,16415,3450,3,77850,403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-178761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-brighton","9":"tag-burnley","10":"tag-chelsea","11":"tag-dwight-mcneil","12":"tag-everton","13":"tag-f365-features","14":"tag-filip-jorgensen","15":"tag-front-page","16":"tag-home-page","17":"tag-hugo-ekitike","18":"tag-liverpool","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-popular","21":"tag-soccer","22":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}