No Europa excuses

Can you say vanilla? We have too many of the same players, nice skills but nothing special, and we seem to have gotten rid of the guys who seemed to have a little fire in the belly, such as Holtby and Sandro.

I would tell Ade sit if he's not going to play every game. Yesterday he had several near misses. The ball ALMOST hit his head a couple times and ALMOST hit one his feet a few times. Maybe next time he'll remember to go looking for the ball instead of waiting for it.

We also don't seem to have a striker of consistent top quality, so let's give soldato and Kane a continuing pairing up front
It might make both of them more effective.

In the back, I'd give Chiriches an immediately free transfer and sit kaboul. Stamouli and Fazio should be in the middle and JV as captain.

 

Short memories anyone calling for J.V to be captain .. Was as culpable as any last year when we needed him to cover in left back and he got the hump .. Had completely given up by the end of the season , mopeing around the place , he didn't give a **** .. For me he completely failed his audition for captincy last season .. Never seen him getting the hump playing left back for Belgium ..

 

Anybody else struggling to believe capoue is a better option than Sandro and chadli better than lennon.... Think we should be far more adventurous at home v poor opposition like this that will clearly come to park the bus. MP needs to realise this is a different job to the soton one where no disrespect we are a bigger scalp and teams will be less open against us and will perhaps let us have the ball while soaking our possession game up. There will simply be less gaps to exploit in behind on the counter as the saints played. What's done is done now and we have to stick behind the current regime hoping he can adapt the style and another window shape his squad more to his taste..

 

Well chadli at least scores a few goals where as lennon provides nothing, sandro a better player than capoue but is already injured for qpr so would be no good to us again.
Your right about teams setting up differently to play us and working out a way to get past that, but the only way is power pace and quality.
Quality being the main word, Quality- end product quality costs money.
As for another transfer window unless Levy is willing to add some serious wedge into the kitty and break the habit of a life time and reinforce in January we havent a hope until summer, then it will be all buisness done last week a month into next season with no stratergy.
Plus all our transfer activity is based around bargains and potential not players that will deliver.
We all must have cottoned on to how it works by now, and Poch will be the fall/fool guy when our mighty Chairman fails to deliver again.

 

It was not just a substitution. the system was changed from 4-2-3-1 MP favors to 4-4-2 he dislikes, but had to try since our center MF failed to penetrate the opposition CBs. Baggies also isolated Ade very much like LFC did. Our preparation was mistake to be corrected, in other words. By playing Sherwood's system Poch attempted to get around the clogged center and stretch their defense. We made many ineffective crosses. That did not produce goals, but the recollections of last season instead.

 

Sad but true, I don't really understand this thinking that the captaincy isn't really important these days, or that the team needs 11 such players. Bollocks, we cant find one such player, it just doesn't work that way in group dynamics, ive worked extensively in building groups into teams ( not football ) with a focus on leadership as well as individuals taking on responsibilities and any team /group needs strong consistent leadership from someone willing to lead by example. What example does it set to the young and new players when a manager appoints an average, inconsistent and underperforming player as our captain? A player that has shown that he cant even organise or rally his own defence let alone the team. This appears to be nothing more than a safe option and a weak decision. If Fazio can show himself to be worthy then it has to be Fazio and Jan at the back and Kaboul can work on getting his game in order rather than captaining the team. If I see both Kaboul and Chiriches anywhere near the team sheet against arse I will turn it off and go back to bed.

 

Good point and it has to be considered particularly at home against average opposition. Poch doesn't seem to be very flexible in his set-ups, 2 DMF, I striker, inverted wingers, no width, no pace, no creativity. do we always need two DMFs ? why not drop a playmaker back, I would have liked Holtby for this role but maybe Eriksen can do something with the ball from a deeper position and put Lamela in the hole, he always ends up there anyway, having both Ade and Soldado on the pitch gives us options, both are hard working and clever players who work well with other strikers. Im not now nor will I ever be a fan of inverted wingers, unless they have a very good shot and can score goals they just slow the game down and do not provide the type of delivery that works for players like Ade or Soldado.