Are we in worse shape than 1994/5?

[Saint Domingo]

..usually there’s one team who look to have gotten out of the relegation scrap but get sucked back in. 20 points at Christmas keeps your head above water, 25 or more is fine.

So many poor teams in this league now though. Swansea look doomed. Newcastle are in free fall as are West Brom. Watford could very easily get sucked into the conversation.

 

[EFC78]

Disagree. As I said at the time, we were in a poor run of form which was always likely to turn around, especially since we had a very favourable run of fixtures coming up. I agree that Unsworth was out of his depth but let's not forget he got 7 points out of his 5 league games in charge. Allardyce has come in and got us a bit more organised which is great. We've had a bit of luck with deflections, soft pens and the woodwork saving us which wasn't necessarily happening for us earlier in the season and suddenly we look a lot healthier. In my opinion all the talk of us being in crisis and relegation certainties was absolute nonsense - not because we were good but because most of this league is absolutely awful.

No it wasn't though. We were heading for a relegation dogfight at best if we hadn't appointed someone to turn things around (we appear to have appointed the right man at least in the short term). Koeman, and then Unsworth were shambolic in their management of this side and the poor results proved it. I will give Unsworth credit for the 2 home victories but the West Ham one was partly influenced by the players knowing that Allardyce was in the stands watching so would be judging.

We were getting absolutely hammered by sides that were awful in comparable games. Arsenal at home (5-2), they had lost 4 of their 5 previous away games before coming to Goodison having scored only once, Atalanta stuck 5 past us having not won away themselves all season, Southampton had gained 8 points from 27 before we visited and they put 4 past us. We had the worst defence in the league before the West Ham game and until last night we hadn't won away since January.

 

[MickA]

No it wasn't though. We were heading for a relegation dogfight at best if we hadn't appointed someone to turn things around (we appear to have appointed the right man at least in the short term). Koeman, and then Unsworth were shambolic in their management of this side and the poor results proved it. I will give Unsworth credit for the 2 home victories but the West Ham one was partly influenced by the players knowing that Allardyce was in the stands watching so would be judging.

We were getting absolutely hammered by sides that were awful in comparable games. Arsenal at home (5-2), they had lost 4 of their 5 previous away games before coming to Goodison having scored only once, Atalanta stuck 5 past us having not won away themselves all season, Southampton had gained 8 points from 27 before we visited and they put 4 past us. We had the worst defence in the league before the West Ham game and until last night we hadn't won away since January.

We let Unsworth play out his job interview in public so he had to try and be expansive in his thinking. He should have been told he wasn't in contention from the start and just to shore us up until the new man comes in. That organisation and shape we have now could have started from then, basically defend the point. What's happened defensively isn't the work of a genius just a decent coaching set-up.

I think Unsworth was put in a very unfair position by a board caught in the headlights. Let's not forget there were a lot of people on here screaming at him for not going all out attack against Lyon away while at the same time slaughtering him for letting the team get walked through.

 

[Lanolin]

No it wasn't though. We were heading for a relegation dogfight at best if we hadn't appointed someone to turn things around (we appear to have appointed the right man at least in the short term). Koeman, and then Unsworth were shambolic in their management of this side and the poor results proved it. I will give Unsworth credit for the 2 home victories but the West Ham one was partly influenced by the players knowing that Allardyce was in the stands watching so would be judging.

We were getting absolutely hammered by sides that were awful in comparable games. Arsenal at home (5-2), they had lost 4 of their 5 previous away games before coming to Goodison having scored only once, Atalanta stuck 5 past us having not won away themselves all season, Southampton had gained 8 points from 27 before we visited and they put 4 past us. We had the worst defence in the league before the West Ham game and until last night we hadn't won away since January.

Well it's a pretty pointless argument as neither of us can ever be proved right or wrong.

My personal opinion is that the quality of this squad is much higher than that of most squads in the league, and would always have got enough wins - particularly at home - to keep us comfortable. I would argue that this is backed up by the fact that we were 5 points clear of the relegation zone when Allardyce took over despite arguably having had a tougher run of fixtures than most of those around us. You've cherry picked our worst results but it's worth countering that we're the only side to have taken a point off City, and had won 3 home games before Allardyce took over. The most games we've gone without winning this season is 4, and there are 6 sides in the league who are currently on a run either equal to or worse than that.

Yes the West Ham result may have been affected by the fact that somebody was watching, but not specifically Allardyce. Players will generally respond better when they feel they are being judged by somebody in a position of strength and influence, so Unsworth was in a difficult position as the players knew he couldn't really harm their long term prospects if they didn't perform. I'm not saying sacking Koeman was wrong, or that Unsworth was the answer, simply that my opinion is, was, and always remained, that a bottom half finish would be a real failure for this squad in this league.

 

[EFC78]

Well it's a pretty pointless argument as neither of us can ever be proved right or wrong.

My personal opinion is that the quality of this squad is much higher than that of most squads in the league, and would always have got enough wins - particularly at home - to keep us comfortable. I would argue that this is backed up by the fact that we were 5 points clear of the relegation zone when Allardyce took over despite arguably having had a tougher run of fixtures than most of those around us. You've cherry picked our worst results but it's worth countering that we're the only side to have taken a point off City, and had won 3 home games before Allardyce took over. The most games we've gone without winning this season is 4, and there are 6 sides in the league who are currently on a run either equal to or worse than that.

Yes the West Ham result may have been affected by the fact that somebody was watching, but not specifically Allardyce. Players will generally respond better when they feel they are being judged by somebody in a position of strength and influence, so Unsworth was in a difficult position as the players knew he couldn't really harm their long term prospects if they didn't perform. I'm not saying sacking Koeman was wrong, or that Unsworth was the answer, simply that my opinion is, was, and always remained, that a bottom half finish would be a real failure for this squad in this league.

Some fair points made there and I agree with your last sentence. I just think we were in a very bad place as a team in terms of mentality, organisation and form and it didn't look like changing any time soon. Had we not brought in a steady manager with some defensive know how in Allardyce, I think one of the only things that would have kept us up would have been that there are some equally awful teams, and some who were probably worse. But weren't we 19th at the time of that West Ham game?

Either way, I would like top hope we've turned a corner and will be able to get a top 10 finish at the least now.

 

[Lanolin]

Some fair points made there and I agree with your last sentence. I just think we were in a very bad place as a team in terms of mentality, organisation and form and it didn't look like changing any time soon. Had we not brought in a steady manager with some defensive know how in Allardyce, I think one of the only things that would have kept us up would have been that there are some equally awful teams, and some who were probably worse. But weren't we 19th at the time of that West Ham game?

Either way, I would like top hope we've turned a corner and will be able to get a top 10 finish at the least now.

I agree, we needed a manager who could organise us and I'm pleased Allardyce has done that. Personally I think 90% of managers could have done it but I appreciate that not everyone agrees. We were 16th before that game, and I always believed we would win it because we're better than West Ham and our home form against sides of a similar level has been good. After it we were 13th, and hopefully that will be as low as we get in the Allardyce era.

 

[Kev The Rat]

Should have binned Unsworth sooner we’d be in Burnley’s shoes now and be in Europe.