toffeemax
Player Valuation: £15m
Drawing parallels to Newcastle in 08/09, they were on 22 points after 19 games, similarly they were 12th, after a poor start they had seemingly steadied the ship and looking to turn it around at the end of november/start of december. They were believed to have a squad 'too good to go down.' However they lacked a sense of cohesion, similar to our squad at the moment. They were disjointed, players played out of position.
Granted they had managerial difficulties, but there are some distinct similarities at the moment.
Roberto needs to really address the situation in front of him and not look for excuses as he seems to be doing. He needs to take the blame. I heard he said that 'I won't change my philosophy on the back of a bad result, look at last season.' When does one bad result turn into a bad season and therefore when does he become a bad manager?
Breaking it down starting out of the back, we have conceded 2nd most amount of goals in the league this season, a third of those have come from our own mistakes, i.e trying to play out of defence. Look at today, 2 of them came from playing out the back. To accommodate these is hard enough, so you'd expect a regimented defence at set pieces, looking back at southampton and again today we have conceded 5 goals in those two games from corners whether that be directly or indirectly (i.e, short corner, or not fully cleared a corner).
Moving into midfield, Barry seems to have lost it, but Roberto doesn't seem to want to drop him? He even makes him captain today, penny for Baines' thoughts! I may be being a bit harsh on Barry, as if you look in front of him there is literally no movement most of the time. Hence he usually plays it sideways or backwards and ultimately it usually finds its way back to Joel to hoof it forward. And when he does look for a ball forward there is no real aim to it as no one is showing.
The 3 that play behind the striker lack width and any sort of penetration, apart from Mirallas. They seem to be encouraged to play free roles, but when you play 2 or 3 of Barkley, Eto'o and Naismith in the same team they all drop into the identical areas as they are so similar in their play. Even with two of them in the team it is so so disjointed. It also means the likes of Coleman and Baines can't bomb on as effectively as they used to as they are rarely given service like a Pienaar, or dare I say it an Osman would because all three players are so set on finding the striker with a killer ball or scoring themselves. Eto'o in particular is too much of a luxury player for our side, he earned a living playing off the shoulders of defenders and with his lethal finishing, not dropping short and being a totti type advanced playmaker. He's also a bit too fair for the ability of our team, epitomized by the way he stopped play today because of Tiote getting one to the nuts. Besides from the Burnley game I can't remember him really doing a lot.
Up top Lukaku has looked alright, but there is far too much onus on him to bag the goals, especially with the 28 million price tag, and with the aforementioned poor link up play between the lines he has little to no service to feed off.
Then if you look at the manager, his post match press conferences are so out of tune with what we have all watched. Today he spoke about how he couldn't fault the effort, how injuries and suspensions were the main differences when really his philosophy cost us two goals and we had a team easily good enough to dispatch Newcastle. Until we can really find a balance and sense of cohesion we need to be looking over our shoulders as opposed to up the table.
Granted they had managerial difficulties, but there are some distinct similarities at the moment.
Roberto needs to really address the situation in front of him and not look for excuses as he seems to be doing. He needs to take the blame. I heard he said that 'I won't change my philosophy on the back of a bad result, look at last season.' When does one bad result turn into a bad season and therefore when does he become a bad manager?
Breaking it down starting out of the back, we have conceded 2nd most amount of goals in the league this season, a third of those have come from our own mistakes, i.e trying to play out of defence. Look at today, 2 of them came from playing out the back. To accommodate these is hard enough, so you'd expect a regimented defence at set pieces, looking back at southampton and again today we have conceded 5 goals in those two games from corners whether that be directly or indirectly (i.e, short corner, or not fully cleared a corner).
Moving into midfield, Barry seems to have lost it, but Roberto doesn't seem to want to drop him? He even makes him captain today, penny for Baines' thoughts! I may be being a bit harsh on Barry, as if you look in front of him there is literally no movement most of the time. Hence he usually plays it sideways or backwards and ultimately it usually finds its way back to Joel to hoof it forward. And when he does look for a ball forward there is no real aim to it as no one is showing.
The 3 that play behind the striker lack width and any sort of penetration, apart from Mirallas. They seem to be encouraged to play free roles, but when you play 2 or 3 of Barkley, Eto'o and Naismith in the same team they all drop into the identical areas as they are so similar in their play. Even with two of them in the team it is so so disjointed. It also means the likes of Coleman and Baines can't bomb on as effectively as they used to as they are rarely given service like a Pienaar, or dare I say it an Osman would because all three players are so set on finding the striker with a killer ball or scoring themselves. Eto'o in particular is too much of a luxury player for our side, he earned a living playing off the shoulders of defenders and with his lethal finishing, not dropping short and being a totti type advanced playmaker. He's also a bit too fair for the ability of our team, epitomized by the way he stopped play today because of Tiote getting one to the nuts. Besides from the Burnley game I can't remember him really doing a lot.
Up top Lukaku has looked alright, but there is far too much onus on him to bag the goals, especially with the 28 million price tag, and with the aforementioned poor link up play between the lines he has little to no service to feed off.
Then if you look at the manager, his post match press conferences are so out of tune with what we have all watched. Today he spoke about how he couldn't fault the effort, how injuries and suspensions were the main differences when really his philosophy cost us two goals and we had a team easily good enough to dispatch Newcastle. Until we can really find a balance and sense of cohesion we need to be looking over our shoulders as opposed to up the table.
