Eagle Eye
Player Valuation: £5m
There are hundreds of posts on here questioning the ability of our summer signings and also more established players. I honestly think that our biggest problem though is with the mentality of our players at the moment.
Re-visit the Man City match from earlier in the season. We were awesome that night (albeit against 10 men for most of it) and came as close as anyone to beating them this season. Why? The players were up for it, competed for everything and BELIEVED they could win.
That belief is long gone. And I think it is down to the mentality of the players we have in the squad. From the second Mason Holgate's pathetic header fell to Raheem sterling's boot, we have been in trouble.
The next 3 league fixtures Chelsea, Spurs and Utd have a lot to do with this, but more so when you look at the mentality of the players at the club.
Going through the squad: We signed a talented goalkeeper who has got relegated in his first full year and is used to losing every week. He doesn't yet know what it is like to be a winner. Williams and Keane - signed from clubs regularly at the bottom of the table and used to losing (seeing a pattern?) Gueye, relegated with Villa, Robles, Mccarthy, relegated with Wigan. Siggurdsson, perennial struggler with relegation at Swansea.
Let's take some of our senior pros. Jagielka, Baines, Schneiderlin. All have had bad injuries over the last few years which knocks you mentally and in the case of Baines and Jagielka, they haven't been the same since the last World Cup. Injuries aside, they were part of a squad deemed losers by the nation and have struggled with confidence since (let's not even mention Rooney - he also had the debacle of the Euros to add, plus his personal life and realisation that he isn't the player he was). Schneiderlin hasn't played anything like a full season for 4 years because of injury. What goes through his head every 50/50 tackle?
Lennon has sadly had mental health issues, whilst Besic's dad was shot and Niasse was treated in a way that would kill the confidence of anybody.
So we have a squad of perennial losers, players who have been injury ravaged and are coming to the end of their careers, players who have been drained of confidence at international level and players who have personal issues. Actually, I forgot the ones whose heads are elsewhere (Barkley and Mirallas) and the inexperienced kids who don't know what Premier League football is about yet and those recovering from career threatening injuries.
We don't need a new manager, we need a psychologist!
Point (very long and laboured post I know) is this: The mentality of our squad isn't great at the moment and some of them are clearly actually in a really bad place. We can stay on the backs of certain players, but in truth, whoever comes in, their confidence is shot. What can we do to help? Well as [Poor language removed] as it has been over the past few months, ALL we can continue to do is be positive for the players when they play in front of us.
Starting with West Ham under the floodlights on Wednesday. We can't choose the manager, or pick the team, but let's do our bit and stay positive for the 11 on the pitch - it is all we can do at the moment to have any effect on things.
I actually believe that the next few weeks could be the most important in our club's recent history - anyone else think so...?
Re-visit the Man City match from earlier in the season. We were awesome that night (albeit against 10 men for most of it) and came as close as anyone to beating them this season. Why? The players were up for it, competed for everything and BELIEVED they could win.
That belief is long gone. And I think it is down to the mentality of the players we have in the squad. From the second Mason Holgate's pathetic header fell to Raheem sterling's boot, we have been in trouble.
The next 3 league fixtures Chelsea, Spurs and Utd have a lot to do with this, but more so when you look at the mentality of the players at the club.
Going through the squad: We signed a talented goalkeeper who has got relegated in his first full year and is used to losing every week. He doesn't yet know what it is like to be a winner. Williams and Keane - signed from clubs regularly at the bottom of the table and used to losing (seeing a pattern?) Gueye, relegated with Villa, Robles, Mccarthy, relegated with Wigan. Siggurdsson, perennial struggler with relegation at Swansea.
Let's take some of our senior pros. Jagielka, Baines, Schneiderlin. All have had bad injuries over the last few years which knocks you mentally and in the case of Baines and Jagielka, they haven't been the same since the last World Cup. Injuries aside, they were part of a squad deemed losers by the nation and have struggled with confidence since (let's not even mention Rooney - he also had the debacle of the Euros to add, plus his personal life and realisation that he isn't the player he was). Schneiderlin hasn't played anything like a full season for 4 years because of injury. What goes through his head every 50/50 tackle?
Lennon has sadly had mental health issues, whilst Besic's dad was shot and Niasse was treated in a way that would kill the confidence of anybody.
So we have a squad of perennial losers, players who have been injury ravaged and are coming to the end of their careers, players who have been drained of confidence at international level and players who have personal issues. Actually, I forgot the ones whose heads are elsewhere (Barkley and Mirallas) and the inexperienced kids who don't know what Premier League football is about yet and those recovering from career threatening injuries.
We don't need a new manager, we need a psychologist!
Point (very long and laboured post I know) is this: The mentality of our squad isn't great at the moment and some of them are clearly actually in a really bad place. We can stay on the backs of certain players, but in truth, whoever comes in, their confidence is shot. What can we do to help? Well as [Poor language removed] as it has been over the past few months, ALL we can continue to do is be positive for the players when they play in front of us.
Starting with West Ham under the floodlights on Wednesday. We can't choose the manager, or pick the team, but let's do our bit and stay positive for the 11 on the pitch - it is all we can do at the moment to have any effect on things.
I actually believe that the next few weeks could be the most important in our club's recent history - anyone else think so...?
