He was training the other day on the vid's, maybe he's not, but he's been back a while now I believe. Prepared to be corrected...
I thought that was an odd comment: "we can't stand out on the training pitch for 3 or 4 hours at a time". Why Ryan? What's more important that you have to get off to?
Where's this interview? I liked what mason was saying to fatty burns. After watching him spraying the ball about yesterday though it's like he was bought to replace Tom. I don't think they will work together long term, it's Jake and one of them for me.
To be fair to him, I think Mason was trying to make a positive point about Silva i.e. he achieved in a half hour meeting what Phelan did in 4 hours on the pitch, but he made it very clumsily. What he could have said was "so this frees up more time to work on other additional elements".
Leaving the politics to one side. I really enjoyed yesterdays game - different style of football with Marco getting more animated as the game went on, wanting the boys to play a high line and continue to push on their players working the defense and midfield in close proximity. Its risky against the likes of a Vardy or Rashford but you could start to see the effect. Mason was more in the game and seemed more confident, Abel made a huge impact when he came on and seemed really up for it. For me the real difference between the Yak and Marshall is his enthusiasm, he was vocal, passionate, getting the "crowd" going and of course his length of the pitch run. As the players were walking off they were smiling and taking the piss out of Jak (especially Meyler - who had a good game with some decent crosses). If we capture the early season spirit with a little added quality then you never know...
Silva wasn't happy with the first half. That's one change we need to start games well enough, as well as clean sheets. Obviously it's too early to see much change from the manager at this stage, hopefully he can bring in who he wants as well.
In the first half Silva was not happy, I kept checking his body langauge and he was unhappy how deep we where how much space we allowed Swansea. He kept telling Mason to push up and to pressure Ki and Cork who where sitting for Swansea. Through out the first half he must have said 'Ryan' or 'Mason' at least 8 times. Huddlestone and Mason won't work together, although we where hamstrung with Livermore moving to the back. I said Jake has been poor in November, but his performance in the last 5-6 games have been nothing short of sensational. The second half Mason played a lot better, he seemed to to pick the ball up a lot more. He certainly improved when it was him and Clucas in the middle when Huddlestone went to centre half. Theres no doubt about it though the Jak kept us in the game. Even if Phelan was spending 3-4 hours on defending set pieces it obviously wasn't working, so I think one of the big principles is maybe to not give away so many bloody corners!
Mason had a decent game yesterday. He was more involved and you even noticed he was on the field. There could still be a player in there.
Concentration levels are a problem after so long. Especially when working on mundane things like set pieces etc.
And I'm pretty sure Phelan's response would've been "if you don't want to do these 4 hour sessions on mundane elements then get it right on the ****ing pitch". They were pubishment, cos we're bottom of the league and have conceded easily the most goals.
