If I'm not mistaken that entire Burnley team is British save Gudmondssen. That's quality. And Corky boy still in there! Dyche gets it.
Just got back. They gave it everything. Did not deserve that whatsoever but we know it’s all the other games we should have been putting that sort of shift in. Revenge in the cup is what the footballing gods need to serve me next week. What do we think - will Alonso get banned?
Not for me. Chelsea were absolutely awful, dreadful, and didn't turn up for 60 minutes. The manager gives zero ****s, the players give less ****s, and Southampton scored 2 without an opposition team on the pitch. The ref was a disgrace, but that aside, Chelsea score once and Southampton fall to pieces. Personally, I know Sparky will get praise for improved performances, but this is genuinely the perfect time to play some sides, and he's still lost most of the games. Southampton will absolutely rebuild and come back, best youth progression outside Man Utd, but it's looking ominous just now.
Well all know we should have never have lost that. Yes, the referee was appalling but we are so fragile confidence wise and we needed energy and changes once the first goal went in and Hughes took too long to make them. Great effort but it's the board that has caused this by keeping Pellegrino too long and not buying a centre back in January.
Ones that don't have Hoedt, Stephens and Yoshida as starting CB's. If Hughes came in in December, bought a starting CB in, I'd be confident we would be easily mid table.
I agree that ideally we could have done with making changes earlier, but nothing on the bench was really taking my fancy. Lemina for JWP, maybe, but that was about it. Basically, Conte finally worked out that they never needed a back five against us - so ditched one of them for Pedro. Indeed, it also gave them a vastly better RB (Cesar is wasted as a CB). And Giroud simply loves playing against us. Not many sides in this division are able to call upon Pedro and Giroud from the bench. In addition to Hazard, Willian and Fabregas. So I struggle to criticise Hughes in any way. Against a Newcastle or a Brighton or a Swansea, I absolutely think we'd have seen that out. The (monumental) problem is that, as we've seen game after game this season, we'd simply never play like that in first place against those sides to get 2-0 up. (Although actually, we did manage to get 2-0 up against Watford and West Ham. And we found ourselves back to 2-2 in those games too. So maybe we wouldn't have seen it out!!)
We've won five games all season, just three against sides who aren't WBA, and have won once since November. We've been relying on the ineptitude of others for a long time now. No side with that record should be as close to 17th right now as we are.
No. Lashing out at him because he always behaves like this. Yes we are all pissed off, but most others seem to be able to control themselves.
The performance levels and spirit in the last two matches (against Arsenal and Chelsea remember) are chalk and cheese compared to Pellegrino's last two games against Stoke and Newcastle. The team simply wasn't functioning then and anyone can concede 3 goals to the top teams.
I don't disagree with you. In fact, I wholeheartedly agree with you. But we played well under MP against Utd and Spurs and Arsenal etc. Other than basically just Everton at home, it's every other game that was the problem. On that front, we've only got the West Ham game under Hughes as a comparison. And well...
At least I can see a method and plan under Hughes It was more like throwing spaghetti at the wall with Pellegrino.
