Yeah, that was a good press conference. I appreciate the guy telling it like it is, unlike Hughes who always seemed to soft pedal stuff. Also liked how he somewhat focused on defense and not giving goals away. He’s right. The first goal was bad. Stephens was easily outjumped and there was no one at the post. I don’t know who was to blame there, and it was a decent cross but in the end it was too easy for them. And the second goal was the result of Stephens having plenty of time to clear and botching it. Said that last week, too. I didn’t mind us pulling back into a more defensive stance that game. What bothered me was how crappy we were at executing it. It’s not like our attack is any great shakes but we’re at least managing to score a bit now. I don’t know that we can do much better. We have to be able to win close 1-0 games against lower table teams to survive. Right now I’m more optimistic about us scoring 1 than keeping a clean sheet. It’s a bit unfair to ask the defense to bear the load but that’s just how it is in a relegation battle. If we could consistently score 2-3 goals a game, we wouldn’t be here but it is what it is. We needed to bring in a striker, we didn’t. So the only way forward is to try to firm up the defense to the extent we can. That’s easier then figuring out how to score.
Yeah, the hatred of Elyounoussi has reached bizarre DeRidderian levels. At some, it's not even about whether they are good players. Common sense just tells you that it would be nearly impossible for ANYONE to suck as bad as people are saying. You just can't have that much impact when you are not even on the pitch for very long. Elyounoussi didn't have much to do with the goal we scored, nor the one we gave away. We were short because Ings and and Armstrong were out. At some point we needed another attacker and it needed to be a wide player and Elyounoussi was all we had. He came in and utterly failed to electrify the crowd or turn the game on its head because if he had that kind of ability at present, he wouldn't be on the bench. Complaining about the bench player who comes in late during a game when everyone has stunk is just kind of silly.
12 games left 36 points available 1 point from the safety line Anything can happen, yet I read we’re down and people are giving up. I won’t give up til we’re down and I won’t say we’re safe until we’re safe. My prediction: we’ll survive.
"You are soon to be relegated, now stand aside." "No, I'm not." "Yes you are. You lost to Cardiff City at home." "No, I didn't." "Yes you did! You couldn't even defend your goal for two measly minutes of stoppage time." "Tis but a scratch!"
Time to bring in Angus Gunn, Maya Yoshida & Sam Gallagher. Have Sims on the bench as well. They've got to be better options than some of the team we had yesterday.
It was like the Hughes team returned Didn’t press or win the ball high enough Didn’t shoot Not enough width or crosses Not enough players in the area No one except Redders ran at them (and Valerie once) No one took responsibility in the attacking half except Redders Long and Redders ended up with their backs to the goal which is mad Jack had a good game but was closely involved with both their goals Shame Armstrong was out. He could have made the difference as he doesn’t suffer from any of the attacking issues I mention Arsenal is a different game and we could still get something from that I hope Ralph has got a hair dryer He needed it after this
Hope so, and it’s another game and all that, but Arsenal seem to have turned a corner, I thought we played them at the right time before as strange as it sounds like Merson or Lawro, they were due a loss. I said it during the transfer window that we should have got a striker in, as Ings was always going to miss 1/3rdof the remaining games, and we just don’t have anyone else near good enough. We literally couldn’t have prepared much better for relegation than we did in the Jan transfer window.
Oh, that and I thought we were nervous yesterday, I thought the game plan was wrong, and total benefit of the doubt to King Ralph, as that is the first time he got it wrong. Yesterday he was more Ralph from the Simpsons.
"Hatred" is a bit strong, I just think that fans are disappointed in him because he has clearly not been effective in what he was brought here to do, namely being the creative player that can set up goalscoring opportunities or score himself. Having watched him closely for the last few months it is obvious to me that he is playing with fear and lacks confidence as he appears to freeze in possession and without instinct and usually slows an attack down and takes the safe and easy option. I'm hoping that he can overcome this asap because we desperately need a clever player to unlock a well drilled defence like Cardiff's were, in the run in.
Yep, he got a few things wrong yesterday and is not so great at working out how to break down teams that sit deep.
I think not starting long in a game you know we will have the lion share of possession was a little odd! Nevermind, when you lose you learn.
I hope he does learn, but the scary part is Long and alien lucy have been this poor consistently yet he hasn’t seen it yet. All this talk that he has watched our videos from under previous managers as well... how has he not seen what we’ve all seen then? I sighed as soon as I saw that line up yesterday, which says something.
