Sheffield United have lost 17 league games this season and at the time we played them had 1 win and 2 draws. There are no easy Premier League games any more, but Mourinho shouldn't get much credit for winning that one, either. West Brom beat them while Slaven Bilic was still their manager.
But why can't we? Surely if you're hiring the biggest manager in the game you have to expect him to be able to improve players? Otherwise why hire him? He's failing to deliver, he's had a large number of his own signings and missing out on one shouldn't be the reason we're so abject at the moment. All managers miss out on players, that's part and parcel of the game. His decisions, tactics and substitutions have often been terrible over the last couple months. It feels like we're getting the third season syndrome in year two.
This is my issue with him. He seems to have lost the plot recently for no reason. The team selections and substitutions have been ridiculous over the past couple of months or so.
So who we going for next then? If anyone says Eddie Howe or that Rodney from Brighton just cos he knocks it about a bit then expect some dog dragging his own arse gifs from me
In more detail the "trigger" moment then was the 0-5 mauling by the Poool. Looking at the fixture list + current form it may be the Citeh game that comes calling for Jose.
The telling thing was the 6-0 mauling from The Sheikh Mansour Team that came before it, as when the game kicked off half our players were still doing their laces or adjusting their shinpads - so, of course, they waltzed right through us to score the opener after 13 seconds We absolutely had moments like that against Saltypool last week
I think Aurier and Ndombele have improved and Son and Kane are at their peak form. Davies and Lloris are about as good as they were and everyone else seems to be a bit worse. Not a great result. However in the last 11 games of last season and the first 11 games of this we were easily on top four form. The last nine games we are nearer to relegation form.
Given where Kane has actually been positioned, he is not a striker either. The trouble with Vinicius is that if he plays, Son loses most of his service as Kane provides 90% of it. Whoever starts instead of Kane needs to be able to pass well. I think Ndombele or Lo Celso are actually more like for like.
We've created a style of play that's been worked out by the rest of the league and is producing diminishing returns. Losing the key player to that system and fitting in any lesser alternative (and that's anyone in world football not just our club) doesn't make any sense at all. Mourinho either needs to be sacked or come up with something else that'll actually work. So let's stop pissing about, cut to the chase and sack him.
Kane is definitely playing as a striker, just one who has a bit of a licence to roam and switch positions with players. That doesn't mean that Vinicius has to play the position exactly as Kane does for the system to work. He can play it how it's been played in previous seasons, when there wasn't as much emphasis on the role getting assists.
He was our record signing for over a decade seem to remember a cracking bicycle kick once though, against you lot funnily enough. Carillo has to be our worst. £20m and one of our top earners, played 7 games and scored none. Been out on loan ever since with us picking up most of the tab. To make it even worse he was basically the managers choice who was awful himself and got sacked 6 weeks later.
The good news is that Tottenham is a hotspot for the new, racially profiled strain of Covid So we might get a 2-3 week break
1. No one on here thought Bale starting was a good idea. 2. No one on here thought playing without a striker was a good idea. 3. No one on here thought starting with three CBs was a good idea. My mates and daughters all disagreed with these things and, judging by social media posts, so did a majority of spurs fans. But JM find all those things so presumably thought they were good ideas. You can pick similar glaring issues with a lot of our recent performances (and with the performances from last December until lockdown). I could see the point in what JM did from the end of lockdown until the Liverpool match in December. Even though the football was not always attacking it was not rubbish and boring. You could see a plan...but since then the football has been dross. I have no issue with blaming the players for making stupid mistakes but that should include JM.
1. I wanted Bale to start, but premised that on... A) A proviso that we played a proper RB to cover for his lack of defensive work. B) Vini starting, to occupy their big CBs and create pockets of space for Bale, who lacks the physicality and bite in his game now, to exploit. Neither of these conditions were met, so Bale ended up surrounded by a CB, a LB and midfielder every time he had the ball. 2. Agreed. Very few on here wanted Vini to start from the bench. 3. I'm happy in theory for us to play 3 at the back as I think it helps cover for the brain farts and also for the fact (which is going to become a new obsession of mine, I promise) that Hojbjerg isn't disciplined enough to cover the CBs effectively. However, this is also premised on... A) Using players who are actually good as wing-backs, as wing-backs. This means Reguilon on the left, Aurier/Doherty on the right. No-one else in the squad plays that position naturally and therefore it isn't worth dropping a man from midfield or attack if the reason we do it is totally ineffective - as Davies and Sissoko were for the entirety of the game. Not a single decent cross from either of them and Davies was glaringly at fault for their goal, letting his man get goal side twice. The selection in this regard was as bad as the Pool game, where we played a LB at CB, and an out of form RB as a LWB, then subsituted the only player in the team actually playing where he was meant to because he lamped someone at half time. B) Teaching Hojbjerg how to actually play as a DM rather than run around shouting a lot (told you it's my new pet topic) so that Tanguy can basically have a free role to compensate for the dropped midfielder/attacker. Being as it is that none of the above happened, we lost - and made Brighton look like 2009 Barcelona in the process.
