I know Hill performed well towards the end of last season but with sentiment out of the window the guy is a championship player at best! Would the likes of him or Derry , dyer , get in any other premier league team?? We have known our defensive issues for two seasons yet haven't addressed them at all. Nelson and Fabio are not exactly inspiring. Our pre season seems to have been wasted when the signing of a new centre back was obviously a priority for all to see. With that in mind why play one up front at home? I could understand it away but not at lotus road against anyone. Hughes can attract bigger names than what warnock probably could have but tactical i don't see us as better off as shown yesterday. It is a massive mind game to overcome but leaving the signing of a defender until the season has started is very naieve and unacceptable to a team who had a terrible defensive record last season. I will support Hughes while he is here but i am yet to meet a non Apr fan who has a positive opinion on his managerial capabilities. The ridicule i suffered out on the lash last night was terrible and i pray and hope it doesn't happen again. I wouldn't accept a 5-0 loss to either Manchester teams away from home!
Two things we seemed to lack (and we've all been talking about it for weeks) a strong centre back; someone who can lead the back line. Stood out yesterday and does need addressing. Samba would have been ideal, but while that won't happen, we need to get moving to resolve that. I hate seeing a back line continually changing, this needs to be a cohesive unit with a strong understanding. When we're left bemused at Tarrabt letting Dyer run on and score, have to ask why are we depending on Tarrabt to be our last line of defence in that situation :/ Anyway.. onward and upward... let's sort it out and move on
My feelings are well known on Hill, I think he massively overachieved last season and i wouldnt have resigned him. We after a Barca CB for 4.5m so it seems Hughes knows this but I cant see why hes buying backup players like Nelson and Johnson when its clear we need a 1st choice CB and CF target man. Its looks to me like hes just buying whos easily available rather than strengthening the positions we need to address. CF, CM and CB but hey, lets get 3 more wide men and play them there instead!
I think you mean you would have resigned Hill but you wouldn't have re-signed him! I agree with you about the positions to be addressed. We need a solid spine to the team. And for Norwich, I'd bring back Zamora and let Cisse or Johnson play off him
Exactly but the natural reaction to a 0-5 result is to try and get more solid and I hope he doesnt do that, we should impose ourselves on them in a formation everyone is familiar with. Trouble is that means Derry has to start because we only have 2 fit CM.
Not much to disagree with here. However I can understand the decision to play one up front. Hughes summarised it well when he said that it was important not to concede first against a strong passing team like Swansea and that they would be able to pick us off at will if they did. To counter that possibility, it does make sense to pack the midfield with players who can score in order to ensure we get our fair share of possession. However I think he played the wrong man up front on his own. Cisse is a scorer. He could have played further back to feed off knock backs from a proper target man. We did have 4. The best has been sold. And we know that Betty and Hulse are not up to the task. Unless he was injured though, can't understand why Zamora did not play. The problems remain as before, a need for a safe pair of hands between the sticks, lack of a commanding defender who will marshall the defence and a kamikaze attitude when chasing the game. Had we kept it tight and disciplined and lost by one or two there wouldn't be the total demoralisation I am seeing now. We would also have been able to create more chances by breaking down their attacks and might have nicked something with the backing of a full house in the second half. Don't panic. Reflect and sort it. We know that sports psychologists work. Send Green to see one immediately because he will be a liability all season until his mindset changes.
Don't disagree with whats said here but I also don't see you can blame result yesterday on the defence only. Tactics where poors from MH and he didn't respond well when things were going wrong, I haven't back through the threads but a lot of the issue where caused by the midfield not picking up runners.
A good post bobmid. Really can't disagree with what you have said. I ranted on in a long post yesterday about how I actually see a lit of our transfers as poor buys. While I generally think that free transfers make good business, some of them were strange at best and MIGHT indicate that we don't have much to spend behind the scene. We all can see that we need a new CB but maybe just maybe we can't afford the fee for a quality CB. As I said yesterday, Ferdy was sunderlands 4th choice CB. Hill has great heart but has no pace which is unacceptable in the prem against teams who all have pacey forwards. The dog in the street can see that we are vulnerable at the heart of our defence. When they ran at us down the middle yesterday they opened us up time and time again. Thought Diakite positional play was poor and he left our centre exposed many times. Quite simply we still don't have enough leaders on the pitch, when things got tough yesterday too many players simply went missing.
I can tell you this much the answer isnt throwing more money for even more new players! Hughes needs to stop blaming everyone but himself and earn his massive salary by moulding this squad into a cohesive team, something he didn't do yesterday He identified the players he wanted, he picked the side, he chose the formation and tactics. It must rest heavily with him surely Also how many times have we been on here slagging warnock Sousa et al for 4-5-1 at home?
I've said much of the same on other threads, I agree with a lot of what Flyer says about our signings. Goals let in column from last season showed clearly we needed a new Keeper (not a nervous wreck), new CB's and DCM's not more wide midfielders and so many back up players. personally I think Clint is far better than Anton, and Anton would be the one I'd replace first, but Clint ain't going to last much longer at PL level. I think MH should have played Derry yesterday sitting right in front of the back 4. As last season our back 4 is too weak and needs someone like Derry, plus a Diakite and Barton giving them cover. But Derry too needs replacing urgently, especially with no Barton or Ale.
I'm not ready to push the panic button after one home defeat, even a 0-5 defeat. However, I agree with much of what is being said here. I thought Diakite had his worst game in a QPR shirt. There seemed to be acres of space in the middle of the park for Swansea players, despite us supposedly playing 4-5-1(although MOTD called it 4-1-4-1). Green, Hoilett and Fabio had poor debuts. The latter was particularly worrying as he seemed to run around like a headless chicken at times, way out of position, perhaps too keen to impress. Many of us on this board have been banging on about the weakness in our back line for weeks but Hughes, like Warnock, seems to have been obsessed with midfield and forwards.
It was 4-1-4-1 mate. The reason they ran through the midfield was that Diakite was well off the pace and the other central midfielders were attacking players in Taarabt and Park. MH got it badly wrong!
Hughes did get it wrong but i don't agree that it was a freak result. It was a deserved result which makes it all the more painful.
Im going to the norwich game and would field the following team if available. Green Bosingwa onohua ferdy traore Hoillet park diakite taraabt Zamora cisse
