Injuries ****ing us over now, a point is a good result - My thoughts on the game

Well, no doubt the mackems will bang on about luck again, but to be honest, there's no way Ba intentionally meant to handle that ball, and in that sort of position, on the end of a fantastic delivery, any part of your body and it's in. As soon as Saylor came off, we looked so ****ing weak. We need another big CB.

Injuries are ****ing us over badly, but luckily we still have the quality to get through this stage. Ba's first goal was immense.

I personally think 2-2 was the right result, because despite readings chances, I don't think they really produced any quality. We were the ones that showed the most good play.

Ratings -

Harper - 9 - Him and Ba won us the point today. He was solid and some fantastic saves.

Saylor - 6 - Was solid enough when playing. Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be a bad injury, it only looked like a knock.

Willo - 4 - Some ****ing dreadful headers out, and shakey defending. Put in some good challenges at times, but that's it.

Perch - 4 - Got beaten too easily too many times.

Santon - 6.5 - Some great attacking play and caused problems, but we couldn't finish the moves.

Tiote - 5 - To be honest, there were a lot of moments where I thought "yes, this is why we love to have Tiote", but he was shakey and played far too dangerously at times, and losing possession in vital areas.

Bigi - 6 - Can't really complain. The lad can't be blamed for much today. Decent performance.

Ben Arfa - 5 - Some decent bits of play, but couldn't produce much quality.

Cisse - 5 - Looks more lively but not really threatening.

Ba - 8 - Fantastic first goal, scored the goal that got us the point. Good performance.

Ferguson - 7 - Fantastic assist, and his impact on our games is excellent. I'm so happy he's coming on now, instead of Alien.

Shola - 5 - Tried his best. Some decent hold up play and got us up the pitch at times.

Overall - Another point just scraped. At least we're drawing these games instead of losing them.

MOTM - Harper. Saved us with some fantastic saves, and was solid.

 

Plus we had a penalty denied and the player could have been sent off.

Was it offside? I dunno, my stream was ****ing up.

 

Injuries have nothing to do with the players we do put out playing like utter ****. Let's not forget that Coloccini and Cabaye weren't exactly great in the games they have made so far either.

 

Saylor has been though, and without him, we don't really have a powerful CB, and we looked weak.

Tav is inexperienced at this level and it showed, Perch and Willo together were battered.

 

What is this? The Ba incident? that was offside.

 

Ah, ok then mate, I didn't really see it properly.

 

Gotta be fair here...
Bigi didn't break up play as well as Tiote did, Tiote's passing not as good as Bigi
to me deserve a 6
Santon gave away possession far too easily , at least twice at the back to set off counterattacks, so should be lower

Also, Willo did ok, I think he should be a 6 as well
As for Harps, I didn't like the way he conceded the first goal like that. Totally reminds me of the Anichebe goal against Everton.
I know he made a great save against Jason Roberts that saved us a point, and he played very well overall though.

 

We looked weak when Taylor was on the pitch too, and again, Taylor's presence has nothing to do with the other 9 outfield players looking like ****ing amateurs for almost the entire game.

There's just no edge to the team, no real cohesion, no teamwork or communication - Nothing. The players look like they're still in pre-season friendlies.

Yeah, we've only lost once in the league this season, but simply not losing isn't enough. You can go a whole season without losing and you'll end up relegated. You need to go for wins, and we're not doing that. I'm not saying 'Pardew out!' or anything, but I don't think he's getting enough done with the team. There's no urgency from the players, they're happy sitting back until they concede a goal.

I think more time at the training ground needs to be spent on actually training instead of cooking up Senegalese dishes and building prayer rooms.

 

We've just gotta be patient mate. We went through bad patches last season, and it's not like we've played poorly every game and not shown any quality or played well.

We've been on and off. We seem to be going through a period where we're getting a system sorted out. Lets just keep faith.

 

The time for getting a system sorted out is during the off season. It's not like we were bringing in new players who have to get used to it. We've got the same squad as last year and we've gone backwards as a team.

 

My view on what is wrong with our attack :

We looked thoroughly unimaginative in attack... We have the finishers, Ba Cisse, but we don't have the creative play. I don't expect that to come from Tiote, Bigi, and that's the problem. There was really only Ben Arfa who had a threat to create anything, since we know Jonas hasn't ever played like he did in his debut against Manure... On the other hand, Cabaye is the only other player who has that creativity in passing. To be fair, so too does Marveaux, but Marveaux doesn't/isn't given the green light to go for the killer pass.

This showed in the Reading game today, we strung passes deep inside their half, outside their box, but then what? Pass it around until we lost it or a horrible cross comes in for a goal kick? For all the positive linkup play we had this game, we got really lucky to score out of nowhere on the first goal, and then the second.

The second goal was a result of Fergie, obviously being given the instruction to put balls into the box for our strikers and it worked. Fergie HAS the quality to put that sort of balls in and Pardew uses it, and we scored. That is what is missing from the first team... The first teamers can't/dare not put in that final cross/ball into the box for our strikers.

 

I personally think we got into some good areas today, but instead of Cabaye being just outside the box, it was Jonas, and that's what could have made the different. We've seen that Cabaye can play those vital passes to win games.

Ben Arfa made some fantastic passes today, but unfortunately none of them to assist a goal.

I think the 4-4-2 thing is what's wrong.

I think we should play this -

Ferguson------Ba-------Ben Arfa

------------Cabaye--------------

-----Jonas----------Tiote---------

Santon---Colo---Saylor------Anita

-------------Harper--------------

We should rotate and switch styles. Cisse should pay in the Europa league for now. Bigger teams have the balls to drop the likes of Rooney, Drogba ect, so we should have the balls to drop one of our strikers when it suits the game.

We're miles better in a 4-3-3, and Ferguson looks fantastic as on that LW. Two assists in 2 games.

Ferguson has the pace to track back and him and Santon could be beast on that left side.

 

Injuries are no excuse for how badly we have been so far this season!!! In my opinion we should only have 1 maybe 2 points and have been fortunate to get any more.

All our players look unhappy and as if they don't know their role. I'm not sure what formation we are playing if I'm honest because they are all over the ****ing place.

No urgency from anyone and poor Cisse is getting absolutely no ****ing service other tha n long balls over and over again he must be sick as ****, Jonas is **** at CM.

We are a long ball team this season for some reason and I don't like what I'm seeing.

anyone that was going on about 4th this season I think you realise now we are top 10 at best.


if we are 4-4 -2 Ferguson has to start left wing as he can cross I'm ****ing sick of Jonas he's hard working but that's not enough.

 

I hope it isn't just me, but I do think that the long ball play will drop off more once we get Willo off our teamsheet.

 

If you look at the games we missed Taylor and Colo, we were ruthlessly exposed. To me today, after Stevie went off (and let's face it, he didn't have a stormer really either), it was Norwich away last season all over again. Ba with two hardworking goals, but poor defending costing us massively. Unfortunately, we know what Stevie is like, this could be him out for a while. That means if we have no Colo, Willo is the leader... Oh dear...

Now, some might say that's bad luck... To be honest, we all saw this coming though, so if the management can't, we're doooooooooooooomed

If we stack points up against contrasting fixtures last year, we're about level (2/3 points down in fact, but considering how we've played that's probably a brilliant result. We drew with spurs last year (2+), beat Chelsea away (3-), Beat Villa at home (2-), beat Norwich at home (0+/-), Got humped by Everton (+1) etc), so no need to panic yet.

 

The question is, if Colo and Saylor are both going to be out..how are we going to handle midweek and the league next week?

 

the ****s should have had a player off after 10 mins fir the ankle breaker on Tiote

 

this.



We really could've used the loss today though as it might've given them all the kick up the arse so desperately needed this season. I think complacency has well and truly set in.

 

Overall we are kidding ourselves if we don't admit we've been second best in pretty much every game so far this season.

Can't fault the 'spirit' as Pardew calls it but to me it seems like the bear minimum of urgency and application AFTER we've conceded the opening goal or two.

It's been so disappointing that I keep expecting an A+ swashbuckling effort in the next match, simply via the law of averages. It's a case of "We can't play like that again can we, surely??!!"

I thought the Europa matches might provide the opportunity show something more promising, but even there its been insipid to watch...

 

Don't worry we will no doubt play a weak team against Bordueux (spelling?) and then get beat by Man United so today was a must win for me.