According to Gerrad Everton are just like Stoke! http://bit.ly/Piix7p If only! I can see what he means, Everton do play a direct and fast paced game centred around a target man and good old fashioned centre forward play - only they do it a lot better than us!
Hi I saw this ealrier today on the Oatcake and it really sounds like sour grapes from Gerard. If only we played at the pace that Everton played at we would march up the league! However, I am not downcast. Over the last couple of months I think we have moved forward a great deal. On Saturday I thought Adam was poor. It is not right in my opinion to paly Crouch on his own. He needs somebody like Owen close to feed off him. So here's hoping
Just think, PULIS will take all the credit for changing the English game.. What is hillarious is reading the Sunderland board. Just cast your minds back to when MON was given the Job. Now??
I think that's debatable - 5 wins in over 30 games, a striker (who takes penalties) with a goal return per game of less than 0.15, no true full backs after 6 transfer windows and still playing 4-5-1 defensive set up at home would potentially form a counter argument to your statement.
It's taken God knows how long for him to get us actually passing and playing "some decent stuff", give it another 3 seasons and we might have a fullback I'd have hoped things would moved faster than they have, but I'm far happier with our snails pace progress and reversion to negativity than I would be if I was a Q.P.R. fan.
I agree, I have been one of the Pulis haters but in this transfer window he has made some very good signings. I think we have been playing a lot better (apart fromthe Sunderland game), lets give him a bit of time lads before we start to slate him again. The squad we have is looking very strong IMO. Yes I would rather see Owen in than Walters, but lets see how it pans out for a few games first. If by christmas we are playing poor football and not making many chances then I will be one of the first on here demanding more, until then I am quite happy with how things are going. UTPssss, and I really believe that we will get 3 points on Saturday!!!.
This Well said Ric, won't be easy on Saturday but the way we seem to be "passing it better away from home" it should be a decent game. KTF
I have always said that like last season the good performances against the top teams are irrelevant it's how we play against the rest. Sunderland was poor so the next half a dozen games will show how far we have come! In relation to passing the ball better I think it's ironic - because whilst we have been doing this we have just highlighted more than previous years our inability to convert this into open play chances. Norwich (A) QPR (H) WH (A) Fulham (H) New (H) WB (A) AV (A) Everton (H) Spurs (A) Liv (H) S'hamp (H) Thats a potential 33 points up for grabs with 6 home games only Spurs as a potential difficult away game based on league positions or form! I would envisage that due to our improved form and quality additions we would expect to win at least 3 of our home games with a potential draw against Liverpool (based on current form) and to get at least 2 wins and a draw out of our away games. That would total an additional 17 points and would put us on circa 25/26 points at the turn of the year - we were on 29 points after 20 games last season and were 8th in the league!
Well I have just read tonights Sentinel and according to Mr P Stevie Gerrard has apologised for his comments. And, how IRONIC is this. According to stats we (Stoke) had the better pass completion rate during the Liverpool game! So Smither's as you said, IF we can take these chances we should be fine on Saturday. Just don't go all defensive AGAIN T.P. please.
sorry mate dont agree about not making many chances, we scored 2 against Man utd and could have been atleast 4 on another day, we also created a few half chances. Personlly I think that some people are getting a bit carried away with the bad performance against Sunderland. Like I said lets see what happens in the coming weeks and not go mad because we have had one bad performance.
We normally see eye to eye but obviously not on this mate. We played positive football at OT and outplayed them for 25 minutes. Maybe I am being harsh on lack of creation and am amalgamating it with the lack of finishing ability - again an area of weakness that has been overlooked and mismanaged - if we can't score goals we cant win games. I really think we got carried away with the OT performance (I think we have played better this season) and it was probably more down to United's slow start, let's face it a Rooney own goal and a very fortunate ricoshade for kightlys goal Is hardly a hatful of clear chances created - in fact without Begovics performance it could easily have been 6 or 7 nil! Anyway its by the by, because games like United are irrelevant, it is the next 11 fixtures that will tell the story! If we are playing the quality expansive football some think we are then we will obviously pick up the results needed and Christmas will have us on 25-30 points. I hope we are but if not it would point to the fact that very little has changed and I can't get away from the fact that the Brit was very quiet and the oatcake is rumbling!
