To be honest I don't hold out much hope for an exciting game. O'Neill will be happy with a point and loves to defend until everyone gets bored and falls asleep, which is a shame as you have some talented attacking players. Wouldn't be at all surprised if you nicked it either.
We won 2-1 at the SoL in the season before last, but yeah, we do tend to struggle up there. Do we have a lot of early kick-offs up there on Saturdays too or is that just my dodgy memory?
To be fair mate, seems the last few weeks, back to the Norwich game, the penny has dropped and we attack a lot more, hence the recent improvement. City had a lot of possession & territory yesterday, as you'd expect, but believe me we didn't invite them on at all, we were gunning for them every opportunity. Johnson is growing fast, and Sessegnon is in outstanding nick last 6 games, even McLean has started to really look a Premier League player, so we will cause problems, the downside is a lack of pace at the back, we are very, very well organized, but if we get high up the pitch Defoe, Lennon & Bale could tear us apart with pace, having Rose taken out of the equation makes this even worse for us. It's always a good game, and you always bring a cracking support, sensible bet is a score draw, but I think you will have a lot of the ball, purely due to that extra pace in your side. How's Lloris coming along? Often seen him for Lyon and thought he was one of the worlds best. We have had 3 early and a late kick off in the 6 years we've been back up, to answer that question.
Definitely getting there. Did brilliantly to stay awake against Villa, as he chalked up his third consecutive clean sheet. Only made 3 saves in that time, mind. Ta.
Fair enough, I've only seen highlights over the past couple of weeks and it still looked like you were camping in your own half until you have to chase the game. I like that McLean, he was excellent against us and a few other sides last season but he hasn't been able to have the same impact so far in this one has he? I'm sure he'll find some form soon, youngsters always tend to struggle to become consistent. Lloris is doing very well. He suits our style and is quick off his line which helps us as he's often needed to be a sweeper when our defenders push up and the odd player gets through. He hasn't had that many crosses to deal with but he's generally dealt with them well, which I thought might be a weakness for him in this league. Seeing him yesterday he was miles better than the jittery player who made his debut against Villa a few months ago, not that he had much to do. Mignolet's going to take some beating at the other end though, I thought his save from Toure yesterday, which went through a crowd of players, was brilliant.
I had to smile at the thought of you getting carried away. I hadn't noticed a tendency to become over optimistict from you.
Mig has been incredible mate, no surprise to us that United, Arsenal & Milan have all been watching, probably the best in the league season to date, and still only 24. McLean lost his way, but knuckled down and is starting to look more of a player now, a bit more thought in his play, his work rate is outrageous, he'll be an asset to us. What you probs don't get following a more fashionable club, is the 'creative' editing of MOTD, often they will show every attack of the oppo, and 1 in 3 of ours, yes, few weeks back confidence was low and we were sitting deep and fearing the ball, but we have went at everyone last few weeks, including Chelsea , United & City. We'd be foolish to over commit against you due to the pace in your side, but believe me we will try and beat you.
Yeah, what I was saying about the highlights was that I hadn't seen anything to make me think you'd changed much from the full games of yours that I've seen. Basically I was trying excuse my assumption that you were still playing boring football Don't get me started on MOTD, if there was an alternative without getting Sky Sports they wouldn't get viewers into treble figures.
Ha. Don't get me wrong mate we aren't exactly playing expansive all out attack football, we never will under MON, but we are moving the ball a lot quicker, and we have players that look a damn sight better when we do play one touch and move it. There's an argument that likes to play possession and force the issue would be better suited to the current squad, but with 2 choice signings in January (supposedly he's got around £20million to spend..), we could have an excellent team that plays counter, but still manages to control possession and tempo. We lack a bit of backbone whilst Cattermole is injured, so I'd expect us to fill that gap, and a CB. We should have went for Kranjkaer, but I think the wages he was offered from afar totally blew us out of the water, same as what happened with Samba last year,
Its in there spurf but my stubborness is holding out! Although some of our quick passing agaisnt villa, to open them up, looked to be impressive, just the cynic in me says it was due to villa bending over. So im looking forward to the game with sunderland as if we can go there and open up their defence, then at least it shows the players are learning how to open up a team that trys to close us down. Villa played into our hands by changing to 442, o'neil won't make it so easy for us.
We aren't comparable to Villa at the back, but as I've said, we struggle with pace, Mata tormented us for Chelsea, but then again, the lad is ****ing brilliant. Lennon is likely to be face to face with Colback, Jack's a good tackler and tracker, but if Lennon gets half a yard he will simply murder him. Nobody can stop an on-form Bale, so we just have to try and contain him and keep him away from the middle of the park with any space, and Defoe playing on the shoulder of Cuellar is terrifying, one good ball and he's in. We need to be at 100%, we beat City by flooding the centre as they hate going wide, we do that with you and we are opening up the channels and Bale & Lennon will tear us to ribbons, the best thing we can do is have a deep defence and quite a high midfield, that means the threat will only come by bringing the wingers inside to look for the ball, which hopefully means there is less of a threat of them just running beyond our full backs. Flipside, this brings Bale into the centre, and means he is likely to get a few shots off. This is a much tougher game for us, defensively, than City, although I do think we'll get more joy going forward.
There is that... I think, effectively, I'm saying I fancy us to score but have no clue how we are going to stop you.
Not too worried about the right side as Jack is no slouch and McClean will track back all day long. However I will be crapping myself whenever bale gets the ball as he is just utter class.
