if leroy fer carries on playing like that for the rest of the season i suspect we'll be trying to replace him this time next season. mind you, we will have £30m to spend on his replacement
we've a decent record against spurs since our return to the top table. it'll be a tough game though, let's hope their 8 new signings haven't gelled yet - from what i have heard and read, that was the case yesterday against aresenal
spurs had loads of the ball but it was clear that they were a group of individuals (very good ones admittedly) rather than a team. it'll take more than the international break to sort them out (especially as most will be away with their nations). its definitely an opportunity for a point or three
I'm hoping you're right on that one supers. If my memory is good, we could have beaten them away last season had Friedel not been in inspired form!!
true. we battered them at the lane last year. on another day and with a bit of luck it would have 3-1, maybe even 4-1. we beat them the year before. in fact, i can only recall seeing us lose once at the lane (a lineker-inspired 4-0 around 1990) and i remember that day less for the football and more for the car crash we were involved in on the way home. it wasn't the best day...
Hopefully the weather will take a turn for the cold/wet so Paulinho/Capoue/Soldado don't feel quite so comfortable.
I would guess that if we had to sell RvW, Fer and Redmond today, we would already make a sizeable profit on them. (Not that I want to, of course.)
probably right to be fair! redmond for £2m (rising to £3.2m) is a robbery, it really is. we all knew it was at the time but i genuinely think if he keeps this form up and keeps progressing and developing he will have a shot at making the world cup squad next summer, assuming england qualify, which is by no means guaranteed. same with fer who if he were english would be worth at least three times the £4m we paid
Oh dear, now I feel I should disagree with you, but I can't. With these three added to our squad (not to mention Hooper and Olsson) no way we should struggle.
I always start from an assumption that people have what they consider a good reason for doing what they do, which I continue to assume until proven otherwise! Seems to me that this assumption is most certainly appropriate in CH's case. So, we should try to work out what he meant and why he left Olsson out of the squad. What he actually said in the interview was that he wanted a bench which was "more attacking". So our subs were Bunn, Martin, Howson, Pilkington, Hoolahan, Tettey, Becchio, i.e. keeper, Martin for if one of the back four had to come off, Tettey if one of Fer or Johnson came off and 4 forward "attacking" players, one of whom he implied he would have had to leave out in order to include Olsson. Including Olsson would have provided cover for Garrido (already covered by Whittaker if necessary), or a replacement for Redmond (already covered by Pilkington). So in that sense you could say omitting Olsson was quite reasonable. The other question is why Garrido was preferred to Olsson at LB. My guess about that is that CH's game plan was to free up the central midfielders to get forward more, as opposed to covering for the fullbacks marauding forward, i.e. attacking more through the centre than up the touchline.
Sorry, I've only really skim-read the thread, but there seems to be a lot of love for our most recent signings on here and I thought I'd briefly jump on the bandwagon. Saturday's game was exactly the sort of match we would have drawn 0-0 last season. The likes of Redmond, Ricky, Fer etc. give us much more unpredictability, which is the reason we won Saturday's game. What Hughton has tried to do this summer is buy players that don't necessarily mean he will change his playing style, but players that can change a game in an instant, and turn more of these draws into wins. Redmond's goal was a moment of inspiration, the like of which hasn't been seen since Huckerby, and Fer was simply immense. His pass to set Redmond free right towards the end was what we've been lacking for years.
We talk about whether there has been, or will be, any change of style but I'm yet to see a coherent statement of what people think the style is or was that we are trying to judge has stayed the same or changed. Only carrabuh has really tried to characterise what he thinks is "Hughton-football".
If you watch the team consistently as most of us do then surely you'll know what the style is? To me, it's 4-5-1 with the team instructed not to lose first and foremost. When we need to win, however, we have displayed the ability to attack efficiently, as shown by our crucial 2-1 and 4-0 wins over Reading and West Brom respectively last year.
Well, I don't think either of those defines a style of football. The vast majority of top level sides now play with one up front and four across the back. Likewise, virtually every successful team is built on the principle of prioritising sound defence and aiming not to be first to concede. But within that there is huge scope for differences of style.
There were lots of positives. Fer was absolutely superb the only time I saw him lose the ball he got back swatting Lallana or Rodriguez out of the way like a fly, what a presence on the pitch we definitely had him in his best position, I thought that Johnson had a good game to a massive improvement on his previous he picked his passes wisely and really out muscled the Saints Midfield. Bassong was an absolute rock as usual, Redmond was excellent too he really caused Chambers and Ward-Prowse some headaches. One niggle was our midfielders/defenders need to stop being greedy sometimes, Van Wolfswinkel was in two goal scoring opportunities unmarked all our players needed to do was cut it back to him and bang it could of quite easily been 3-0. Hopefully with training and familiarity they'll start picking out RVW more as I have no doubts he'll get into goal scoring areas unmarked.
I don't quite understand what your point is? Regardless of how many other managers use it, it is still a style of football. Just because I wasn't being really clever and subtle doesn't mean I wasn't explaining what his style is, albeit as simply put as possible. I also wasn't criticising the side at any point; it's good that we're prioritising sound defense. As you say, virtually every successful team is built on that principle...
