Some are 'well pleased' and 'well happy' with every aspect of Paulinho, which is frankly 'well naive'. Although remember its not Paulinhos fault that Avb plays him no matter what, he should be eased in, but right now he's struggling. We have a big squad so lets use it, instead of tiring out players who are still adapting.
he was no better against cardiff mate. it was only his goal at the end there (which he took well) that hid it.
Jeez, it's no easier today. It really was a terrible result. Our goal difference has taken a huge beating aswell. Not only have we struggled to score, but we already see ourselves with a 5,6,8 GD behind other teams. - how many times has this cost us at the end of a season? Not only that, but it was a home game against average opposition. Bad bad day. The players need a ****ing kick up the arse and AVB has got to change things. Our football has been **** all season and someone finally found us out. Andros needs to play on the left, so he has to cross the ball/ cut it back.... And not shoot! We need Lennon on the right hugging the touch line and helping walker out at the back. Do this, and we might actually be able to feed soldado and give our creative players the chance to capitalise on spaces that open up centrally! We look out of ideas with this current style. It's painful to watch.
I'm over it as I don't dwell on things but have I or have I not been saying that we are not scoring enough in the PL? That we are falling behind the others and didn't I point out Arsenal's and City's tally compared to ours? Hell was a 0-1 penalty against Palace good enough? No. Was a 1-0 penalty against Swansea good enough? No. That we weren't scoring in the second half, was that good enough ? No. Come on lads wise up to the results and not just the play. Now perhaps things will improve. The only results which pleased me were the 0-5 and the 0-4. We beat Anzhi by 0-2 now to know we are on good and right form we MUST beat them by more than that at home or this will continue. And ffs come on Bobby.
I'm gonna put something out there. Soldado will be a failure this season if we continue with this style. We might as well not have a striker. IMO we need to line up something like this: (taking injuries into consideration) Lloris Walker daws chiriches verts Sandro dembele Lamela eriksen Townsend Soldado I know chiriches might seem a strange one so soon, but he's gotta be a better option than Naughton. I'd also be tempted to have holtby playing instead of dembele and seeing how well he sandro and eriksen can combine. Sandro breaking up the play, holtby and eriksen working their magic in the centre, with Lamela and Townsend using their pace and starting wide. I think lamela is also suffocated in this current formation and needs to have his own "area" where he operates. - the wider, the better IMO. This should give soldado more room to receive passes through the centre. If that doesn't work, there's still the wide players cutting the ball back or putting crosses in for him, where he's known for his volley. This makes us far less predictable IMO and harder to mark.
It's agreed everywhere that Soldado just needs a goal to get his season going because penalties do not count. We were lucky to be awarded one of them weren't we? I do not follow with this attitude"We did enough to win it." Bollox. That means that we should put no extra effort into continuing to try and score more goals. It's a smug self satisfied attitude which should have no place in the team's or the supporters' mindset. When we beat Wigan 9-1 Defoe after his fifth said that he was trying to score more well let's have more of that effing attitude and let's not be satisfied with just winning,LETS WIN THE EFFING MATCHES WELL.
If Paulinho is bad,what does that say about the confed, cup?,voted 3rd best player in the competition
AVB isn't a tactician he is a scientist. By which I mean he has worked out the best plan for playing and expects it to work on average. It won't always work but that isn't a good reason to suddenly change. I didn't think the system was wrong against W Ham but the personnel was. We could have played more creative players throughout the team.
there are lots of overreactions on this thread. It was a terrible result, we've had them before and we'll have them again. Players and teams do not become **** over night based on 1 game. Suck it up Spurs fans and move on. People laying into Paulinho, Soldado (who played 16mins) and any other new signing need to take a step back and have a word with themselves. Similarly, criticising Dawson, our current Mr Tottenham and best defender is just laughable. Defenders and goalkeepers make mistakes, all of them.
Our defence wasn't blown apart because there was good fortune with the first two goals but the lead gave them the confidence they needed for the third goal and with good confidence average players raise themselves. Our task now will be to restore confidence in ourselves. Softly softly catchee monkey.
Well that hurt, didn't it? Can't believe it still. As much as some players struggled the match still went ahead pretty much as I expected, at half time I was worried they might nick a goal despite us being the better side but the way we started the second half it seemed like it would take much more than a goal to beat us. Then they scored and we totally fell to pieces. Dembele was the only one that still seemed able to tackle and pass a ball, even Townsend(our best player, in my opinion) started taking heavy touches and losing the ball easily. I'm at a loss to explain any of it, I've not seen us react that badly to going a goal down ever, it was humiliating for the fans and I hope the players feel the same way. It's still only one loss though, no matter how badly we crumbled and how many we conceded. It's a shame it's come just before the international break as you don't want to have to dwell on a loss like that for a long time.
"AVB isn't a tactician he is a scientist. By which I mean he has worked out the best plan for playing and expects it to work on average." Sorry, but as someone who is a scientist by education and engineer by profession, I can tell you AVB is anything but. There is little to suggest he acts on data, but plenty to suggest he acts on dogma. And dogma is dogma. No difference between Arry and his 'favourites' who he ran into the ground, and AVB persisting with specific formations when he has a squad capable of playing in different styles. The formation that serves AVB so well away is not suitable for home games against teams that are not the usual top 6 suspects. So don't play it at WHL.
I'm sure he does act on data. The reason it seems like dogma is that the data supports a particular style of play very strongly which is why nearly every every successful team world-wide has adopted it. It doesn't work all the time but that is no reason to change it.
"The reason it seems like dogma is that the data supports a particular style of play very strongly which is why nearly every every successful team world-wide has adopted it." Then the scientist in me desires the following data : 1. What is the "style of play" ?? 2. Which teams are using it ?? 3. When did they start using it ?? 4. What are the results stats (W/D/L GF/GA) over the seasons said teams have been using it ??
Those deciding whether AVB is a scientist or a tactician, have a read of this... http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01927/art18-1_1927022a.pdf ...a scout report prepared for Mourinho by AVB in 2005. AVB is a boffin who could pass exams allday long, but has little common sense. There are many young players with what you call basic learning difficulties that could not make sense of it at all, if you caught Kyle Walker reading such a document you'd have to first check he had it the right way up! then there would have to be a translation into native languages for foreigners with poor english eg. Lamela. All this leads to fantastic planA, but after that...... Combine that with mumbling baritone, does AVB's message ever get across despite the consensual nodding!
notso : The art of statistics is taking the data and drawing real, not fallacious, conclusions from that data (correlation etc) . I can tell you more than enough about "Big data" systems that produce reams of metrics/stats that are of no practical use whatsoever to the end party. And as for plans, there is the famous adage : no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
My view of the of the game....misery. A typical 'post long trip EL game' as of a few years ago. We looked jaded physically and mentally. All three goals came from our own stupid losses of possession imo, 2 daft corners led to their first, JV must also have been too tired to appeal for a clear push in the back foul. Sloppy Dembele and Paulinho were outpressed for the second, and the third an appalling pass from JV, who at the time well out of position, instead of getting back watched the ball come back over his head leaving him stranded, also leaving him with no alternative whilst labouring in Morrisons wake, but to try the short pull trick, this time it didn't work! I didn't see any reason to continue with JD starting a game, he begs to given chances in games that matter, like his one-on-one, but he invariably misses in these games, had that chance presented itself Thursday he'd have comfortably dinked the keeper. I still don't see the point of dragging all the 1st choice players we did to Russia.
