Ash, like all the defenders have been instructed not to cross the half way line. That's why our defence has improved, and why our football has become a bore fest. No surprises there.
Here's the bad news CP: expect the bore feast to continue until reinforcements arrive in January; preferably 1 goal scorer & 1 bad ass DM........notice I said goal scorer & not striker (besides we have 3 of them already).
No real problem or surprise Liquid, that's how Jose sets teams up. I don't mind if he takes all season to sort things, but I can't see the value in not adapting his rigid dogma on play to make better use of the talent available. He should try expansive, attacking football, he might like it. I would be playing Luiz in mid and Schurrle up front and see how it goes.
We had free flowing football but the onky reason we won those cups was due to magnificent defensive performances and simple refusal to break. **** all this functional football bollocks its used by no marks to try and put us of our game. Arsenal has played pretty shapes and won **** all. It only works agaibst **** teams. I'll take functional winners of pretty losers any day of the week. So you can stick you pretty, free flowing winning no league titles up your arse !
Given the current inability of our 3 wise men to find the onion bag I think putting Schurrle up front would at least give Jose an extra dimension if he wanted it; he won't put Luiz in midfield because Jose does not trust his defensive capabilities. As for our continuing bad luck with strikers I think it's a combination of panic buying and bad business: we bought Sheva when he long in the tooth & won just about everything and paid over the odds for Torres who was recovering from a leg injury and was out of form. Only Falcao's love for the Riveria prevents us from making another expensive mistake - I would go for Martinez from Porto, as for Costa....competition from Real & City would send his price through the roof.
Hope our defence finally is improving now (I appreciate you posted this pre Liverpool and Saints), three clean sheets in four. As our defence has been poor this season (apart from Terry) until the Arsenal game. Even againsy Liverpool we looked weak at set pieces. Jose needs to sort this area out
Average defence, poor central midfield, no real threat up front, not overly impressive with our style of play yet still only 2 points off top spot with signs of improvement being made. Best manager in the world, fact.
Why is it bad news though? We simply don't have the players to play exciting football, and if it keeps pissing the rest of the footballing world I hope we continue to win 3-0 away from home against a top quality defence
Jose's second stint I would rate at a B-, purely because we have showed improvement, although I dont agree with all his decisions (like CP said, playing Azpi out of position and loaning out Lukaku) and our squad is very unbalanced, but he has still managed to keep us 2 points from the top of the league, 20 games in. 20 games in last season we were well off the pace so..... I have always regarded this season as purely transitional, so anything we win will be a bonus, but top 3 is the only target for me. Once Jose has a summer to mould the squad as he wants and make the signings he needs, then next season my expectations will be higher.
Agree to a large extent. Even though we have flair AM players, we don't have the quality in CM to get the ball to them, hence we've tried to buy Pirlo, Modric etc
Hazard, Oscar and Willian have been very exciting, but they can't compensate for the rest of the side which is pretty average at the moment. The reinclusion of Mikel has been brilliant, he is one of the main reasons we look better at the back now. Big fan of Ramires, but he doesn't have the ball control/passing ability to play an exciting game of football and needs somebody like Pirlo/Modric next to him as you say. Lampard is still a very good asset considering his age but he should be used sparingly if we are to buy a creative force in the middle. It was a massive shame Van Ginkel was injured as I think he'd be playing regularly.
