As a side question, if we blew the title this year (and from this position it would be blowing it), would Jose survive? I think he'd get one more year myself but we've sacked for less!
Depends, if the question is SHOULD he? Then I would answer yes If the question is WOULD he? Given Roman's sackhammer tendencies in the past I would say no.
If he blows this season, He should & would be sacked. This is Jose after all, I still think losing last year is a failure on his part. Losing this year unthinkable. This week will give more clarity on top 4 and top spot race -right before the intl break.
Didn't expect such a one sided vote on Milner. As for Bamford, if Boro go up (i hope they do) he'll go back there on loan. Jose has a good relationship with Karanka who used to be his assistant. They'd probably take another one of our players too (i think it's 2 max?). It'd be good for us and our younger players on the whole if they got promoted.
Good shout. Lets hope they go up and we see Bamford banging them in in the P.L (not that it helped Lukaku with us though!!)
http://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/premier-league/winner 1-12 on to win the league. Why are we even discussing Jose blowing the league? When City on top then worry.
Because unlike our teams in 2005 and 2006, this team has a distinct weakness and a shocking lack of discipline. We need to replace Cahill and stop relying on leggy playmakers behind the striker Fab is off the boil, as per his MO in the second half of seasons. Costa always looks just as likely to clump a defender and get sent off as he is to score a goal. Hazard needs a more free role and we need a more defensive right back. Dont get me wrong, this is a decent team, but it needs tweaking....I would say half a dozen personnel changes. (Dump, Rambo, Oscar, Drogba and other deadwood) bringing in Milner and Khedira on free transfers as someone else stated earlier, would be an excellent move imo, especially with FFP. (plus Milner fills a HG spot). Am not moaning at Jose, would be ******ed when we are top of the league and on the verge of a title win. But lets just say, with recent results, I am not convinced this title is sewn up yet. If we get to matchday 32-33 and we are still 6 or more points clear, then I will start to relax.
It is not sown up, but if we rediscover even half-decent form the league is ours. We haven't played particularly well for months but have managed to extend our lead Milner and Khedira would be fab. Pogba even better!! At the beginining of the season I was very vocal about just having Matic as a quality CM and City having the Ferds and Ya Ya. I said we needed two new Matic types especially when Jose parks the bus and Fab goes off boil. We seem to have got away with it, but Matic has been poor recently. Hopefully we can get away with Rambo for a few games, but you never know Matic-Fab may regain form
I'm naturally pessimistic when it comes to Chelsea but the title odds are based on our current points total not our current form IMO. If City went on a run and put some pressure on us, we could be in trouble. Say we only got a point or 2 from the next couple of tricky away games, then we'll be in trouble with the form of the others (city aside, who'll surely will put a run together at some point). Don't get me wrong, I'd take our position over everyone else's. I am amazed though that we can be so relatively poor for such an extended period of time (certainly this whole calendar year - Swansea away aside) and yet still be 6-9 points clear. If as we should, we win the title it'll be the case of stumbling over the line IMO rather than winning at any sort of canter.
This. The fact is (again Swansea aside) we have, lets be frank, sucked balls in 2015. Scraped narrow wins against West Ham and Everton at home, drawing to Burnley, losing to the Spuds, yet another home draw against the Saints. Its only through City's apparent capitulation that we are still top. But we were over the hill and far away from the rest of the top 4 contenders, Arsenal, Pool and United, and now they are looming on the horizon. Still a comfortable amount of points away from them, but they are close enough now that 1 or 2 more dodgy results will have them breathing down our necks. Especially since we still have to play all three of those teams aswell.....those are must win games.
Doesn't help either that it is such a scrap for top 4. Meaning none of Arsenal, Pool or United are going to get complacent and will fight for every point. As I say, if Arsenal say win their next 2 and we picked up only say 2 points, we'd be only 3 points clear having to still go to the Emirates. Yes we'd have a game in hand but it suddenly all starts to look very tight. On the flip side, if we can put a 3-4 game winning run together, title will probably be near enough done.
Bar is too high for Jose, thanks to no one but himself!! I get reminiscent of Rafa days looking at us play now.
Agree, but City's form is worse than ours. Until City pick up form, we don't worry about them they worry about us!!
Sad thing is we have opened the door for goons, manures & pool. We have the simplest of tasks thanks to the lead we have. But if we don't buckle down and Jose doesn't change, we will be screwed. After all we won the cup because Jose changed and surprised everyone by playing Zouma. That's all it takes to keep our momentum and freshen things up! Hope Jose sees that and we are back on.
We won the cup because Spurs didn't defend a free kick well enough. Zouma had a solid game, he was far from being a match winner or the difference. But I agree, we have opened the door a little to teams in better form than us, that we still have to play. I'm more worried by Arsenal than City at the moment.
Zouma was the surprise factor or the difference. Without his contribution, Spuds would have nicked a goal or we might have lost it as well. Just imagine Lamela , Eriksen running at our CB. Zouma marshalled that pretty well, that solidity he provided meant we won the cup.
Completely agree. If Jose had sprung a few more surprises like this we would not have gone stale. One of the side-effects of our first XI being fit all season has been no changes. Matic's suspension may have been a blessing, he has been dreadful since that is for sure!
I think we remember the game very differently. Up until we scored, Spurs were the better side and we were playing within our selves and looked worried about pushing forward. I think that was because so much had been made about Matic being out and the threat of the key men for Spurs. Zouma grew into the game no doubt but he was a little off the pace in the middle of the park early on in the game and we struggled to retain possession. We scored out of nothing which then allowed us to play deep and on the counter 2nd half. It turned out to be a good move but one that was almost forced on Jose by lack of Matic or Mikel. Hence why he hasn't played their since Matic has been back.
