I can see villa ...........down Norwich ..........down Bournemouth ..............probably will go down. Toon ..............Depends on whether the players can be bothered to fight and care enough to want to stay up. Sunderland ......showed a bit of form but need to be more consistent. Swansea....... The football is good enough but our finishing lets us down and that must change for the run in. These three teams are candidates to fill the 3rd place should Bournemouth go on a run which i cant see them doing... It will go to the final game i reckon.....
The three teams I have to go down are: Norwich Newcastle Villa I originally had Sunderland there some weeks back, but I have now swapped them out with yourselves (sorry), simply down to the fact that while you can play some real good offensive football on times, your back line is simply awful, and your manager has done nothing about it that I can see, while Sunderland seem to have got themselves organised for a fighting run, things can change though, but currently you don't look like you got much fight in you..........
Bang on the money, sadly. For me the problem isn't just that the manager (and MD) failed to bring in a defender of note for the 12th consecutive transfer window (Mbemba's good, but a 21-year-old from the Belgian league isn't the answer), it's that we also have no kind of gameplan to deal with our short-comings. He just picks the same tired formation and plays the exact same way, week in, week out. We basically rely on either individual contribution and brilliance, or the opposition having an off day. Most of our wins this entire season have come about from the latter and the problem with the run-in is teams will rarely just roll over. Subsequently unless McClaren works this out for our away form, we're screwed.
I'm afraid that this is the situation. Someone like Mbemba would have been enough 4 years ago when Colo was still solid. As it is we have one CB who's almost-ready-for-the-Prem and one who's almost-ready-for-retirement. Combined with a RB who is regularly out of position and a choice between three third choice LB's, it isn't pretty.
We need start stringing some wins together. For that, we need to stop being so damn negative away from home.
We aren't even that though. You go one or the other. As long as you are committed in what you are trying to do its fine. You can even sense in what McClaren says he is not committed. He sounds like an option off FM "We will look to attack while remaining responsible at the back" or some ****e. I don't mind us being negative. However you have to be disciplined and organised negative like say Ranieri. i.e. let them have the ball, we hold our positions and we break with pace and numbers. We just look a bit halfway house, and then confusion reigns. You either do the former or just go with attack and accept the flipside.
McClaren is the problem. Everyone can see it. Playing tippy tappy sideways possession football is no good if you're going to leak goals and not bang them in at the other end. We play games like we are on the training ground half of the time.
McClaren wants to play the idealistic notion of possession football with barely-prem-standard players. I'm astonished a man of his experience is so naive. Thing is I also see his conundrum. We cannot play like Leicester. Huth is a one-dimensional beast, Colo's a zero-dimensional clown. Simpson is a defender first, as is Fuchs. Janmaat's a right wing back, Dummett's not quite a footballer. So we cannot sit and defend to hit on the counter, as we're likely going to concede in trying to defend. So what do you do? Attack-attack-attack? It's not possible, there's always another team involved in football, known as the opposition, who tend not to let that happen. Where are we then? Fcked is the answer. Unless we can outplay the opposition on the front foot, we won't win any given match. This is why we do well against bigger teams - they turn up thinking we'll sit deep, try to defend. We haven't a clue, so we just try and play on the front foot which confuses Spurs, Liverpool, Man U, and we get points. Then we try against Leicester. Watford, Swansea, Sunderland, and so on, who come with gameplans and we're found out.
Decent results for us today. Great last minute winner for Leicester to keep them on track. Good news for us also.
Down at the bottom is getting very interesting now after today's results. Great pity WBA got 3 points but it makes our games with Bournemouth, Norwich, Mackems,Swansea and Villa virtual 6 pointers. Win those games and we will be safe, however, nothing at the toon is quite that simple. Both Mackems and Norwich played well by all accounts and unlucky to lose so we had better get passion into our play and the sooner the better.
I genuinely think everything rides on the next two. Anything less than 4 points should see tufty sacked. Stoke aren't great, they've picked up another three points today to cement mid-table with no prospect of anything better and if we cannot roll our sleeves up after a month on the beach to at least secure a draw, we don't deserve to stay up and Macca will have earned his p45. Even a draw there means a Bournemouth victory is utterly necessary. 6 points and we'll stay up.
Stoke worries me. Really we need a win. Anything less than a point is a big problem. In work with both Bournemouth and Southampton season ticket holders and they both said to me the other day that Stoke was the best team they had seen at their repspective grounds in the league this year.
It's a weird old season to say the least, I think the increased Sky revenues of next season has skewed things, but Palace are dropping like a stone, so they could well be in the mix and help you out, how good would that be?.............You really need to shaw up your defence, and I think you will then be okay, we are struggling too, and grateful for todays results, we have Spurs tomorrow, who we have never beaten, so we need to break our duck, we have the quality, but we have just not clicked this season, though we should have sacked Monk sooner, but that's another story, I cannot believe we are where we are for the first time since coming up to the Premier League some 5 seasons ago........
Yeah, we need to shore up the defence but with an array of sh*t defenders how the fck do we do that?! You lot are still in trouble, but have enough about you to get out of it. And how. I mean, Vile are down (yay) and I have a funny feeling that Sunderland and Big Sam's time has come. Wazzi Khazi or whatever he's called isn't enough, and the other lads - Smirnoff and Kola - don't have enough quality. I think it's about that last spot and reckon Norwich have more than enough sh*te plus a VERY inexperienced manager to guide them down. If, as appears possible, we get out of the crud for yet another year it's a cruel blow for fate and justice, who surely put a lot of money on a Charnley/Ashley demise.
