It's well known that Ellis Short is a tightwad and he gets a lot of stick fir it from pretty much every Sunderland fan!
AN’s comments on the thrashing by Birmingham from today’s EDP “I wouldn’t suggest that is the norm,” he said. “What you have to bear in mind was that was the first time I have lost in the Championship away from home. It was a poor defeat. We played poorly on the day. The selection I picked we went really aggressive to try and win it and that backfired so that is something I will certainly be looking at. “You have to earn the right in this division. You are going to have to do that every game in the Championship and battle and scrap to win your tackles and headers.” I’m really struggling to understand how he thought that side was aggressive – now, if he’d started with TWO strikers as opposed to NONE ……….
The intention was for the front 4 attack as a unit to create overloads for their defence but the first goal seemed to unsettle that and then the mistakes set in and the players failed to perform. Had we scored first, it might have been different, but generally it was just a poor performance, IMO.
With SN leading the line, supposedly , we were as toothless as a doddery little old lady who has mislaid her dentures
I really don't think AN knows what he wants. We played with 4 at the back with support from Tettey & Howson and no out & out striker, is that an aggressive line up ? If he thinks we went really aggressive against Birmingham, then I would really question if tactically he knows what he's doing. 66% possession with 5 shots on target doesn't sound really aggressive to me. Sounds like we had plenty of the ball, but didn't know what to do with it. Anyway I thought we lost the game because defensively we were inept. I'm concerned that he will use the Birmingham result as a reasoning for giving up on free flowing attacking football (without having giving it a go) like he did after the Newcastle result last season. To be honest I'd quiet happily accept the occasional Birmingham type result if it means we played free flowing attacking football most weeks. In this league perhaps more than any it's important to get plenty of wins, not just to avoid defeat. I'm starting to wonder if AN has learnt anything from last season.
I know for a fact that you're not the only one. Several people have said similar on various threads over the last week or two. And your point about two holding mids against a side like Birmingham confirms this. Well, they do play in blue, maybe he thought it was Chelsea when he picked the eleven
OK, perhaps Brum did have their best game of the season, but we should have had enough to prevent them doing so. Interesting comments and I'm in complete agreement re whether AN has indeed learnt anything from last season. I'm also becoming less optimistic that will see more of our youngsters given their chance in the first team.
Tomorrow away at Florist will be a bit of an acid test. We need a convincing and ideally, dominant performance because, Blackburn apart, there haven't yet been any. A squeaky win would be nice, but having only just snuck past Cardiff and Wigan with home advantage, I'm not holding my breath!
An excerpt from Iwan's thoughts on the EDP website - "All in all not a bad few days from Alex Neil’s men. Two home wins, five goals scored and Norwich City are back up to fourth in the Championship just two points behind early pacesetters Huddersfield Town. But let’s not kid ourselves, Norwich have been less than convincing in both games and they definitely need to up the level of their performances. The point I’m trying to make is that Norwich, even though they had a lot of possession, created very little apart from those two goals and had Rickie Lambert converted one of the two headed chances he had when the score was 1-0 it could have been a very different story. It was pretty much the same against Wigan the other night, from what I’ve heard. Norwich played well for the first 45 minutes, getting a nice two-goal cushion and then took their foot off the pedal which let Wigan back into the game.At the end of the day three points are three points, whoever they come against, however Norwich are going to face better teams than Cardiff and Wigan and in those games the Canaries need to be in top gear because in their last two games, even though they’ve won, I don’t think they’ve got out of second. We’re all prone to a bit of criticism every now and then and if Neil has heard some fans giving the Murphy twins a bit of abuse, for whatever reason, I can guarantee you it will only be a very very small minority. The majority of fans will appreciate what they bring to the team and that they are still young, still learning their trade and developing as players. Add to this the fact that they are local lads and are a product of the club’s academy. In my opinion that means they deserve everyone’s full support." Says it all MUCH better than I could!!
More or less exactly what I just said in my previous comment And, no, I hadn't seen Iwan's article when I wrote that. I did use the words 'convincing' and 'performances', though.
Similar viewpoint to big Iwan's in this article. I'm glad I'm not the only one who can see the flaws and deficiencies in our season so far - though as was said before by RER, I think (?), getting Martin, Olsson, Pritchard and one or two more up to speed and full match fitness will help, obviously. Waiting to see how Pinto is, fitness-wise. A real blow if his recent knock was too serious. I imagine there'll be a presser and fitness updates this afternoon? http://www.buryfreepress.co.uk/spor...ts-being-gained-despite-stuttering-1-7581184?
Fortunately most of our injured players have recovered now and that should help. Iwan didn't see the Wigan match, but it's true that we weren't at our best either there or against Cardiff. I'm willing to cut more slack for AN though. When you get a two goal lead, there's always a question about whether you 'stick or twist'. Last season he was heavily criticised for the side's inability to finish out matches from a winning position. He's now done that in all 4 of the matches where we took the lead this season and is still being criticised. I can think of many matches like Liverpool last season where we were in a winning position and continued all-out attacking, only to lose the game. Perhaps I'm in a minority, but winning is still the most important thing to me.
Will you kindly refrain from using the SN abbreviation when referring to Naismith please ?. Kind Regards SN23
Maybe I should refer to him as SN23, as that's how many goals I predict he'll score for us this season
I was very concerned at the time when it was first muted that we were after him. He was obviously looking for a cushy number to see out his career. He was a bench warmer most of the time at Everton and his 3 goals against Chelsea seemed to everyone's excuse that he was worth buying. It's on record that I didn't and think it's one of our worse deals ever!!
You budgies are clearly in a massively false position in the early Championship table... Your inevitable slide down towards the relegation will begin at the Florists tomorrow!
Welcome home, Tesco twerp, we've badly missed your foresight, inspiration and FACTS! How's life in the bargain basement?
