Or even an FA cup. The only team successfully breaking down busparquet. is City. Interestingly they have conceded first on a couple of occasions and left it late for the winner. I believe their manager is being bolder and setting up more offensively, telling his players attack attack attack. knowing the opposition just want to defend and maybe with some luck score. However he has faith that , that probably won't happen more than once in a game and he knows if he throws players forward he can score at least twice . If he scores first it makes it easier. We are frightened to concede.If we look at the games where we struggled to break down the opposition, they only score one on the break or through a defensive error or a worldie. That shouldn't happen twice in a game so we need to worry less and throw more players forward. We do not need two DMs on the pitch, especially when they are not creative nor a goal threat.
They've successfully negotiated a half of all-out defending and gained confidence and we send out the same set-up again. It's playing into their hands. Make changes and they have to adapt on the hoof. Drop Eriksen deeper in place of Sissoko who is not needed in such games, Put Llorente up top and get Kane just off him, if he was truly fit [I'm not sure that he was] or Lamela. We have limited resources but often MP seems unwilling to use what we do have, bravely enough.
Possibly the reason we look solid is because we play in a solid way. I think Poch is a definite believer in the mantra that if we've got possession then the opponents can't score. People round me yesterday complained every time the ball was passed backwards and every time it was lost by passing it forwards. We got 10 points from the four Christmas games and were very unlucky not to have 12. No other team got more. Total disaster obviously.
I've seen this many times nowadays.A player takes a corner.The ball comes back to him......does he cross?No! Two passes and it's back to his own goalkeeper.... I know this is season 2017-8,but.......holy smoke!
Does give the officials one, though. Wenger's moan had everyone analysing the decisions. Pochettino's reaction is clearly classier, but where's the reaction to what happened? There isn't any. We saw the fallout from Dean last night. Accused of giving a soft penalty? Not even considering giving one out in the next game. As a side note, has anyone mentioned the refs when discussing the frequency of the festive schedule? It's tough on athletes that are largely in their twenties. A bunch of slightly out of shape blokes who are probably about twice as old? No wonder they're making so many mistakes. Mike Dean's been the ref for four of our games this season, so far. We've drawn two and lost two. He's been terrible in all of them and there's been talk about the officials after at least three. Bloody Scousers.
NKNG nailed it, especially with the "bored of football" statement. The Prem has taken a masisve turn for the worse this season. So many teams are focusing on the idea of not losing rather than trying to win and it's horrible to watch. City and Pool are the only two who look to purely outscore opponents, while I'd say us, Chelsea and Arsenal look to dominate games while remaining steady at the back. Outside of that, no other team really takes any forward risks, with many simply just happy to shut up shop and take a point instead of going for all three. This is just yet another step of how money is ruining football because teams are now too frightened to take the risks as they're opting to be safe and keep their place in the division in order to receive the monstrous payments from TV deals. If this continues for another couple of years then I can see thousands upon thousands of fans losing interest in what we once called the beautiful game, and I'll likely be one of them. As for the game last night, as others have mentioned, Poch ****ed up. Sissoko, despite a promising first couple games this season, has no business being on a football pitch and playing him alongside Dier is just disastrous for our CM aspirations. It's further strengthened my claim - YET AGAIN - that a CM has to be signed this window, we can't go into Feb with a crocked Dembele, an overly safe Winks, two DMs and a useless Sissoko. If the club doesn't feel like there's an adequate signing (there clearly and SERIously is in my eyes ) then at least bring Josh back and just throw him into the mix in his favoured role. Secondly, something I and many have criticised Poch for in the past is his reluctance to make changes earlier in the game. At half time West Ham's gameplan was obvious, add in that Sissoko was a non-entity and Dier wasn't needed to cover the defence, so why not bring Lamela and Llorente on straight away? It's frustrating that there doesn't seem to be enough trust in our bench options. The attacking players deserve massive criticism too, so many fluffed chances or wasted possession and it ended up costing us two points. **** night overall to be honest, other than witnessing two great goals.
All refs are crap. The pace of the modern game makes it impossible for some middle aged bloke to make correct decisions. But it's always been the case; I've been to games where the ref never left the centre circle. The only solution is for the better team to be dominant, take their chances and win convincingly. Take the ref out of the equation. If the game turns on a bad decision, then you probably didn't deserve to win anyway.
I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. Ref sends off a player incorrectly in the first minute. It's your own fault!
Cricket has addressed this. Steve Smith is given out lbw for 0. He reviews it and is given not out and goes on to make 200. In the old days he was out for 0. Do we have a video ref in football to review any contentious decision meaning that the game lasts for 2+ hours but we get the right decisions? Or do we get on with it and accept that the performance of the teams is the determining factor in almost every game and not errors by the ref? In football, it has to be the latter.
It's beyond the refs though. A good tackle becomes a sending off offence in a quarter of a second. A handball decision is a toss of a coin - even after a dozen video replays. Offside decisions aren't clear with the benefit of the latest freeze frame techniques. There are always going to be bad decisions.
It wouldn’t matter if the refs were consistent, not only with their own decisions, but also with the other referees. That is never going to happen. VAR may go some way to alleviating the problem. If reviews were allowed with the same conditions as cricket or tennis it would only add a few minutes to the game unless most of the referee’s decisions were wrong.
Of course there are. Players and coaches also make mistakes. We don't exempt them from analysis. Dean and his assistants have made a series of poor decisions in our games this season and all of the big ones that I can remember have gone against us. He's made some glaring errors, like the Sanchez on Sanchez foul in the game at the Emirates and at least one of the penalties against Swansea. If people at the game can see him making bad mistakes, then it's not down to constant over analysis. Look at the start of the thread. People expected Dean to be **** and stitch us up. That shouldn't be predictable.
