In your opinion... not mine and apparently not others on this board. In the opinion of others, also, Redmond was not good either.
That’s cool. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I just think the word ‘disaster’ in the context of a tight early season loss (where we had the majority of chances) is a huge exaggeration. Disaster is Salisu breaking a leg, not winning another game this season, being beaten 4-0 by Newcastle to send us down. It’s not a tight loss to Wolves. That’s just an irritation/disappointment.
It's not panic stations yet, but we need to find form soon. After Chelsea, we have Leeds (H), Burnley (H), Watford (A), Villa (A), Norwich (A). We really need to emerge from that stretch with 8 or 9 points, or the odds are pretty good that we'll be hovering around the drop zone come Christmas.
Just 4 goals from the opening 6 matches just isn’t good enough. Really hope the boys find their scoring boots soon.
I honestly think that Armstrong has the capability to get a few goals this season. What worries me more is that Che has been somewhat ineffectual - I'm trying to remember if he's a 'streaky' striker from the past. Either way, he's not a major goalscoring threat for me. I don't necessarily think Broja is the answer, but if he knuckles down in training, I'm not against him having a run of opportunities alongside Armstrong (discounting the Chelsea game, of course!)
Was pretty worried that losing ings would lose us most of our goals. Seems that worry was correct. Can’t see much premier league quality going forward at the moment. I’m not sure what tella has done to Ralph, but why Ralph isn’t giving him a go is baffling.
The way I look at it is that our big problem last season was the defence and they’ve worked hard to correct that. With the new look side we now need to work on that final ball and our finishing which I suspect is where the emphasis will be on the training ground this week. One of the promising aspects of the season so far (defence aside) is that Armstrong shoots on sight and some of the others are starting to as well. The quality of the shots needs to improve but the attitude is so much better than last season where too often we played tic tac football just outside the penalty area.
I'd still like us to be more progressive from midfield. And when I say 'us', I mean JWP. Alien Lucy is basically a placeholder in that creative role until Stu gets back fit.
We need to address the Elephant in the room. Ralph is just not good enough, he needs to go. We have a team of decent/good Premier league players who are not being managed or coached correctly. Ralph keeps banging on about things not being right yet he fails to address the issues. we had a far better team than Wolves & more possession yet we were the ones left wondering. I know we are only 6 games in to the season but the facts are we have been poor for a long time. I know many people will come back at me with the "who would you bring in " argument, but It is time for a change
Who would you bring in? And don’t say you don’t know, you must have some ideas about who would do a better job. And that decent squad you mention has largely been assembled by a bloke called Ralph Hassenhüttl, by the way.
We lost a game against a team that have a world class striker (coming back from injury) and who was able to provide that one moment of magic. We were the better team overall, but struggled to create (and with our best creative player injured). How have we got a "far better team than Wolves"?
I was quite disappointed yesterday- the big problem we have, IMHO, is that we are totally predictable and currently don’t seem to have a player who has that bit of guile that’ll confuse opposition defences in order to create scoring chances. As for Wolves, well they just possess a different type of guile that gives them the advantage without the ref realising what they’re up to.
We also missed Jack Stephens: a defender able to play out from the back. It meant Romeu or Ward-Prowse had to drop in between and we played a lot of sideways passed at the back.
True enough. I thought Salisu's passing was a lot better on that front in the game, but you don't quite trust him to get it right every time.
I was disappointed for Adams and Armstrong yesterday both of whom made a number of good runs but were not picked out with a killer pass.
If we beat Chelsea 10-0 you can bet your life Mendy will be in Crooks’ team, for the way he takes goal kicks.