According to Harry in the Ham & High the injuries hopefully may not be as bad as they first appeared. Unfortunately even a few weeks out will be a huge blow, Diakite was excellent until injured. Today may well have confirmed the worst. Patience, the Premier League isn't all there is in life. August will bring better things.
We are a point closer to Reading and Southampton if there are any positives to take from today. I think a win today was pretty much nailed on by us all. But I'm still believeing...we can turn it round..as long as we are not too far adrift by January then maybe we can get some goalscorers in......as they say 'It ain't over til the Fat Lady sings....'.....the fact she's doing her warm up routine is neither here or there !
WE need 9 points in the next 4 games, its amazing how we conspire not to win, Green should have saved the shot, SWP misses a sitter and then hits the post, our 2 CMs who were playing well both get injured and and even Harry is making mistakes, starting Granero, not playing Faurlin, starting SWP and bringing on Derry instead of Park who is miles better if only someone could find him longer studs! On the plus side, our defending set pieces has improved dramatically and we even hit the bar from a corner. Boswinga played really well and put in a great cross for the goal, a lot of people have a go at him but he wasnt at fault today.
Let's stop raising the bar just to prove to ourselves how impossible it is. 12 wins assumes that we will lose all the other games. 10 wins, 4 draws and 9 defeats gets us to 40 points. You don't have to be have Euro qualification form to do that. When the first win comes, the confidence boost will take us to another one very soon afterwards. Provided we can catch the pack by the beginning of April we will always have a chance.
Agree with you about Bosingwa. I said on another thread I thought he was about our best player today. Still not very impressed by Park though, he did work hard but he still seems off the pace to me, and he makes lots of elementary mistakes. Think we were a lot better with M'bia, Granero and Diakite than we were with Derry, Park and Hoillett - but we were unlucky today with both the injuries and the woodwork.
Park could score a hattrick and youd still moan about a misplaced pass! The trouble is we have Mbia, Derry, Faurlin, Granero and Diakite going for 2 spots. We havent played a truly attacking CM even in a 4231, Granero is 5 yards in front of the middle 2 instead of being 5 yards off Mackie. Ive played in that position and you get a lot of space because the midfield leave you to the defender and the defender doesnt want to push forward to get to you. I said we have to get the 3 attacking midfielders further forward but we didnt do it with the exception of the long balls, Villa realised this and just dropped deep and then the game was up.
I cant say that, he was clean through twice and didnt score, he didnt create much either but the worrying thing is that Hoilett was even worse than him when he came on.
That's nice for them. Are you saying Hulse and S.hittu in the QPR line-up now would improve our chances of survival?
No I wouldn't! I'd be waking the neighbours. But I knew that both he and SWP weren't going to score today, when clean though on goal with just the Keeper to beat, and unfortunately I was right! SWP was ok today, and as I said Park worked hard, and he looks better centrally than he does wide, but he doesn't look PL quality now.
Park did well, linked up and tackled back and got a good shot off on his wrong foot. Granero was way too deep we need someone right behind mackie, maybe drop Granero if Mbia and diakite are fit and play Taarabt there with holiett on the left and either Mackie or SWP on the right.
If that's the case then he should be fined two weeks wages and ordered to attend a couple of charity/community events in the locality. That kind of behaviour is unacceptable.
Sad to say we looked what we are today. Totally toothless and for all his hustle and bustle Mackie is not a lone striker, the lack of bodies in the box was patently obvious today, so many attacks ended up going sideways or into blind alleys, sloppy passing didn't help and contributed to their goal with assistance from Green who got both hands to the shot but didn't keep it out. We were unlucky hitting the woodwork twice and pressing all the way, but the side looked disjointed and pedestrian and by the final 15 minutes Villa were confident enough to play a high defensive line knowing we couldn't hurt them. There was one sequence when they played about 25 consecutive passes without threatening, they were happy to get a point. Without any real offensive threat we are not going to close the gap at the bottom by much before January and it could be too late by then...
Well he still did well and Id like to push Diakite further forward and have Granero behind him because Diakite can just glide past players. plus theres less chance of him being booked.
