Last summer's signings seem like a long time ago! Snodgrass, long term injured Ince, loaned out Diame, out for a few weeks maybe? Ben-Arfa and Ramirez, out of favour, permanently? Robertson, doubts about his defensive ability? McGuire, loaned out Hernandez, jury still out (for me, anyway) Dawson, last man standing! I might even have missed one or two! Was it all an experiment too far I wonder? Too much too quickly? Lets hope the old guard (Quinn, Rosy, et al) can show up and see us through the season! Up the Tigers!
I read Brucey saying that he'd never really played his ideal team, so who knows? But I hope and reckon we'll get through OK.
Snodgrass and Diame are injured, they're footballers, they all get injured at some point, Diame is arguably our best signing this season. Ince and Maguire are young, they've got plenty of time to prove themselves, Maguire wasn't bought for the first team anyway, Robertson is also young, but looks a steal. Ben Arfa and Ramirez still have to prove themselves, but they're not ours anyway, Hernandez has to do the same, but he's already got 3 in 8 and he's back for Saturday and Dawson has been brilliant. We have a far better squad than last season and we're using them, we're not about to bin them all and go back to playing last seasons team.
I was watching the football gold on Sky they have recently shown our games against Liverpool and Man Utd from last season. The Liverpool game we started with a back 3 of Davies Bruce Figueroa and Meyler Koren and Sagbo all started. The Man Utd game Bruce Meyler Graham and Sagbo all started. I don't think it is too much of a problem bringing them back in if needed.
I've probably said this before, but the only game both Ben Arthur and RamÃrez have been started in anything like their proper positions was against Spurs. We looked a very useful team until the negative play after the sending off. I'd like to see us go back to that shape. It gives us plenty of options to change things around. Not least giving our millions of wingers a fair crack. No ****ing about. Just play our best players in positions they are comfortable in.
Against West Brom you'd really hope we'll go more attacking, a bit like the team for the Tottenham game which looked exciting before a ball was kicked and so it proved. It'll be interesting cos Bruce doesn't often drop players who've played well, and it'd be very harsh on any of the 3 fringe players who came in at Everton to drop them immediately but we don't want so few attacking players in a home game, plus Aluko will presumably have earned a start.
Completely agree we put our most attacking team out and we played really well because everyone was in their best positions, just because they all did well last night doesn't mean we should ditch the players we signed in the summer as they are good players they just haven't all shown it yet.
Meyler might be out anyway, so if Brady comes in for him, we'll already be more attacking, as long as we stick with four at the back and go slightly more attacking, I'll be happy.
All this crap about players playing out of positions annoys the **** out of me. Premier league footballers should be effective in any position SB puts them in. If they can't play a little to the left or right then they aren't good enough. Nothing to do with SB's selection process. On topic: Bruce has gone back to the tried and tested. The so called 'upgrades' have not all lived up to expectations with their upgraded skill set nor (worst) their application on the field. Robertson (replacing Fig/Rosie) and Dawson have looked an improvement so far IMO. Diame for the first three games....but suddenly gone quiet (assume injury has done that). Ince - not an upgrade Gaston - not an upgrade HBA - not an upgrade Hernandez - not 100% sure yet..vs. Sagbo...then yes I really hope Aluko starts to kick on, but I suspect he is still a flash in the pan at this level. Hope I'm wrong. At worst lets get rid and reinvest the money we might get for him in the shop window.
Isnt it worth considering that we were playing a Spurs side on a dreadful run of relegation form and desperately low morale with in-fighting amongst players and their result against us is there only bright spot in weeks?
10th in the league and 10th in the form table. Certainly below par for them, but they must have picked up some other results. I'd happily swap places. It was a good first half performance.
The *old guard* will get us better results with bruce's tactics, purely because their more workhorses. That's not say if bruce got his tactics right and stopped being negative our newer players wouldn't shine!!
^^^^^ This .. and to add we have a top manager who knows this Division well enough to bring us to the next level
