Match Day Thread Norwich V Saints 2/1/2016 KO 15:00

Spot on Dave,Vic and Sadio seriously pissed me off today,unprofessional
Dicks.

 

Ron pissed off again.

 

We just pass it around and hope something happens. I miss lallana, jay rod and Lambert pinging it around, I miss the high press of last season where we harassed the opposition and countered with so much pace.
On paper, we are a better side than Norwich, but they won it by being more disciplined, more organised and by showing more fighting spirit. When the going gets tough, our players go missing, and Koeman can't seem to sort it. We won the tight games last season because we were composed, committed and showed amazing togetherness. Something this season is not right at all. Where are the leaders? Where is Fonte from last season? 7 losses in 9 is truly terrible. I am behind Koeman, and don't think he should be sacked but he needs to show why he is the right man for the job, starting next week. I'm not buying his "we need more players" bollocks either, because this team is easily good enough to beat ****ing Norwich without spending any money. He needs to get his own house in order before blaming the board.

 

Quite fed up of Ron just being angry after games, this has been the situation for the past 2 months.....How's about do something about it?

 

I may be reading too much into it, but the attitude of Vic and Sadio stank today, and I wonder if that's down to them knowing they're off, come what may, in the summer. That kind of negative, can't-really-be-arsed attitude would permeate a squad, whether consciously or not.

Now as I say, could be reading too much into it, but the revolving door policy makes building a settled 'team' in the broadest sense of the word, and one with a common goal (as we had under Cortese/Poch) an almost impossible task for any manager.

 

Really? I think we are a pretty average side tbh. Wanyama and Mane are our only really good players and the rest are pretty average for the PL. We should have enough to not be worrying about relegation but we are a fair distance away from being a top 6/8 side, and therefore any away game we should be considered underdogs.

 

But while the spin is of it being a policy the board don't have much choice in it. We could have a team of unhappy star players still that we have held to their contracts but would that work? The board may talk it up as a policy but the reality is that if the bid is acceptable we accept it. We don't give players away but we don't try to cling on to rebellious players that don't want to be here.

Does this permeate through the squad? I doubt it, they are footballers and this is football and it has been this way for a long time unless you are one of the privileged few at the top end of the top leagues, so I don't buy this permeate through the squad stuff.

 

I completely agree LTL, it does look like that.

It's down to Ron to get that spirit back. I don't think that blaming the players each week will help at all to be honest. It's also down to Ron to spot that attitude - we can all see Wanyama has been awful (bar the Arsenal game) for months, so why can't he?
I think the main point is that this team is still a good team, it's down to the manager to get them performing close to their potential.

 

We don't have much of an identity right now though, as a team.

 

Yep it's like what I told you the other month. The players know coming here puts them in the shop window. So why should the better players care that much about us? Then you have the other players one min you have Morgan and Wanyama cleaning everything up. Then 2 seasons later neither are there. How does that effect the other players? It's like I said, every season we are rebuilding instead of strengthening. That will end up showing.

Tadic would be off if he could be more consistent.

 

I think that is partly due to the spin. Our board promote us as this amazing production line academy club that brings through young players. Are we? They promote us as this black box policy club that sells at the right price because we have replacements known to us?

Is the reality not that we are like every other team in the mid table that will bring through a young player if they are good enough, that have to sell at the right price and that have to replace at the right price too?

Can't keep selling us as this 'kncoking on the door' club to the fans and players alike and then just doing what everone else below the top 4 or 5 do anyway.

 

But it's not like he has to play Wanyama! If we can all see how poor he is, why can't Ron? Romeu must be wondering how he isn't given a run of games, and Reed must be absolutely fuming! I thought reed brought some much needed energy when he came on today actually.

 

Agree on Reed totally.

 

I might also be reading too much into it, but I'm wondering if something is going on behind the scenes. Koeman and Fonte taking to the media, the indifferent performances save for one game in which we got our tails up and put on a show...I think that a lack of any real goal, lack of real competition for places and lack of any kind of genuine connection to the club are intertwined problems.

 

Not saying he has to. I am talking about the structure of the club not about playing a player or not.

 

Wanyama hasn't been poor. He's just the whipping boy because no one wants to say anything bad about Davis, Long or Fonte.

Romeu has given away more bad fouls than Wanyama. I like him, but he really hasn't really made a compelling case to start, other than I feel like we might as well move on from the Wanyama era since he is leaving.

 

Posted this in the Mane / Wanyama thread ha.

 

We're all reacting to the run of bad results and rightly so. The run of performances have not been nearly as depressing. We have been in every game that we've lost and in many cases we should have put our chances away to win and instead have been left vulnerable to defeat. Those fine margins do not warrant wholesale change. A lot of it is attitude and confidence which I thought we might have got back after the Arsenal game. We don't need an overhaul but we do need to sort it out!