Kranjcar to Sunderland

I took it as the highlighted above

 

Why the **** are we so ****ing pessimistic now?

I could see both Newcastle and Sunderland pushing for a top 10 place.

 

If we get top 10 with the team we have now, I will chop my penis off.

 

I do think we have progressed, but disagree in how it should be compared to Newcastles finishing positions.

Given our recent history, 5 consecutive seasons in the Prem is progress in itself. I accept Keane didnt half splash the cash compared to fellow clubs promoted in recent years (ie. Stoke, Wolves etc) but we really had to try something new as our approach of trying ot stay up on a shoestring definitely wasn't working.

Since Bruce's arrival though he had dealy very well in the transfer market imo (the odd clanger as all managers do) but with very little outlay overall following Bent and Henderson leaving, we are in a much stronger position than when he took over.

I am more than happy to class this as 'progress' and despite scraping into the top 10 last year believe we are now in a position to secure that top half position much more comfortably this season.

Manage that and hopefully add to a good squad again and maybe we start pushing that top 7, who knows! I think the days are gone though of teams getting to the top quickly without seriously major investment.

 

Thats an interesting statement. IMO there is still a lot of dross in the premiership but saying that I reckon your safe.

 

I also think we are safe, no way will we get top 10 with that strikeforce though. Not a chance!

 

Why? If we sign a good LB we'll have a strong defense. We have a fantastic midfield. We're a little weak up front, but many teams are in midtable. Everton's strikers, apart from Beckford, pick up injuries all the time, Bolton have lost Sturridge and their top scorer from last season. After Gyan Sunderland have got 2 untested strikers. After those 3 strikers they've got no one at all. West Brom have got one good striker in Odemwinge, but after that they have average strikers who are no better than Lover, Shola or Best. Fulham have baldy heed Johnson who rarely scores, Zamora who's pretty good, but after that they don't have that much quality up front.


People are too ****ing pessimistic man. There's no reason we can't finish in the top 10. The only big loss this summer is Enrique, but to be honest Raylor didn't play badly at LB against Arsenal anyway. It would have been a much bigger loss if we lost one of our CB's or Tiote or Barton.

There's no reason we can't push for a top 10 place. We held off a good Arsenal side. No they didn't have Fabregas or Nasri but they're still a side filled with quality.

We're short of quality up front, but not many teams mid table are strong everywhere.

 

Leazes has put a loophole into his statement: if we buy or loan anyone it won't be "the team we have now".

 

I will look at my statement and may change it if we sign someone of relative class, but if we keep this team(which is likely), we won't finish in the top 10.

 

Gloom and Doom, Doom and Gloom, dum dum dum.

 

It is. I admire your optimism but I just can't seem to find any. We are being mugged off and lied to once again and people keep buying the **** that they tell us.

 

I'd agree with Leazes, top 10 would be good going with our strike force. I'll revise that if we get the left back and striker we badly need. For me Sunderland have progressed and have taken quite a big step. They've gone from yo yo club to mid/lower table PL team. That for me is quite significant progress because the yo yo cycle is the hardest to break. They've had to spend a fair bit to do it but I think we'd all look at them now and think there is little chance of them being relegated unless they massively underperform.

 

After a good result on monday i find it hard to believe some people would be pessimistic. Do we need to be beating the best teams before people stop crying?

People were predicting 2-1 and 3-1 to Arsenal, we managed a 0-0 draw which is a good result.

 

It is a good result, I agree. Defensively and the midfield I am contempt with, but the strikeforce is ****ing bollocks and if it stays like that for the full season, we'll be lucky to see our team score 35 goals.

 

This! We don't look like we could score more than 1 a game at the moment

 

what have you got against our midfield like?

 

To be fair I don't think Saturdays result would change anyones thinking on the season. You're still going to feel the same way you did before the game. People seem to think any pessimism is a crime. I don't even see it as pessimism, its just one persons view of our squad and what they see as realistic. Personally I still feel the same way I have all pre season, where are the goals coming from? Goals win games, wins keep you in the division or help you progress further. We do not have the goals in our squad that we had last year, and we have more injury prone players.

 

I mean howay, our tactics. He gets 4 new midfielders, yet uses tactics where the ball totally bypasses the midfield! ****ing stupid. Get the ball on the ground to players like Cabaye and Barton, or let Gutierrez run with it. Stop pumping the ****ing ball up to a useless **** in Ameobi and a similar looking lad who didn't show anything last Saturday in Demba Ba, hence why he went off at HT.

 

We've played 1 ****ing game and people are already saying we're not likely to score more than 1 a game atm

Give them a chance man. We've tried one formation that failed to score against 1 team, a top team.

If we're still not scoring 5-6 games in then i'll agree with you, we could be ****ed, but for gods sake don't make judgements yet.

In my opinion Pardew's plan was to play defensively and then get Arsenal on the counter, because all that happened was we defended wave after waves of Arsenal attack, and then lumped a ball up to Shola who then tried to link up with Ba, but we all know what Shola is like. I think he made one good pass all game.

We need to play Ba with a good partner or as a lone striker with an attacking me or 2 helping him. Ba isn't great winning things against CB's in the air, but he's nippy and good on the ground and can work with a team.

We played football in the air vs Arsenal because we know that we'd get outplayed if we tried to battle them on the ground. Our best bet was to lump balls up to our target men and attack their defense directly.

Different matches = different game plans. I think we were looking for a draw vs Arsenal tbh and the plan worked well.

 

Jonas was really busy helping Raylor at LB and just couldn't get forward as often as he usually does. With a better LB in place; Jonas can wreak his usual havoc.