What a ****ing **** day. Everton, West Ham, West Brom, Southampton all dropping points against bottom 7 teams. If these teams are going to stop trying once they're safe then it makes a mockery of the whole ****ing league. Are Leicester really that good to get 6 wins out of 7? Is that the same reason we got our unlikely wins against Crystal Palace and Liverpool? Maybe Spurs and Man U will just roll over?
Our fundamental problem for a long time is Bruce simply doesnt pick a team which has players who are capable of unlocking a defence. it's been masked over this season because every so often we score a couple of goals from crosses and everybody thinks it's ok, but the fact is our only chance to score mainly comes from crosses because we lack anybody on the pitch who is capable of picking that pass to split a defence. We showed it today, all we ever did was try and play it to the wide men and swing a cross in but when your aiming for only n'doye(I'm discounting aluko as he doesn't count) then you have no chance. Surely the obvious change to the starting lineup was Ramirez for huddlestone, now don't get me wrong, Ramirez has his faults but he tries to pick that killer pass and gets forward when possible.
Spot on. Hattie - as you know Koren used to do my head in at times but I was thinking earlier, he was always a decent makeshift forward. Had a knack of getting on the end of crosses even though he was in an unnatural position. Like with Boyd, I think it was right to release him, but as it's turned out he'd have been a useful makeshift striker instead of Aluko, Ramirez, etc.
I don't think its the personnel lacking ability, I think it's the tactics and shape of the team. We have two attacking players on the pitch and five defenders, most teams have four, with wingers and two striker or one and an attacking midfielder. When we get the ball there's no one in space in an attacking area. Our only options are to try knocking it around defence whilst the team lumbers forward or hammer it long. The enemy full backs hve no one and nothing to deal with so they sit narrow keeping a tight defence impossible to pull gaps in to play through, so we just get it to Elmo about 30 yards out to whip into a box contested by gigantic centre halves. It's a good defensive formation because it gives you numbers at the back and in midfield with two strikers to win and hold the long punts upfield between them but for days like today where you're at home needing a win against for all intents and purposes already relegated bottom of the league, you need to attack and dominate the game not sit back defending hitting hopeful balls 70 yards down the pitch. If anyone looked at the stats at half time, how strongly they were in Burnleys favour was shocking. We hd something like 40% posession having made almost 200 less passes (we'd made just over 100) of which 30% were classed as long balls. They were opta stats. The players are instructed to play this pathetic way, there's no wonder they're ****ig hopeless. Ben Arfa seems to have been the only one who would stand up and point out the futility of our style and he got sent packing and castigated by the masses. The players should have had a ku de ta, thrown the useless fat **** out and showed us what they're really capable of.
It was the thinking of a piss-poor Sunday League manager. Unbelievably bad and it cannot be ignored; he is a real concern now.
I would say that our forwards receive the ball(when they do get it) 99% of the time with there back's to goal, and with no support from the midfield, the one thing that stick in my mind from today is N'Doyle breaking down the wing over on the east stand side when he went to cross it there was nobody in a city shirt in the box, Huddleston, Livermore and aluko were miles behind, my biggest fear is that we could do a Fulham if we go down and he sticks with this midfield, another point from today was I didn't think SB didn't covered himself in glory coming out after the match and saying that the team had frozen, its his job to make sure that this doesn't happen, and the refusal of any player's to come out and speak to Humberside was appalling.
I was thinking the other week, if we still had Ben Arther we'd be safe. He may have acted the ****. But most successful teams have at least one of those.
That's what has become a massive issue for us.. Those teams you mentioned just rolling over for anybody meanwhile we play teams still challenging for things (Liverpool/United going for 4th, Arsenal wanting 2nd, Burnley trying to stay up etc) if only we were playing West Ham, Newcastle and Everton now.
Steve Bruce needs to call in a few favours at Man U, can see him on the phone to Fergie, 'remember that first title I got you boss at Sheff Weds, well can you have a word with LVG...' the problem we have is we couldn't beat a terrible Burnley side who should have been there for the taking today so how are going to beat a Man U team in exhibition mode on the last day
Frozen !!! What a cop out Bournemouth didn't freeze under the pressure of winning the Championship They revelled in it with a lot less resources
