You're not struggling. Defoe would be perfect. still has goals in the tank and his experience and personality would be a massive boost to the youngsters at the club. With a bit of luck Sunderland will be mathematically relegated by January and we can swoop to restore him to his rightful seat on our bench. Someone younger was supposed to be Dembele but **** knows what happened there. Agreed a deal in January, it fell apart over a squabble concerning loan arrangements, then by May we had apparently completely forgotten he existed and missed the opportunity to sign him on a free. I know the Scottish league is bilge but he's doing very well up there. No idea why we dropped the ball.
I think our front 3 behind the striker are too greedy. That attacking instinct makes them all too head down for me. They delay the killer passes in the hope of getting a shot on themselves in critical positions....by then its too late. This results in a frustrated front man who then starts to come in deep to make his own fortunes. That penalty tussle between Lamela and Son....further shows that their desire for goals is not controlled enough for the teams benefit.
And our tendency at set pieces to kick the ball as hard as possible at the head of the nearest opposition player.
Goals have always been the most valuable commodity. When Utd were dominant, we had Solskjaer who could come on and provide crucial goals on tap - later Hernandez did the same. Arsenal had the likes of Wiltord in reserve, but also had Ljungberg scoring freely from midfield. More recently, City had Dzeko. At some point, title chasing teams have games where they are struggling to score and they need options. It's more than just squad depth in terms of numbers - it's having players with the mentality to cope with being bit part players for much of the time, yet be able to perform under pressure when their chance comes and they're needed. Spurs do lack goalscoring options. You have a strong defence, many midfield options, but a lack of a cutting edge at times. I hate to say it (I really do) but Liverpool presently look better equipped having seemingly ignored defensive fragility in favour of having more options up front.
Found myself nodding along with much of this, as a single tear crept down my cheek. A tear called Jermain.
I'm still not sure there is a problem. For one thing, ten matches into a season is a very small sample. Over the last 48 matches we are still the third best team. And money still talks: the four teams currently above us in the league have bigger transfer budgets and salary budgets than us so should be expected to have better players. So they should on average get better results. The fact that there is effectively little difference is surely more evidence that our training methods etc are probably better than the others. We still have a big advantage in youth. Dier, Alli and Kane could all be world class in a few years.
@AKCJ if you can't stay on topic then don't comment. Derailing threads and trying to start arguments will get you a ban so kindly stop. @everyoneelse if someone's being a twat just let us know and we'll deal with it, if you respond it just means there's more for us to delete and I don't think you understand just how lazy us mods are. Next time I'll just delete the whole thread as it's quicker. Consider this a no-reply. If you want to follow up you can PM me, otherwise get back on topic.
Imo there's no real answers because everything's just going slightly wrong for us at the moment in attack. We're not creating enough chances and we're not quite doing well enough with our chances. It just feels like there's a slight lack of sharpness whenever we have the ball. Defensively we've been brilliant and we'll need to be over the next run of games. More open games should suit our attack so if we can keep the opposition quiet at the other end we can go on a great run.
You're confusing the solution with the problem. Sunderlands problem was lack of decent strikers to play week in week out. Defoe is the perfect solution for a club in their position with their financial means. Our problem is - and has been since the day he left - lack of attacking options coming off the bench to bring something new to the table. Defoe as a sub rarely making the starting line up would indeed interest a higher level club than Sunderland.
But that isn't our problem! At least I've not seen any evidence that it is. Under Poch we have a very good record of points from losing positions. Defoe isn't a good enough player to displace someone from our bench on the off chance he might score in the last 15 mins. We've done better since he left - that isn't a coincidence in my view
Currently our problems as I see them are: 1. Kane's injured. For nearly 2 seasons we've prayed it wouldn't happen. Thankfully, it was only 6 or so weeks and not months. 2. Janssen's taking time to adjust. On Saturday, he looked much more the part even though those behind him didn't. 3. Lamela and Erikssen are off form and we have had Son as our only viable replacement for the forward places since Kane's injury, given point 4. 4. N'Koudou and Sissoko weren't fit when we signed them having had almost no pre-season work. They can play but only parts of games and don't look at full speed. 5. We've had Dembele out suspended and then injured. He's not looked the same player since but the lack of attacking movement may explain that. 6. We're light on numbers given form, fitness, suspensions and form of the Academy players. So, only the defenders are really being rested. Really we have 20 players MP is going to use. Two of those are goalkeepers, leaving 18 players to fill 10 outfield places. One of those is Big Kev, who seems to be completely out of the picture at the moment, leaving 17. We've lost Kane, Son, Dembele, Sissoko, GKN, Rose and Alderweireld for some part of the 10 games we've played in the league this season. Whoever our best players are, it's pretty certain we haven't seen them out on the pitch together this year, ignoring the issue of form. Additionally, substitutions have added next to nothing to our game when they've been made, often because the players coming on aren't as fit as they should be and are often coming back from a significant period out of the picture and have no form. MP knows we are light in terms of numbers and has said as much. We got away with it last season but it was never going to last forever. I hoped that the Academy players might have made the step up for this season but currently, that's not the case. I hope we can take 3 points against both Leverkeusen and Arsenal. If we fail to do so, then we are going to be playing catch up from an early point in the season. That was possible last season but will be more difficult this time around. Time to circle the wagons and get our heads and game together. Two top performances are called for and I doubt Toby or Harry are going to be match fit for either. Harry might come on as a sub but anything else is a big gamble. MP needs to get everyone ready to die for the cause and the players need to do so to bring in the results we need.
We've certainly done better since he left, but not necessarily because he left. The departures of utterly useless players like Cheery Cheese and Paulinho were catalysts for moving up a level. In Defoe's case, it may well be a despite. Look, I don't want to get hung up on an individual player, as I think our real debate is about something much broader. I'm only using Defoe as an example because quite frankly, since he left, the number of late substitutions who impact a game positively has dropped to around 10%. The vast, vast majority of Poch's changes have little to no effect on the outcome of the game, other than giving another player a bit of a rest. There are only 2 explanations for this problem: Either Poch is a useless tactician who doesn't know who to change or when to change them, or - and I personally favour this second approach - we don't really have the options on the bench who have the skill set to impact a game. GKN may turn into that player, but still - having 1 out of 3/4 attacking players sitting on the bench who isn't a carbon copy of what's already out on the pitch just isn't good enough.
I have not seen any evidence that tactical substitutions are effective. As I've said many times in football you score from about one in 50 possessions at the very best and less than one match is insufficient data to work out what is effective against any opponent. We need our squad to be as good as it can be for the money we can afford and rest the players when they are tired. So I'm not expecting any outcome from substitutions other than what you say is happening and I'm glad we've finally got a manager who understands that rather than follows the herd approach.
I think that N'Koudou has shown quite a lot of promise in this area, though his start at Anfield was pretty horrible. He scares the crap out of defenders when he comes on in the second half and he tracks back well, too. Very different to what we normally start with. Janssen should be the other alternative from the bench, but he's having to start because of Kane's injury. Son would be one too, but he's broken into the first XI, for the most part. Sissoko, maybe? Hasn't impressed me at all yet, but I'm not convinced that he's up to speed, having missed pre-season.
Problems: 1) Massively "un-clinical". Our goals to shots-on-target ratio must be averaging something like 1:8 in each game, which is awful. 2) Attacking midfielders well off form. 3) Too many injuries to key players. 4) Janssen works too hard, which is quite weird to say but I think it's costing him goals/ assists. Possible solutions: 1) Work on finishing a lot more in training and analyse videos of Kane, Keane, Berbatov and Defoe. 2) Stick a rocket up Eriksen, Alli, Lamela and Son's arses. Failing that, drop Eriksen for a bit as he's been woeful and see how Alli, Son and Lamela do before making any other decisions on whether any more should be dropped. In fairness the international breaks haven't helped as they always ruin momentum and give us at least one injured player back, perhaps we should just copy some of our rivals though and withdraw players through "injury". I'd also get GKN more involved, his pace and skill can cause problems, it did against Leicester but he only had ten minutes to work with, had he had twenty, there's every possibility he could've made something happen. 3) Hire a magician or wizard to prevent any more of our best players getting injuries and heal the currently injured ones immediately. But in all seriousness we're due some luck, no other side has had to deal with the injuries we've had this season, so to remain competitive and just three points off top is actually a testament to the squad, especially the defence. 4) Let him still work hard but only around the oppositions' box, I don't want to see him chasing back down the wings or into the middle of the pitch, we have enough players who can do that, it results in him being well out of position at times when we're on the attack. Keep him in and around the opposition CB's and around that box, no more getting further back, unless of course we're defending a slender lead late on.
