Have you been drinking? No, it doesn't make me feel better to reach the considered conclusion that we have bought a bunch of average players. And even if it did make me feel better, that wouldn't prevent the fact being true.
We drew at home to WBA. Anyone who thinks that that's a good thing really ought to think about hugging some trees, because I'm here to tell you, folks, it's pretty ****e. I rather fear that the drubbings we took off the Spanners, 'Pool and £ity will not be the last we are forced to witness before this season is out.
Hm. I rather fear that Sherwood is as prone as Redknap was to punish players for perceived individual errors that cost games in what should be a team sport. I am awaiting the inevitable dressing-room unrest, just as soon as the honeymoon-period is over.
Oh, for ****'s sake. Can we have a manager that doesn't fall out with players over stupid things, please? Blaming a holding midfielder for having a mediocre game at centre-half is just dumb.
...especially when followed up with bullshit excuses for not picking him in subsequent games. If anyone can be blamed for the COC result it's Defoe - he put several chances into the side netting, for starters, and was ineffective when used as a lone striker for the last fifteen minutes (wait, that one can't be blamed on Defoe, but it can be blamed on the bloke who swapped Adebayor for Holtby...)
Oh dear! So we have reabilitated Adebayor and thrust Capoue into the dark. Maybe it's time we picked an adult to manage our team.
Stating that it's a fact does not make it one. Your conclusion is hardly considered is it? I won't need to remind you when some of these players come good because you being you will do it yourself.
Firstly the negatives. It was a drab day at the Lane today, miserable weather and a disappointing performance. Even the big screen was off form today (storm damaged) and somewhat embarrassingly, a couple of hundred Brom fans outsung the home crowd. More empty seats than usual and from overhearing the conversations in the stand,it is clear many are underwhelmed with the appointment of Tim Sherwood. However, with very little available time to spend on the training ground, and with 8 players unavailable, a return of 4 points from Tim's first two games can be seen as fairly reasonable. I suspect if we had drawn at Southampton and won today, then the mood would be far happier tonight. The display today was very mixed. There were definite signs of a deliberate attempt tp up the tempo, yet a lot of the play was littered with sloppy play and loads of misplaced passes. West Brom deserved their point because overall they were the more organised and disciplined side. Tim has to learn from this and hopefully he will be able to select a more balanced side on Sunday for the Stoke game. Walker is going to be a big miss and it willl be interesting to see if he goes for Naughton or Fredricks as replacement. Highlight of the day was probably having Ardiles on the pitch at half time.
I think a lot of us are grateful we are not at the bottom of the PL....yet! Seems West Brom wanted it a bit more than our lads! p.s. Big Sam must be looking at the fixture list to see when he plays us again.....if he's still there by then!!!!!!!
You have to laugh at some of the opinions, people wanted Redknapp sacked then they wanted Avb sacked, then Sherwood should be given a chance and now after a few games I can sense doubts are already kicking in. Maybe the next time we have a successful manager some of you should think twice about wanting him sacked as this is what some fans wanted, and this is where we are. After the West Ham game and saints game I was reading about how Sherwood was improving the man management by bringing in Adebayor, now hes a poor man manager for his treatment of Capoue. This is why in general, fans have to wait and see what unfolds. Its not like when Avb was appointed, he had previous, there was a past to judge him by, With Sherwood (there is no previous) he will go from game to game making odd decisions and its not until he has a sold run of games can anyone form any real opinion of his potential.
Ahem! Quite a few of us had doubts right from the very start, and those doubts have never let up. Sherwood is NOT the manager to take us forward, as he has already more than amply demonstrated. I'm not sure when he will get the boot, but get the boot he will. I only pray that he hasn't, come that day, caused even more damage to this club and the morale of its players.
But the real point is we can't move forward from where Redknapp took us , what people want, in terms of moving forward will never happen while Levy/ENIC are here and that may be my opinion typed to sound like a fact but it doesn't really matter who Levy hired, its just more of the same words we hear every time a new manager is hired. What top manager is going to want to work with us and be under pressure to deliver top four? none of Europes top managers will be interested. So this is where we are, resorting to giving Sherwood a chance.
1) like it or not we are not a good team...we have good players, a good squad but have not seen them moulded into a good team let alone a top four team. 2) the same was true when redknapp took over...a good squad but not a good team...and it took him until the following summer to sort it out 3) we have caused ourselves a problem by bringing in avb, spending over 130m and then sacking him in a little over 18 months...starting on sherwood is pointless in my opinion...no manager wanted to come to us which aint surprising given our sacking record under levy and so we need to let sherwood try and fashion a team out of our squad and hopefully salvage our season
Less said about the game the better. No knee-jerk from me one way or the other.... please log in to view this image ...best bit of the day for me was Jeff Stelling at the start of his Gillette Saturday show. The panel was minus Paul Merson, the explaination for his absence was that Mers was in his local nativity play, and he was playing one of the 3 wise men...."its a small village"! quipped Jeffrey!
I didn't find the selection odd at all. He thinks football is a simple game, we've got better players than WBA so we ought to win. They have little threat so we don't need to have proper holding midfield players as the back four will cope. Picking two strikers means that we should score more chances as they will 'support' each other. Sadly it appears that there is more to it than that. I still think our main issue is that we have too many new players trying to learn a new system so we don't have the understanding to play quick decisive football. Sacking AVB has made this worse as it has led to more change and less understanding. We just need to be patient and it will come good. We have a really well balanced squad with players with lots of skill and flexibility so we can play almost any formation successfully even with a lot of injuries. They are also quite young on average and will improve even under an average manager (and Sherwood is more likely to be average than anything else).
