After his superb effort in the 2nd half @ Palace I agreed with his starting place. Felt that Saints game would allow Tom to play his game but TC is not good enough in closing down or tackling. With Mckenna looking tired as the game went on we became light in midfield for a change. Overall he was poor,,imo,, I thought he would be better but was not helped by others who did not move into space quick enough. Maybe TC is better off the bench like @ Palace.
Josh King was without doubt our best player and caused the Southampton defence problems. Even though we lost the team where up for it last night and where unlucky to get any reward for their effort. On another night and another team we could of won it
I thought King had his best game for us yet, but he still fell behind Cairney for me. Clearly you've built up a dislike for Cairney to the extent where you're ready to complain about him regardless of what he does. Try to wipe the slate clean - I haven't praised him for the best part of 2 years but credit where credits due. I could write another paragraph or two opposing each and every point you've made, but I really can't be arsed to get into a big debate with someone who's pathetic enough to imply that I'm too stupid to understand football and I clearly shouldn't be watching it.
I don't think you'll see Cairney play off the striker, he's always been a deep-lying kind of midfielder like Bullard. People think because he's creative he should play further up but you need other skills to play up there and I don't think Cairney would be suited to it.
It may sound like a daft suggestion when you belittle it like that, but it's not all about chances. The way we're playing at the moment, we could create 50 chances every game and still fail to score. It's all 'good performances, good football, attractive' yes. But it's not really getting us anywhere. We had an eleven game unbeaten run, yes, but it has to be one of the worst unbeaten runs in history - it was the equivalent of a WDL of 6-1-4.. hardly amazing. If we're always on the verge of being the best team in the league, but falling short every game, why not change it slightly?
Yeah, stick with the formation which allows us to look pretty but achieve nothing at all in almost every home game. Blind faith will sort the goals out.
I think it was a mistake to start Cairney last night, against the league leaders we should have kept with the two holding men in front of the defence, our defence looked more nervous than normal as a consequence. I didn't think Cairney had a bad game, but I didn't think he had a brilliant one either, for all his plus points there seem to be just as many negative points, which I find very frustrating. Rosenior can be forgiven for one bad performance, but questions have to be asked about Stewart now, he seems to be getting worse by the week.
I feel sorry for the lad because if he can't make the changes to his game that are needed then he won't get another chance in the Prem, because if he isn't going to play for us then the only way for him is down the leagues. Saying that the same thing didn't do Keith Andrews any harm.
I didn't think my post was that aggressive, and I think I made fair points. Never mind, we'll disagree. For the record, I want nothing more than for Tom Cairney to look like the midfielder he's billed to be. But he never does. Evans is a far better player, and I maintain that Cairney is very, very slow. Frustratingly slow. If anything, we need our attack momentum to increase. He pinged that shot well, other than that I don't think there was much. 90% of our good moments came because of King.
Your points weren't unfair.. everyone has an opinion but you were shoving yours down our throats, saying that anyone who disagrees with you clearly doesn't know what they are talking about and they shouldn't be watching the sport.
