Whilst the teams that finished 1st and 2nd in the Championship now occupy 19th and 18th in the Premier the side that had to play off namely WHU are 7th in the Premiership with 14 points - What have they done that we havent have they bought better - adjusted their game plan - they do have a manager with Premiership experience obviously is that the defining difference ?
Their focus is on securing Premier League safety at all costs. Our focus is on slowly working on a project that will turn the club into a real competitor in the Premier League in the next 5 years. A graph would show it best, but I can't be bothered, anyway, they made quick, sudden rise to thrust themselves up to a level at which they can stay in the Premier League with a reasonable degree of comfort, which it looks like they will, but they will plateau there and be stuck as a result of their short-term solution rather than long term planning. Our graph is a more steady one, we'll be worse than them for a while, but if the plan works which, despite a real struggle so far this season, I believe it will, we will rise above them and become a much better team than them for the forseeable future. A perfectly sensible plan by them, and they don't have billions of pounds backing them, but the way the the two teams have started is not entirely surprising nor that worrying from our point of view. Reading on the other hand. I don't like to be entirely dismissive of other teams and not give them the credit they deserve, but let's face it, they just aren't as good as us or West Ham. They did well to put together the run they did to boost them to the title, but I think it's fairly clear that we and West Ham were the better teams last season, and we're the better teams this season. Reading also don't have billions backing them nor did they have a particularly talented squad to begin with, those two factors have meant that they are a way off in terms of quality.
I think if we had played the same games as them we would have more points but defensively they are coping much better ha us with basically last seasons defence. Down to coaching or PL experience? I don't know.
West Ham were right behind us last season, so little between us really at that point. Remember we almost blew it...perhaps that was a sign or just demonstrated nerves. I agree about Reading...well done to them for stringing it together, but with more resiliance we should have had the title. Last season we were exciting, but every game we had panicky moments where we averted disaster by last ditch defending or luck. That worried me at the time. West Ham bought players to keep them in the PL and nothing wrong with that. They have more experienced players than we have. Cortese has a very laudable idea of how he wants Southampton to play. He hired a manager with similar ideas and the players that could carry it out and we got back to back promotions. Only time will tell if we are in a settling in period and we can stay up playing this way. It may have been time to be pragmatic and spend more time and money on defence and get someexperience in. Have to say that Nigel has been very unlucky with injuries to Fox, Richardson, Cork and Ramirez.
I think had they had our set of games they would maybe have ground out one or two more points and sure as hell would not have conceded in the way we have and they did in fact beat Fulham 3 0.But i think you are right Sam is not exactly loved but he is a seasoned P L manager and it,s proving a big help to them they seem solid and organised and we know he likes a few strong lads in his teams .Sadly we have become very brittle and when we concede one you feel another one is on it,s way in a lot of our games we have played well and then we throw the game away usually in a 20 min period ,and quite often through our own ineptitude.It will be interesting to see where we finish in relevance to them come May
I don't get the short-term v long-term argument. When I was working for a living rather than living off the rest of you (thanks by the way) we used to do both, with a bit of mid term thrown in. I admired the fact that SFC could attract some bright young talent like Nathaniel Clyne to join us with what must have been the promise that he wouldn't simply watch from the bench. But with every new acquisition I found myself asking where were the old heads we'd need? Lawrie Mac was no idiot. In an interview immediately after the Coventry game he talked of the need to bring in seasoned players. Who did we get? No-one who even vaguely fitted the description. And I'm not talking ale-house brawlers. When we had Frank Worthington as an oldie pulling the strings for the likes of Danny Wallace was the football crap? The youth-first policy is great, but their morale will start to go if we have many more 4-1 defeats against a team with which we should be competing.
The planning for the long haul is a smokescreen , I suppose West Ham are not doing that ? West Ham academy has always been a failure ? Come on guys wake up and get real , they bought as they saw fit and it has worked , we did not buy in the right places and its showing , that is painfully obvious . There way has worked for now ours has not , ours make work again in the Championship whilst West Ham can tweek theirs in the Premiership .
I believe there is room for short term planning to stay in the PL and for long term planning for where we see ourselves in the future. Has gomarchingin just changed his views to short-termism...thought he was against that yesterday!
I shall look over your typo as you looked over mine...................... We need more than two defenders , are you for real ? We need more than that Christ alive . I thought you were a football man .
We played yesterday with a debutant keeper, and a Centre Back at Left Back. I wasn't at the game so can't really comment, but I think those simple facts speak for themselves.
No I believe I have always stated we have to stay in the Premeirship for this season no matter how much it costs , please read all of my posts .
Debutant keeper is a smokescreen and deflection , he is crap but he is used to playing in front of 60,000 every other week , our defenders have been out of posistion willingly or not all season .
Being allowed to hand pick seven of the easiest eight fixtures to start might be something to do with it. Ok, obviously that's not entirely true but they have managed to avoid most of the top teams and therefore they have had an excellent start. We did not and we have struggled. However, it's still early in the season, and fortunately for us our run in looks a bit like their start. If we can all keep our heads until then, we might find we have a chance. Still a long way to go of course, a couple of wins next month and everyone is happy again.
They've bought a lot of proven players in their prime from ages 26-29. And have a manager who has been there and done it, plus having some easier fixtures than us not sure about reading. For what it's worth I think we'll finish within a place of them.
I dont see why we have gambled with our status when we did not need to gamble on it , spending money now and getting it back from being there is better than saving now and losing a lot later .
People seem th forget that our form and momentum was pretty much gone by January last year. Our form after that point last year wouldn't even of got us a play off place. Now the momentum is well and truly gone we off nothing to play off and use to help us win games.
It's about tactics and quality. West Ham were the only side to get promoted who on paper should have been. Allardyce is a negative manager and you need to attack teams if you want to win games, West Ham got so many 0-0's, particularly at home where teams parked the bus, and this cost them automatic promotion. For a side like West Ham, getting draws will be good for them because they're only looking at getting mid-table, draws for a side going for automatic promotion is not good, however. You add to the fact that Allardyce has Premiership experience and a lot of the players do and you will see why they are doing really well. On the subject of us, we are a very positive and attacking team. Adkins goes out to win every game, anyone can beat anyone in the Championship and it was a wise tactic. We are still trying to win every game now, even though we are in a much tougher division. Another reason why we are strugglign is becasue our defensive mistakes are costly, we got away with a lot of these in the Championship. Reading's problem is that last season they would defend and tire out the opposition and then counter attack and win one nil. Reading are sitting back now and because the opposition's attack is better, they are conceding. They then have to go forward to get something from the game and they don't have many goals in the team so it is hard to score. On top of thism they then leave themselves open and are then able to concede more goals.
