So the bubble's burst. Sir Neil's accused of being spineless, cowtowing to Joey B, and a poor tactician who sticks to one up front, even at home. Is Barton a real leader or just a big mouth? Will we get Hill back? Will Taarabt rejoin the learning curve he was on before the Fulham debacle? Will Faurlin come as good as some suggest? Will Bothroyd stop arsing around and start scoring? Now we know what fallible means, what d'you reckon's been happening at Harlington? All sorted and solid as a rock - or irretrievably fragmented and destined to fail? Heads rather than hearts on this one please.
I play Football manager. And when you have a player sent off, and you're in the post match interview, they ask you about it. One of the options you can pick basically goes along the lines of 'he'll learn from this experience.' And I think that the team will. Hell, we've played 4 games together now. They're still learning each others game, and for a lot of them they're learning NW's style. Hell, some might even be learning from Joey's philosophical posts on twitter. I think I said before, the first 3 games after the transfer deadline were very nice surprises. To have gelled so quickly as a unit gives a lot of hope for the rest of the season. And I do think they have gelled. We knew that Adel would throw his toys out of the playpen at some point, and I'd rather it happened in a game that the whole team ****ed up, than him being the sole reason we lose a game. We all knew we'd get tonked some time this season - and I'm pretty sure the players knew this as well. But I think that, happening when it did, when we've got an international break without losing too many players to international teams, Warnock can get the players heads back in the game in time to welcome Blackburn. We might even get a point or two from the 3 games after that....
I'm not looking beyond next Saturday. A good, positive performance and the first home win of the season, and the we'll be back on track. Anything less, and the doubters will be out in force...
Warnock's a great man manager, have faith. Is Barton a real leader or just a big mouth? He'll come good Will we get Hill back? I think we have to with the Dire news Will Taarabt rejoin the learning curve he was on before the Fulham debacle? Big tart Will Faurlin come as good as some suggest? yes but he divides opinion, doesn't he! Will Bothroyd stop arsing around and start scoring? I'm worried about this lads confidence, and he needs a goal quick, or I can see him being this years boo boy
what we need to learn is patience (still not sure about barton being a team player though) putting in all those new players was never gunna gel quickly enough i am just glad fulham played midweek and were tired or god knows what the score would have been
I'm not sure about all that but one thing I feel strongly about is that Warnock has to pick players with the right attitude. I know that good attitude only gets you so far but it has to be the basis of the team. Even Taarabt usually has a good attitude, he just hasn't developed much adult maturity yet and so he reacts unresponsibly to things. He needs to stop being a baby. But if Barton really is being an arsehole then Warnock needs to tell him to either get in line or **** off, and the same goes for anyone else. With that said, Barton still ran all over the place at Fulham so it wasn't like he stood still and did nothing.
It's evident that now's the time to consolidate. Apart from Warnock's performance going forward, the common denominator for the players mentioned in the OP hinges around the word solid. If Barton, Taarabt, Faurlin and Bothroyd can depense with all the flighty stuff on and off the pitch, we've got a good chance of forging a solid team to squad mind-set. That's what we and they need right now. [Kenny, Young, Gabbidon, Traore (to a large extent), Derry and SWP all have the character to deliver the necessaries week in week out.] I do rate Warnock - but the question of his ability at this level reverberates doesn't it? He's got to improve tactically and choreograph formations to suit the occasion. If we don't, we become staid, predictable and therefore infinitely beatable. There have to be contingencies that come into play when things ain't working. Motivating key players by fetching and carrying for them will ultimately conflict and compromise management authority. You just cannot allow the tail to wag the dog. Sir Neil needs to detatch a little and get respect from the key culture carriers sufficient to adjust their focus away from ego and into reliable diligence on the pitch. That's the kind of solidity we need right now. Question is, will we have found it in time to sort Blackburn out before the big boys take the stage? Jury's out - but the signs are certainly good when it comes to the Championship stalwarts: Smith, Helguson, Hall, Orr and to some extent Connolly have all done what's been asked of them so far. Looking forward to seeing how Mackie pans out. With him it won't be for the want of trying, that's for sure.
Not sure Barton cares enough about QPR to come good. Agree we need to re-call Hill. Your usual bollocks re Adel Northy!! You would have hated Stan Bowles too!! I think Faurlin is Prem class. I agree that Bothroyd is low on confidence, although I also believe that he may not have the right attitude to get himself going. Needs a spell on the bench imo.
That was an affectionate "big tart" Col And we'd better hope Barton comes good the contract he's got! Takes a bit of time to settle in eh, geezers a Northerner through and through [video=youtube;qamVB4ixxGs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qamVB4ixxGs[/video]
I think Neil would have got them all together, and told them, in no uncertain terms, that the honeymoon period is now well & truly over. It's now time for the likes of Barton, Swp & Bothroyd to start producing. Even against Fulham we had some good possession but didn't know how to use it effectively in the final third. And the same could be said for the Newcastle & Villa games to some extent. I think we need to reverse our play to that of the opposition. By that, I mean we have a lot of possession where our opponents sit back & look to counter attack. I feel that we need to learn to play with more urgency and a higher tempo. The game v Blackburn is a crucial one, and will set the tone for what we can expect for the rest of the season. It will tell us everything we need to know about our team & our players. Yet more importantly, it will tell us everything we need to know about Neil Warnock and his ability to manage at this level.
What have we learned? If the other team score more goals than us then they win and get 3 points If the other team suck us in then strike when it's their chance they score This can carry on until 90 mins us up and could reach 10 goals against Yet we have a team full of premiership players now so we must be rubbish We need to take every chance We are good enough for a mid table spot We will turn teams over as we did at wolves we also will lose heavy again I am sure We need to be the underdog to click People thought we would beat fulham and maybe we got a bit cocky? We have enough in tank when we need to get a result ... HH and tommy smith v Aston Villa
Somewhere in between. It's a long season. No doubt with many ups and downs. It was a big down Fulham, but let's not overreact. We have new owners, money, manager, players and supporters good enough to avoid a drop back down. So lets keep faiith even if the results don't pick up again straight away..
Great thread Brixton and a lot of great points here. Most reasoned thread i have read in ages. The key point for me is that we all love our team and only want to see the players/team/management succeed. Nobody want to see our beloved club get thumped 6-0. Kiwi said we need patience and he is right. Its prob the one thing that all of us football fans do not have a lot of. NW has brought in several new players. We all know they will need time. The worrying thing about the Fulham result was the fact that it was 6-0. Only Utd / Chelsea/ City should be capable of doing that to us. It puts us all on edge when we see the likes of Fulham doing that to us. But it should be a reality check to us all. We have no god given right to win matches in this league. Results have to be earned the hard way in the Prem. Players and management have to be consistently on song for us to pick up points. If we beat Blackburn then we need to stay relaxed and realise that we will have 10Pts and are half way to our necessary christmas target of 20Pts. No need to panic just yet. However, us fans have the right to ask certain questions. It does not mean we are criticising players or management, we are just expressing our opinions and asking for others. There are concerns over the quality of some of our players, over the attitude of others and over the experience (at this level) of our manager. They are all relevant concerns and people are entitled to ask these questions. Its what makes this board interesting. Hopefully we will get 3pts this weekend, Bootsy will score and we hit 10Pts. I would like to see NW experiment a little this weekend against one of the weakest teams in the league and see how that goes. IMO we are too one dimentional and easy to read at the moment. Other managers do have a brain and can easily work us out. Anyway, just my thoughts.
I think Warnocks tactics last season and so far this season, only playing 1 up front, has largely been governed by the fact he just hasn't had 2 decent strikers to play up front together at the same time. Not so much last season as it was more a case of setting things up to let Adel do his thing, but this season we are buggered until January. If we were to play both Dj and Betty up front, that would only leave us with HH in reserve, so If either one got injured we'd be left without any cover. I think Warnock admitted himself that we will need to change our formation, but so far this season we haven't had much luck with the virus that hit the squad and other injuries. I think we're just going to have to plod along and do the best we can until we can bring in another striker in January. Then maybe we can see if Warnock can make things more attacking.
Anybody know of a decent stricker that may be available on loan. Surely Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, City or Utd have a decent stricker that is not getting games. Even a loan until xmas would help.
Have I missed something? Was it Barton that left the ground before full time and abandoned his team mates or Taraabt?
Three critical factors - injuries as we have no strength in depth (and this will be true for some positions even if we get a couple more in during January); Warnock's ability to adjust the team to different circumstances during games; and goals - someone has to start scoring regularly. Sorry, there's a fourth - spirit. Some time ago there was a thread about the 'crazy gang' spirit (but not the hoofball). I think we will find out over the next four games - decent performances, even if we don't win, against the bigger teams are vital - a couple more spineless defeats and we are in a downwards spiral.
