First off chuffed Sam is now the man, but if im honest never watched too much of his football unless he was playing us. Iirc he likes to play a target man, 5 in midfield utilizing 2 wingers. Did wonders with Downing in the "false 10 role" last year... so who and how ? My Best GUess ---------------Pants------------------ Yedlin--O'shea--Kaboul--Jones ------------Mvilla---Catts------------ Borini--------------------------Lens -------------Defoe-------------------- ------------Fletcher or OLA--------- I dont think he will even bother with AJ until his mess is sorted, and will use PVA as a winger when legs are tiring. mY bad if this has been done already , had a quick look and saw nowt
He always claims he sets up to get the best out of any particular group. I reckon he'll set up similarly to Dick. He should sort the defence out and M'Villa is tailor made for Big Sam, I'm pretty sure Anelka played some of best football under Sam. So sure he can coax the best out of our troubled French worldie!
I'd pretty much expect exactly that kind of line up. 2 CDM's one to break up play and the other to dictate it then 3 behind the striker drifting in or out. At West Ham last year the fans were pretty unfair, we got dogs abuse from the media for how we treated him but the football was total and utter garbage. Last year they were playing decent football and getting really good results - he has developed as a manager and loves all the stats and percentages (he really pushed all the opta stats info on each of our games and talked "second ball percentage" a lot). Not at all the 'old school' manager some people try and make out.
Think we should be prepared for a "dogs of war" mentality, the likes of Catts, M'Villa are very much Big Sam's type of player, I doubt very much teams will look now forward to playing Sunderland like they have done in the recent past.
I can see seb getting al ot more game time as well. Maybe not starting like. Anyone know how Sam does with youth? Blood them in slowly or straight in at the deep end?
He'll get the best from our defence - I feel we may see a re invented Kaboule - the type of player who will excel with SA guidance - maybe Coates ?
I love all this optimism, lets all get behind Big Sam, lets show all these snipers and rumour mongers in the media they were well wrong, the signs are good, and everyone has something to gain from an up-turn, cant wait, with a bit of luck the next six games could see us out of the bottom three.
He did a fantastic job at West Ham, sadly the vocal minority wouldn't shut up about 'the West Ham way' which I've rarely seen in my 30yrs as a hammer apart from a few under Redknapp. He gave us a steel we've never had, but he wasn't given the time to build a really good side like he had at Bolton (his final 3 years there qualifying for UEFA). how much time will you give him,. though? you'll be watching fairly dire football for a while, but grinding out results, will a couple of seasons finishing mid-table have you dreaming you can do better?
What a good question that is. Mid table after the last 3 seasons is a hell of a plus. Get it steady. After that? Strewth. Food for thought there all right. Deal with it if/when we get there I suppose. Hope we get there. Shame you only get 1 like for a hell of a question. That`s a beauty please log in to view this image Going to cost me sleep now. Twat
Neither have I mate, because it was. Imagine if it happened though. I`m off to bed to dream about the dizzy heights of mid table and because I need all the beauty sleep I can get. Hell of a question though. I hope we get to the stage where we start to think about answering it.
Got to look back to when Reid took us to 7th twice, as I remember I was just euphoric throughout and just enjoyed without expectation, It was the gift that kept on giving those two seasons. Didn't expect it to fall apart in the two seasons that followed though. Massive fall from grace.
