Nabby

Fatigue , I'm certainly fatigued listening to his bullshit excuses game after game

13 minutes ago, peterw said:

He only allows space because he gets pulled in, its down to jack to cover that space, too. Which in itself is the problem. jack should be further up the field and not doing the donkey work at the back. 

To me it seems the issue we have is we play 4-3-3 and the 3 in the middle are so narrow the 2 wider attackers end up covering the full backs as if its a traditional 4-4-2 .

Chelsea always had space wide as we had 3 Cm's all narrow to stop Chelsea playing through the middle of us then if we did get the ball the 2 wider attackers were then so deep the only outball was an isolated Davis.

Targett himself was ok he got some decent tackles in but he didn't get forward as he normally does and his link up with Jack was no where to be seen.

21 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Burnley worry me.

They're the team that seem least interested in project restart - seven subs, two of which were goalkeepers, a half hearted performance, manager and chairman at odds, fans being utterly moronic - they're a busted club.

They play Watford, West Ham, Brighton and Norwich.

 

I agree they have zero to play for and a small squad  at the least I can see Brighton and Watford taking points off them.

1 hour ago, hippo said:

you can't turn a struggling manager into a good one by beefing up his coaching staff. Its that sort of thinking that has stiffled us since MON left.

 

The coaching staff are they to follow the manager's instructions and idea's .You could bring in better coaches who have new training idea's drills etc but if Smith in our case wants to play a certain way ,a certain formation and pick certain players then no change of coaching staff is going to have a drastic effect.In our case Smith himself does the coaching on the training ground so bringing in other coaches won't change alot IMO 

If we lose to Newcastle that will be 1 point from 9 since restart , add that to points haul before the stoppage and its tough to see where he goes from there.Also for Purslow etc do they just give up like we did the season we went down or twist sack him and either let Terry have a go ( which could just be another mess like when Shearer took over at Newcastle ) or try a rescue specalist like Big Sam.Neither option looks great but its about changing the face on the sideline and hoping for a new manger boost - though having to be done in really difficult circumstances ...

Boro pulled the plug on Woodgate to go to Warnock we could have to do something similar.

Percy reported he was on way out if lost to Chelsea before the break and he as reliable as they come with Villa news so despite all the talk from Purslow it must have been discussed.I would think with the break and time to reflect it was worth another go but another non footballing perfomance like Chelsea and no points its tough to back him.

Looking at the state of Burnley tonight I can see the teams near us with them to play taking all 3 points.

7 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Bielsa was a new manager at Leeds as well so new manager bounce a shitty excuse. 

Leeds lost 2-0 to Cardiff yesterday, Villa lost to Chelsea its a big difference. Adomah also cant get in that Cardiff team

Adomah started yesterday ...but I agree he would of been awful in the Prem league he was already on the wane for us last season

Compare him to Loftus-Cheek for Chelsea also coming back from long spell out , both miles off the pace ..you need matches to gain match sharpness but his is a bit of a passenger out there at the moment.

7 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Did you see him not celebrating when we scored?

If he cares more about Chelsea than he cares about us that's a sackable offence. Get the f*** out

Yes thats clearly it he wanted Chelsea to win so his current team can move toward relegation leaving him either out of a job or working for a championship club ..ffs get a grip 

I think he is getting stick for his name  , any other coach wouldn't be getting complained at for not celebrating. I myself barely celebrated as was obvious we were in for a tough 2nd half .There have been plenty of times we have scored and Smith has shown little reaction too so this just seems like jumping on him as we were playing Chelsea .Does anyone really think he wanted us to lose yesterday ..really ? 

Also maybe he doesn't look impressed as after playing under some top manager he is watching what we are doing and thinking what a shambles. 

4 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Just like Stoke who went down with supposedly a squad who were going to storm it? 

Look at ourselves , we spend millions in that league and took us 3 years and loaning a ton of players to get up 

Look how many teams have gone down in recent seasons and not gone back up  its not that easy to replace a squad , perhaps a manager and turn around a losing team into one that starts winning straight away.

Then what we get promoted and have to do another rebuild , plus another season of struggle to stay in league whilst other teams move further us.

Relegation is a disaster 

2 minutes ago, useless said:

One of the reasons we had to buy so many players in the summer was because we loaned in too many players whilst in the championship, so I kind of agree with Purslow to an extent on that. If we go down, I think we should avoid loans as much as possible unless there's an option to buy.

Yes but there is balance IMO 

Instead of loaning 5 players you loan in 2 ..which is what we ended up doing anyway 

1 minute ago, dubbs said:

But we mostly agreed there's no point loaning players to develop them for other teams.  That's why we brought loads.  It might have worked,  it looks like it hasn't. 

Yes because people get this we are too big a club to develop other teams players  when really we needed to be pragmatic and say short term this is the brunt we will have to bear to stay in league.

As an example if Chelsea had no Transfer ban and Tammy was available for Loan would it have been wise to say oh no we don't want to develop him further or take the loan knowing it helps us stay in league and we can push on. I do understand the reluctance however to loan players with large loan fee's and stipulations like having to play them in certain % of games.

Reality is we got promoted using the loan market to our advantage we then decided we were too big/good to continue with that ...only to then have to change tact in Jan and loan 2 players.

Grealish game yesterday 

1)Run round chasing the Chelsea defenders back pass's to keeper 

2)Cover the full back positions 

3)Get fouled when trying to run with the ball , 9 fouls before Chelsea got a card for it.

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

Purslow was the one who fought for getting  Smith , When we go down I wonder if the owners decide he has to fall as well ?

He is 100% accountable , he was also the one with the no loans mantra in Summer when it was obvious we should of used Loans to supplement the small group we had so we could spend more on quality not quantity 

Just now, TRO said:

Not saying the comments on Hourihane are wrong, but here's the thing.

That left peg can't be chaperoned, because we don't have those players in the squad to do that.....as an example oliver Norwood who he is similar to, has players to cover the ugly stuff...Conor don't have that, so his passive play gets highlighted.

He is not a ball winner, but because we don't have one, with any competence, he is scapegoated to a degree.

I do agree, we could do with a better version of him.....but it is unfair to blame him for things the club have got wrong.

He is a weapon at times, and we ain't got many of them.

Every team has a player like conor in terms of workrate......but them have others to compensate, we don't.

I agree with this , he has traits we can use but not in the way we deployed him yesterday 

If Smith is sacked will any Prem league club hire him ..no 

As bad as we where yesterday the concept of being harder to beat is something we should of employed earlier in the season , not right at the end we are trying to change the system. I recall when we played Watford at home they scored and then spent rest of game time wasting that's what we did yesterday , every throw in we took an age at and players looked like they didnt want the ball which ended up with Konsa getting a booking for time wasting ! 

From what  I could see we had the front 3 running after shadows up top as Chelsea played round them , who then spread the ball out wide to players constantly with no one near them to get cross's in.Those front three after running round up top then chased back to cover the wings.No only will the loss hurt but I think we will have worn out the players for the next game.Hourihane had a decent game against Shef U but to play him with the tactics yesterday was bewildering , he is simply not the type of player you can play to chase the ball around like that and his made contribution to the team is as a forward thinking player ..you can argue he might be better on ball than Nakamba but Nakamba is a better player when you need someone to chase and make tackles.

I also don't understand the like for like subs ...the first sub Samatta for Davis does Smith think fresh legs up top are going to make much differance when we can't keep hold of the ball for 10 seconds anywhere on the pitch ? If you are chasing game why not keep AEG on with Trez and drop Jack deeper , ffs he is already tracking back so he might has well play CM at least he can get on ball and attract players to him leaving space on the wings for balls to be played in.Why not 2 strikers Davis and Samatta are willing runners they can run the channels to make up for taking off a winger ..Why not as you have 3 cbs on go 3 at the back stick emlo on and go with him and Targett as WB's

This isn't just an issue yesterday I recall v Bournmouth down to 10 we kept 3 cbs on when they have one striker , we are trying to get a goal with 3 cbs looking after one player .

If any of these Kids inc Louie Barry are any good we need them on Bench , pointless having Baston there if we are playing one up front and they can't be anymore LW than Jota.

Smith put all eggs in basket to beat Newcastle now , we can only hope now they are safe they are not at races and they are looking at the FA cup game , but I'm sure will want to get one over us to prove a point and in Saint-Maximum they have someone with Pace we lack immensely 

Myabe the squad isn't good enough and yes we were always likely to struggle but I can't understand how you watch that first 45 mins and send out the team with no changes and when you do make a change its to change your lone striker for another lone striker ...basically lets put fresh legs up front to run around and chase aimless balls...

Injured , Achillies 2 weeks from fitness 

53 minutes ago, Adbo9 said:

I say this with a tin hat on, but we blow Mings out of all proportion on here as well

Hes been decidedly average this season, just shows how shit England are off for centre backs that he gets a gig for them

I thought he was a bit suspect all game , dwalded on the ball at times and alot of poor long balls

Not even on the bench 

Having him back will improve our crossing into box as I can see him running into the left channel ahead of Jack to cross into the box and of course he can take SP and Corners 

Many things we need to improve on but the top 2 

1)Defence - simply has  to be better , we have no hope if we can't start getting cleansheets 

2)Providing Samatta with chances , we know he is great in the air we need to get balls into the box as much as we can

3 hours ago, The_Steve said:

Also, why are Spurs being bailed out by the Bank of England? They shouldn't be allowed on the scheme. They've basically got zero per cent interest rate loans. One of the richest owners. Clubs will be going bust in lower divisions. Slap in the face.

So they are borrowing this cash as they are expecting a 200mil loss , so by borrowing is this a way around FFP 

I notice United have also taken a loan out 

Is it the case that an owner can't put in money due to FFP but loaning from a bank is allowed ..

41 minutes ago, imavillan said:

 

It's a change of the rules with 75% of the season already completed.

I'm sure there are many many games which have already taken place where clubs would have liked to have made additional subs but couldnt.

In my view it's pathetic and stinks.

I agree  you can be relegated now because a team makes a 5th sub who scored where as in the corresponding  game you only had 3 subs 

I also think it will stay going forward or at least the 9 subs on the bench ( I think Italy already allows more subs on bench that PL)