djdabush

We get worse every week. For all the talk of playing attractive, attacking football, I haven’t seen any since before Christmas. I don’t like constantly changing managers and I want to give him time but I just can’t see it getting any better when we carry on playing with no obvious style of play.

Thought he was pretty poor when he came on but he got in the right position and took his goal well and that's something that no other winger is doing at the moment. Really hope that the goal gives him a bit of confidence and if he gets a run of games he can get provide another threat alongside Abraham.

Feels strange, because it feels like we didn't really deserve a point with that performance, yet with the dodgy refereeing decisions it seems the least we deserve. Need to play with the intensity we did in the last 15 minutes and actually go out and attack teams. Even though we conceded 3 thought Elphick and particularly Mings played well.

The state of this ref.

Just now, BOF said:

I know, but going from Bruceball to Smithball will always have pain involved. And for the majority of it we were chopping and changing the centre backs. We'll go backwards to go forwards. But if fans are always baying for blood then we'll never go anywhere. 

Problem is Smith is playing Bruceball and has been for about 6 weeks now.

Thing that I hated about Bruce was that we didn't have a style or identity to our play. In the first month or two, I saw us press high up the pitch, play from the back and look to dominate possession. I don't see any identity or style to our play anymore. I can forgive us not winning every game and having off days, but the fact that we have reverted to type in the way that we play is what really frustrates me.

Just now, Michelsen said:

He held it in two hands. What more can he do?

Push the initial shot away from their player? Not fall on his backside with a slow looping header? It was offside and a foul, however he didn't deal with it well at all.

Ref is absolutely diabolical, however it doesn't take away from the fact that Kalinic made a complete hash of that.

I enjoyed Copenhagen, thought Malmo wasn't particularly interesting. It's fine but doubt you'd want to spend much more than a day there so travelling over to Copenhagen and pretending you're in a Scandi drama might be the order of the day.

12 minutes ago, Dale said:

Coffee or dining? What do you mean regarding the offers? 

Can't speak for the coffee or dining but presumably they are contract offers for next season as his contract runs out with Villa in July.

What I'm saying is that if a player is genuinely is such a bad state that they can't train and can barely walk after a game then the medical team should probably recommend that he's given some time to recover, even if have to play Hause or Bree. I imagine, however, that those reports are somewhat exaggerated.

Call me sceptical but apparently the medical staff are being extra cautious with Grealish and holding him back until they are sure he's not going to reaggravate his injury yet they are happy to let Chester play when he's not training and can barely walk after the match? Seems odd to me.

I thought he was better when he was asked to push forward in the second half but lacked the quality when he actually got in a decent position. Another one we need to replace this window.

Reminds me of Westwood in that his stats look ok but he never seems to have impact on the game. A 'passer' who's passing is particularly hit and miss. On a few occasions today he gave away the ball in our defensive third. McGinn's having to do the job of three men at the moment.

I'm not certain he's ready to be a regular player for us yet, I'd have rather he'd stayed at Portsmouth as I think he would have developed more there. 

Made a massive difference when we pushed a midfielder further forward to get into the box, unfortunately that player was Bjarnason. We need someone in that role though, even when Grealish is injured as otherwise Abraham is completely isolated.

I'll pretend Hutton meant that and didn't slip and mishit it.

I was definitely in favour of bringing Smith in and I'm certainly not calling for his head but it's very concerning when we get worse every week and the good things that we saw a month ago look a million miles away from anything the team can produce at the moment. Clearly the injuries to Grealish and Tuanzebe haven't helped but this is the worst football I've seen us produce since Di Matteo. A massive second half for us, this.

Looking forward to Smith's interview where he says about how much the players are hurting and how he's expecting a reaction in training next week.

Absolutely shocking. This is worse than under Bruce.

It seems that the more match fit Bolasie is, the worse he plays.

They were dreadful in that game too, made our defensive displays look somewhat competent in comparison.

7 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

Not checked the maths but the Internet seems to be saying May won the VONC by 52% to 48 %

 

Twitter presumably will start the campaign for a rerun of the vote tomorrow

 

I hear Corbyn is planning another VONC which is laughable really. We all know that if you win by 52% then there should never ever be another vote and the will of parliament has spoken.