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briny_ear

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Everything posted by briny_ear

  1. briny_ear
    I don’t think you need to speculate about fitness, Emery himself has said. Some players “are tired or with small pain” so he is waiting until tomorrow morning to finalise the team. This surely has to be a factor in judging team performance. It’s pretty clear that McGinn for example is off the pace since he took that knock in the Scotland game and has been playing in every match for us. However, I suspect the issue here may be we are looking at the same facts and drawing different conclusions. You have every right to focus on individual negative elements of our play because obviously there are some but I would prefer to focus on overall team performances and achievement and I think there is quite a lot of material on that front to be dwelling on. It's a racing certainty on paper and on history that we will lose to Man City tomorrow and I suppose that will lead to lots of hand-wringing and predictions of “disaster” so I think I shall be staying away from this site for a while.
  2. briny_ear
    Grealish out, Doku a fitness doubt, keep it rolling I say!
  3. briny_ear
    Well I have watched the match now and wouldn’t change any of my comments in that post. I accept it was silly of me to expect to get a sensible view of how the match was going from the match thread because it is increasingly bonkers these days. It is very frustrating though if it is your only source of information. The speed and ease with which people start turning on the players and then the manager is a bit alarming to me at least. Particular highlights were the call for Bailey to be taken off after 20 minutes, just before he scored his excellent goal; and the increasing talk of “disaster” as time went on. It’s a bit surprising that people hadn’t twigged that the Bournemouth game would be a tough one. Disaster is not where we are at, in fact I think we showed a lot of resilience in that match and could easily have won it with just a little more luck. The reactions thread is slightly different in that you expect people to reflect a bit more on the game and nobody is going to convince me that the overwhelming judgement of “poor” is a balanced appraisal. If, as I expect and hope, we make further progress in the Conference, the season will be increasingly tough for our players who will be playing a lot more football than many other teams, particularly the likes of Bournemouth. So, yes, other teams are going to look sharper at times and Emery’s attempts to shuffle the squad to share the burden is going to lead to less than perfect team play on our part at times. But I think under Emery we have a good chance things will get better because he works so hard with the players and seems to have a clear plan about how to achieve improvement. Let me finish with that idea of improvement, which is what I think we have seen in spades.
  4. briny_ear
    Looking at the highlighted comment, I’m wondering if you are 6 years old?
  5. briny_ear
    Yes, living memory was OTT obviously - I meant recent memory. My complaint about the reactions thread is that virtually everyone was saying the same thing, about how “poor” we were.. I was trying to put a different perspective.
  6. briny_ear
    Haven't watched the game yet -so won’t comment on that - was out at a concert this afternoon so was only able to keep in touch via bbc sport and VT match thread. Have to say the match thread was a disgrace - seems we need to sell all the players and sack the manager because we had a game in a tough Thursday-Sunday sequence where we were a little jaded and had to hang in to get a point from a lively Bournemouth side who have nothing to focus on but league survival. I can guarantee under the last two managers we would have lost that and not had the issue of European matches to help explain it. This thread is a bit of a disappointment as well. So critical and negative when we are having the best season in living memory. So many people saying we are “poor”. Somebody said in the match thread that we have been ”poor” since and including the Forest match. Well, we have won 4, drawn 1 and lost 1 during that time, so I conclude there is a very fine line between “poor” and “completely dominant” Shame people can’t just relax and enjoy the excellent season we are having and the great goals we are creating - two more excellent ones today. And maybe be a bit more understanding of the stresses that Thursday-Sunday match sequences impose on a squad that has not had years and years of investment to create to sort of depth you really need to withstand those pressures. Personally, I think we are doing brilliantly.
  7. briny_ear
    I’m not sure what is meant by “current trajectory” but if you go back to, say, the beginning of October, they have won 6, drawn 3 and lost 3, while we have won 8, drawn 2 and lost 1. So it looks like our “current trajectory” is maybe a little bit better.
  8. briny_ear
    We’re all doomed!!
  9. briny_ear
    Your customer has a weak bladder?
  10. briny_ear
    I wondered if they were concerned that every time they beat Legia for pace and skill, they would get scythed down by career-threatening tackles with little protection from the ref, so, having secured the lead, thought it best just to pass the ball amongst themselves and keep control in that way. They must be reasonably confident they can get a point against Zrinjski.
  11. briny_ear
    Oh blimey! This is complicated and legalistic. Do you think the final decision is made by the European Court of Justice???
  12. briny_ear
    Good news. I was worrying about people getting home safely.
  13. briny_ear
    Much better second half - I’m thinking of setting this up a a standard paragraph so I don’t have to type it every time! Another European win for our wily manager. Pity we gifted them a stupid goal but I think we have enough to top the group now. Superb return for Moreno. MOTM for me. And how fantastic to have Digne to bring on when he needed resting. We have not been so well served at LB for yonks No idea how we ended up with 4 yellows, same as them. I thought there was some seriously dangerous play from them tonight and the ref did nothing to constrain it. PS why are the TNT commentators so obsessed with us not getting the third goal? It’s laughable.
  14. briny_ear
    Not long to go now. Just need to keep control and then get down to the treatment room.
  15. briny_ear
    There are some **** disgraceful tackles going in now from these Warsaw thugs.
  16. briny_ear
    Good move to take McGinn off . He has looked out of it and we need him for Bournemouth. Not so sure about Tielemans. He can turn a game with a single pass even if not totally on form.
  17. briny_ear
    So who’s he going to bring on 2nd half. Definitely Ramsey for me and Bailey or maybe Zaniolo. Not so easy to know who to take off but Diaby has been disappointing since the goal.
  18. briny_ear
    Everton league cup? Anyway, this one isn’t over yet.
  19. briny_ear
    Olsen has had a good game so far.
  20. briny_ear
    **** hell Kamara you owe us now
  21. briny_ear
    It’s like, you pop out of the room for a couple of minutes and when you come back everyone is discussing selling John McGinn! And you think, “Whoa, where did this come from?” I haven’t been following this thread so I have no idea how we got to a position where there is even contemplation of selling McGinn, Bailey, Ramsey, Konsa, etc. - is this for the winter transfer window? Sounds completely barmy, or maybe a return to the Lerner era?
  22. briny_ear
    Similar picture for Bournemouth: 1-1 West Ham 0-2 Spurs Chelsea 0-0 Arsenal 0-4 Wolves 1-2 Burnley 2-1 Liverpool 1-2 Newcastle 2-0 So 8 points from 8.
  23. briny_ear
    That last sentence sounds a bit grudging. I think we did a bit more than “at least” taking the initiative in the second half. I’m pretty sure Emery, Edens and Sawiris won’t give a tinker’s cuss about the “doubters” and won’t see their main preoccupation as winning them over. We just need to go on accumulating points in the way we have been so far this season and the players need to keep working at mastering the way Emery wants them to play. They have been getting better progressively since October 2022.
  24. briny_ear
    So it’s partly about effective squad building. When Mings got his ACL, we had Pau Torres to step up. We have also been able to cover the absence of Buendia and Ramsey with any number of quality midfielders. Over to you, Spurs, how come with all your years of lavish spending, you are hosting a “second string squad” that you have to wheel out when you have some injuries and suspensions?
  25. briny_ear
    See your point but actually we have Ramsey and Moreno back - Ramsey came on as a sub on Sunday.
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