Chicken Field

Interesting view, as mine is the complete opposite. I generally think Watkins is at his best when we are on the back foot and playing counter attacking football. He generally seems to struggle to create space when we are in possession and on top of games, seems to get frustrated and try to much when he is not fed quickly, for instance, by going out of position. I feel like he needs to learn to adapt his game when we are on top

I think the wing players arent expected to contribute with so many goals/assists, just look at pino and baena at Villareal. I think Emery has different expectations than us normal people

Today was a near on perfect performance, every single player delivered, perfect tactics, perfect everything. It'll be interesting seeing what we can do after Emery adds new players (hopefully everyone is as quality as Moreno).

Agreed, they'd be 100 million a player if they could do everything My point was just that I'm very certain that Emery looks at more than just goal contributions, as they need to contribute in other ways for the rest of the game, hence why he has deployed players like Buendia, coutinho and Ramsey on the wings, they contribute in build up and general play, rather than traditional explosive wingers. Baena and Pino who were typically the wing players for Villareal do not have the most impressive goal contribution stats, but are very effective in general play.

It's possible to have decent goal contribution stats and still be inconsistent. I think what Lexicon is implying is that Barnes is streaky, he'll pop up with at goal contribution and then disappears, just like El Ghazi, Trezeguet and Traore do. I think we need wingers that are more consistent and visible throughout the game, wingers that participate in keeping possession, build ups and overall play, who also have to be defensively solid to, rather than wingers that pop up with goals here and there and then disappear. I personally have not seen much of Barnes, can't say if he's good or not. I though wasn't overly impressed by his overall game yesterday, altough his goal was very impressive

Two can play at that game, did I actually say that you said that it hadn't worked? It is very easy to, apparently, misread you post. In fact, you definitely did not imply anything positive in you post what so ever and sound incredibly negative, towards playing around at the back and our "brain farting" defenders. The only thing that you mention, that is actually positive, you've made sound like a negative thing by saying "it just invites pressure", which is exactly the intention when playing at the back like that.

I agree.. Passing it around the back is basically just for making us look more attractive, it's dangerous and does not work, especially when Mings is playing. I mean, just look at our results since we started passing it around the back, clearly not working...

I thought hiring mon was exactly what we needed then, the problem was that football was developing an moving at a million miles an hour back then and mon failed to develop with the football The one issue I have with unai is that I have nothing to complain about at the moment, what a manager and i am really looking forward to next season!!

Links to players such as Bamba make me excited. It also made me wonder if we have ever had a spine of a squad that has basically not been more or less solely build up with only British players? Next season we could line up with an argentine goalkeeper, brazilian and italian (if he is anywhere near ready) center backs, french and brazilian center midfielders, basically the spine of the team.

We could probably have been more physical in those games, altough using the frequency of fouls given commited is the wrong measurement of physicality imo.

On average fouls per match we are joined 4th to 7th. Man utd are the only team above us in the league table that have committed the same amount, no team above has commited more. Honurable mentions go to Arsenal who are 16th, liverpool (terrible season) are 18th and man city 19th most fouls commited.

Was not meant as a critique of Carlos, but because of his injury, he hasn't been able to improve us

Being stuck midtable is really boring. Our signings just haven't been good enough. Players like Bailey, Coutinho, Digne, Carlos etc. are ambitious signings, none of them have really worked out for us. We are still mainly reliant on players bought with the goal of staying up/getting us to midtable, like Mings, Konsa, Luiz, Watkins etc. (some of these are defo good enough to be top half/europa league players). Very disapointing overall, still much better than midtable championship. Hopefully our transfer activity will change and improve now we have a world class manager with a clear goal.

Yuup, i think the booing has been embarrassing.. i also noticed multiple times yesterday that when our defenders would pass it around or take some tempo out of the game, the fans would start panicking and shouting/moaning, multiple times it affected the players who just went on to hoof it.. Honestly think the home support, also the support online, has been pretty pathetic since Emery joined, no patients whatsoever and unforgiving

Well, as a midtable team, we will have slip us. We have a new manager, who has got us a ridiculous amounts of points so far and we have played incredible attacking football (granted disastrously bad defending). I would much rather focus on the positives than the negatives

Encouraging signs though, on another day wed be 7-3 up

Just me that thinks we are playing absolutely fantastic, the amount of chances we ha e created is ridiculous Frustrating hame though with too many silly mistakes

So we have decided to write this guy of before he has even played a game, basing his ability on youtube compilation videos? Suggesting that we should rather use a striker who has had one unsuccessful loan in the national league and 7 goals in 23 championship games, who's been in and around the first team, without breaking through, for two years under three manager (4 if we rightly disregard Gerrard and consider his assistants as the managers), instead of a guy two years younger with three first team national games, who before he turned 19 years old had 17 league goals to his name, probably deemed more ready for our team by our world class manager? this because of effin youtube compilation videos? BTW, I like Cam, I hope and believe he has a chance of being a success for us.

First of, who should we loan? Secondly, I'd rather we save the money and sign the players we actually want. Loans aren't free.

#emeryout

Agreed. We, at best, have a tiny chance of european qualification this season, even if we sign 3x more players. There is absolutely no reason for us to panic buy players this transfer window, worst case scenario we finish 13th or something.

A bit of an overreation on here (shock) on us not making more signings, I think everyone involved at the club would have liked a few signings but when non are available, I'd rather we wait than buy garbage or pay way over their worth, we are actively selling members of our current bomb squad, we do not need to add to it. This also gives Emery plenty of time to assess the players, who will adapt and who have the right characteristics, who knows, maybe some players may actually improve under Emery given some time.

Fins rhe critism of him to be hilarious. I've never seen fans be so critical of a coach before, without there being some obvious thing they have done wrong. I truly believe all the critism of him has only startet because of his hair, because the fanbase has absolutely no idea what his role truly is and how he is doing

That people are even attempting to blame Olsen for the goal is mind boggling to me, the fault lies 100% with Dendonkcer, it was a terrible touch, terrible decision making and also a terrible attempt to give away a freekick, at least foul him before he reaches the penalty area instead of that half-arsed attempt, he gets sent of either way. Dendoncker has three options there, pass it to his left (where Olsen is clearly indicating him to pass it), pass it back to Olsen who hoofs it or hoof it himself.

A bit harsh as all reports say hes taken a massive wage cut. If he only wanted money hed stay at Barcelona and the go to some obscure league like mls or Saudi arabia