Keener window-cleaner

Great game plan.

20 minutes ago, a m ole said:

I’ve watched 11 months of Gerrard ball. 

I know how it feels... I think it’s only McLeish that I have disliked more. Or actually I didn’t dislike the person McLeish as much as I dislike Gerrard.

1 hour ago, useless said:

Could this be related to compensation or money for new managerial coaching team...

 

Could it be that they are buying out Purslow’s shares in some way?

32 minutes ago, duke313 said:

Taking nothing away from Emery, as he done a fantastic job at Sevilla winning an historic 3 Europa Leagues in a row. A big part of there success though was the recruitment from Monchi. I suspect Lange would fall short in matching that, if Emery were to take charge of us.

I dont doubt that he is a top class manager, but the video says masterclass and when watching it, it’s nothing at all.

4 hours ago, a m ole said:

can’t imagine Gerrard doing one of these

What was impressive with this? He spends a good 13 mins saying both teams played 4-2-3-1 and describing the game. Then they went slightly more direct in second half. At the end Liverpool threw in two tall strikers in Benteke and Origi, so they played more 4-4-2 and more defensively in the last minutes.

It gave me as much as when Thierry Henry stood in a suit in the Sky Sports studio explaining vividly the super intelligent tactics of playing a through ball behind the defence and having a striker run for it.

3 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

4 years ago by Barcelona... And that's the most annoying thing about it, he failed at barca because they stuck him out there and he wasn't good enough there, we've done exactly the same

Yes, and an interesting thing is that when Barca bought him, and how they justified his big price tag, was that he would be the long term replacement for Iniesta, who played centrally and further down the pitch. That's where I'd like to see us try to play him, or as a no 10.

I think he has been hung out to dry playing him as a wide forward, he never was fast, and certainly isn't now, his work rate is low and he looks tired everytime he makes a longer run, he is getting very exposed as a wide forward.

He still has a lot of football in him and has still both top class technique and passing ability. It would be perfect for him to play as a 10 in a 4-2-3-1 (would also be perfect for most of our other players bar McGinn).

I wonder if we even could do like Man U and Ten Hag has done with Eriksen, play him as one of the two holding midfielders to improve the passing and possession. Against the mid table and lower table teams we could play with Coutinho and Luiz there and boss the game with their passing, against the top 6 we could have big Donk and and Nakamba there to destroy the game, even replacing the no 10 with a midfielder like Luiz to swamp the midfield fully. 

I'd like to know and hear from the owners what their ambitions are at the moment. I'm fairly happy with the net spend considering we have probably increased our wage bill significantly, but it's not really a going for Europe-places spending, more like keeping us mid table and not regressing kind of spending.

As the owners are spending their own money, I guess they are a bit more careful than for example City or Newcastle or Chelsea, where the owners are spendning other peoples money, money from oil-state investment funds or private equity funds.

I think it's funny that he constantly says that he fronts up and wont hide from the responsibility, still he over and over again throws the players under the bus (not s much today though), blames injuries or bad luck or whatever, and doesn't thank the fans after the games but just goes down the tunnel. He does exactly the opposite of what he says.

One positive note today was that he defended Mings, perhaps he is learning something at least. 

We were good for 30 mins, had many corners and cause some real havoc on a couple of occations with good chances. But that changes nothing for me, the same faults are still there. This formations does not work, McGinn and Ramsey can not play in a three man midfield. Good that Coutinho was dropped, meant it wasn't like we played with one man less this game. Whereas Potters substitutions changed the game in their favour, our fully predictable changes just made us worse.

Fingers will be pointed at Mings, and yes a bad mistake, but look at how Ramsey let the Chelsea player run through and then didn't follow hin. For me as much a mistake by Ramsey. Ramsey is a great player but should be playing further up the pitch.

Stupid not playing 2 central midfielders, Dendonker and Luiz (or Nakamba). So very stubborn and daft, McGinn and Ramsey in a three man midfield doesn't work and will not work. They are not good enough defensively and does not contribute enough in build up play or offensivesly.  

The lack of rumours of him being on the brink is worrying.

So he is burning his bridges to the local journalists and opposition managers now as well, bridges to the fans and to many of the players already been burnt. Not many more bridges left to burn now Steve, come on you can do it! (and get out please)

He will be great in a proper set up with a proper manager playing good football.

Now we are just hoofing, but we don't have a target player, of course he doesn't get anything to work on, Ramsey hides in the build up play and doesn't feed him, he just doesn't have much at all to work on at the moment.

Wide forward in a 4-2-3-1 where we play decent football and he will excell.

I think we have a good squad and that it would only need a few adjustments, I think it's quite simple actually, and I'm baffled that Gerrard & co dont see it.

McGinn and Ramsey are not suited to play in a three man midfield. Defensively they over and over again fail to do the basic work, which makes us vulerable, we loose the midfield. In the build up play, they don't contribute enough. Ramsey is easy on the eye and a huge talent, but he doesn't impose himself enough in that position, is a bit of a luxury player who shines in the opponents half. McGinn isn't a good enough passer and is a liability in the build up play. Played further forward, each one of them could contribute. BUT IT DOES NOT WORK TO PLAY BOTH OF THEM AS OUR TWO No6!

Switch to 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 and pick two out of Luiz/Dendonker/Nakamba/Kamara as the two holding midfielders and see what will happen. 

On 22/09/2022 at 17:54, est1874 said:

My ex-roommate and very close friend is a physio for one of the URC rugby teams, i.e. one of the biggest rugby union franchises in the world. He is an expert in knee injuries and we routinely talk about how they come about in football because  ligament damage is generally ubiquitous in rugby whereas it's a sporadic injury in football owing to the different levels of physicality etc. One of his major bugbears is conditioning, he says professional footballers are over-conditioned compared to a lot of other team sport athletes,  particularly in preseason, and this is why so many season-long injuries occur earlier rather than later in seasons.

So that's where I'm getting my fixation on our strength & conditioning coaches from, it's not just idle speculation, but even if it were, doesn't take a genius to think we should take a look at our regimen and make sure it's fit for purpose.

Do you and your friend get many party invitations? 

5 hours ago, Mazrim said:

I'm absolutely sick of losing key players early. Sick of it. The jobs hard enough as it is.

It seems to happen more often with players from abroad that they get an injury short time after making their debut in the PL. Perhaps they need more time to bed in, to get used to the intensity and fysicallity? 

5 hours ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

I wonder what Belgium fans think?

Dendoncker is after all a regular for the second best ranked football team in the World.

Exactly, some of the comments saying wolves fans or others thinks he is gash etc is just childish. He has represented Belgium at every level and has almost 30 caps during the years when they even were ranked no 1 in the world. He has played 30+ games every season for the last three seasons in a good premier league team playing good football.

The interesting questions are what his form is now and in what position he is best suited. I would have thought that he would be at his best as a holding midfielder rather than the dynamic box to box no 6 role. Will be interesting to see where he plays for us and what he will bring, much needed muscles and presence in any case!

edit: and most of all I like calling him big Donk.

10 hours ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

Was about as an invisible debut as I think ive ever seen. Well played solid 0/0 with excellent camouflage ability 

Haha I enjoy the sarcasm! 

Worth noting though was that Saints had almost nothing on his part of the pitch, although big Donk didn't have many touches and looked a bit off the pace, he put in a shift without the ball, covered good areas and blocked much space. He gives us much needed presence in the middle of the pitch.

He runs in a funny way  

Very good and vital three points for us. But must admit that Saints were truly awful, so many times did their keeper and center backs just kick the ball away to no one even whn not under pressure, and had nothing going forward. 

What I liked about our performance was the grit and the determination, we were really switched on the full game and were agressive. Also good to see that Coutinho still had something to bring to the team, looked hungry and agressive.

It was a performance Steve Bruce and McLeish would have been proud of.

On 13/09/2022 at 01:28, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Bare in mind he also had injuries for periods, he wasn't simply " frozen out " IMO.

Though something was fishy about that, he was supposed to be injured, then played in every game in the AFCON, then when he came back he was said to be injured again.

Wild speculation, but I wonder if it could have anything to do with appearence clauses in the contract with Lyon, perhaps he was apporaching a number of appearences where we had to fork out more to them.

29 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

I'd prefer him roaming behind and supporting attacks as a " 10 " than on the left.

 

I think I read one of the reasons why he moved was because he wanted to play as striker, when he joined us I remember an interview in French media where he said he came to his best playing centrally.

For Burkina Faso he played on the right hand side though if I remember correctly, and always thought it looked like he liked playing wide forward when he played for us.