El Segundo

12 hours ago, Xela said:

Pretty much 5 years ago to the day, we beat small heath at the sty 1-0 thanks to Jack's goal. We started that game below them in the Championship.

Anyone fan complaining, whether on here, or on FB/Twitter etc, about where we are now needs to give their head a wobble.

The thread title refers to our future, not to where we were five years ago, or where we are now.  Those details provide context and show that the juggernaut has been heading in the right direction for five years, with the odd detour, and has advanced further than most of us could have dreamed of in that time.   I read the question as being whether even further progress is possible and the direction of travel sustainable.  I'm not as optimistic about that as I was a few months ago, for various reasons.  That's not a complaint, it's more an observation.        

Most clubs are in the same boat as far as increasing revenue and managing FSR/FFR goes.  I suppose at least we have someone with a track record of high achievement in that area even if he is an absolute arsehole of a human being, as alleged, and as he sometimes appears. 

Since the turn of the year though I have had a couple of concerns about the current regime that have tempered my optimism a little.

One is that Newcastle, Chelsea and Spurs, even Man Yew away and Luton away in the second half,  have all shown that if you press us high and mark everyone else to prevent a longer out ball, we inevitably buckle.   Emery doesn't seem to have an answer to this, and the more other coaches and teams see it happen, the more they will cotton on to it and apply it.   In contrast Forest, Sheffield Untied and Man Yew and Luton first halves let us play our game and we were able to play through them and create loads of chances.  In 2024, every team that's applied it from the start has beaten us comfortably,  United overturned a two goal deficit in 45 minutes, and Luton almost did the same.   

Second it dawned on me yesterday that Monchi has not yet really sourced many signings who can be considered a success so far.   Torres has been great of course, but I think Unai was always going back for him regardless of Monchi,.  Tielemans  has been good in patches, poor in others, but was a know quantity rather than needing to be identified by Monchi.   Diaby and Zaniolo do seem to have been identified by Monchi and both have been massive disappointments, the former a very expensive one.  Jury still out on Rogers, and the two young full backs of course.  Don't know if I've missed someone  but so far there's little to suggest we have secured the game changing recruitment guru we hoped we'd be getting.  

Add to the disappointment of the stadium expansion being shelved and our results taking a dip then I don't see our future shining quite so brightly as I did a few months ago.  But still a million times brighter than just a couple of years ago,  

26 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

But he didn't just run about, he ran with purpose and tried to make things happen, which is a hell of a lot more than Diaby done, that's for sure. 

If Konsa hadn't contributed to us conceding that second goal, I would have given him motm, at moments, his defensive awareness was on point. 

There wasn't a player on the pitch who didn't play a misplaced pass, Zani gets credit for effort, which is more than most others gave, and there are no excuses for lack of effort, not in my book anyway. As for Konsa, he at least done some things that were pleasent to the eye, to those of us who are not optically challenged that is.

Didn't look to be much purpose to Zaniolo's play to me apart from when he chased back to prevent an attack.  Going forward, his main role, he didn't make much happen at all.  Diaby actually did bring the ball forward and get some crosses and shots in although much of it was poorly executed as is his wont.  I just don't see why Zaniolo should get credit for effort alone, that's the very least we should expect.

There's misplacing a pass and then there's misplacing a pass when under no pressure that gifts a goal to the opposition.   Having got away with it first half he did it again.  Neither were very pleasant to my eyes. 

Just now, alreadyexists said:

The loss today hurt, but what about beating Man City, and Arsenal, and Spurs in the reverse fixture? Do they mean we are/aren’t ready for CL? I don’t think this one game defines us, any more than an excellent win elsewhere does, and I don’t think it has meaning beyond a lost 3 points in what would’ve been an excellent time to get 3 from a rival…

I’m gutted, but we can’t let the team, or the fans give up on a phenomenally good season and the best chance we’ve had of CL for nearly 20 years. 

That was earlier in the season when we had less need to rely on fringe or backup players, and when I think not many teams had worked out that we struggle against a high press and man marking - tactics successfully employed against us by Newcastle, Chelsea and Spurs since the new year.    At that point we were competitive with more or less any club.   

And it's not just today, I'd say recent results and performances indicate injuries and suspensions have meant a bigger drop off in quality and mentality than it has for some of our rivals.   Since peak mentality against City and Arsenal,  we've bottled some big moments when the pressure has been on - e.g. the chance to go top against Sheffield united, the chance to effectively put ourselves beyond United's reach at VP,   and to establish a decent gap between us, Spurs and United today.  Doing it for half a season doesn't make you ready in my view, but I do agree we should not give up on it.       

1 hour ago, sheepyvillian said:

I think that's a tad unfair on Zanilolo, although I agree in regards to Diaby.

If our starting 11 had shown the fiery spirit that Zani showed when coming on, it may well have been a different outcome. The effort to make something happen is sometimes what gives a team the catalyst it desires. 

It's not about coming on and just running around a lot though is it?  We may have well have kept Trezeguet if we are to be satisfied with that.  We need players coming on who can add some quality as well as up the energy levels.   At the moment nether Diaby or Zaniolo bring much to the table in terms of effective contributions or end product.  As for your Konsa comment, he played a poor ball out of defence to McGinn first half which we were lucky to get away with, as well the one second half which led to the goal.   Defended ok but his playing out was ropey today,

Today showed we probably don't quite have the strength in depth or the mentality for CL football yet but we shouldn't be giving up on it, especially as we can strengthen in the summer knowing we'll have some extra revenue.  It's going to be harder after this season if the likes of Newcastle, Chelsea, and Man Yew get their acts together.        

Bailey should have been key for us to day but he looked either not fully fit or unwell or something, he just wasn't his usual self today.  He still looked more likely to make something happen than Diaby  or Zaniolo.   Watkins seemed strangely reluctant to shoot.

Gave Cash MoM just because he did some good things as well as some bad, whereas most others were just bad.  Would possibly have been McGinn but he threw away any chance of us coming back with a stupid challenge, and we're now without him for three games.

I actually think Emery needs to take responsibility for two things. 

One, we once again came out after half time half asleep and lacking focus and quickly conceded.  It's happened so many times this season I've lost count and I think teams have cottoned on and step it up the first five to ten minutes after half time to take advantage of an obvious weakness. 

Two, sticking to your principles is all well and good but surely there's a case for going long if you've been closed down by a swarm of attackers - it's better to concede possession by hitting it long into their half than it is to concede possession in the final third trying to pass it out through them when the odds are stacked against you.  It's cost us against Newcastle, Chelsea in the Cup and again today.   

It's barely credible that they could find a ref even worse than the collection of buffoons,  clowns and donkeys  operating in our leagues, but UEFA somehow managed it.  If he'd been consistent in his decisions it could have been five a side by the end.  Yellow cards for being fouled,  more yellow cards for innocuous challenges, yet more yellow cards for what appeared to be absolutely nothing at all.  Yet not even a foul for Brobbey barging into Lenglet after the ball had gone and sending him flying.  He did the same again later.       

He even had a brief period where he let quite a few robust challenges go in some sort of feeble attempt to let the game flow before reverting to thinking he was reffing the battle of Santiago. 

Quite possibly the worst ref I've ever seen, and yet I still won't be surprised if the next one sinks to even lower depths.

It must be hard to play football with such a clown ruining it.

20 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Presumably we'd need somebody to pay around £40m for Diaby just to break even; I don't see who is paying that kind of money for him. 

Good point, but didn't he have offers to go to Saudi when we signed him?

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm not surprised at the number of people who think we can get by by selling players nobody wants, but it's very unlikely. Fringe players don't command big fees. 

Kamara would probably have been the most logical sale as he was free and is on big wages, but he won't be possible because of injury. Martinez, Torres and Watkins are IMO essentially irreplaceable. McGinn almost certainly won't command a fee commensurate to his importance to the team. That leaves Ramsey, Konsa and Luiz, and that's in my order of """"preference"""". 

EDIT: The other player who hasn't been mentioned but would almost certainly attract a lot of interest is Bailey. I very much hope he isn't one who goes. 

I'd rather try and get our money back for Diaby than let Bailey go - although that won't help the FSR situation as much.

I think there's a core of players who make us what we are and would be extremely difficult to replace for similar money.  I'm thinking Watkins, McGinn, Kamara, Torres, Konsa, Luiz Bailey and I'd include Ramsey in that.   He makes us better when fully fit, and I don't think we'd find better or equivalent with the money we'd get, despite being pure profit from a PSR/FFP point of view.  

We could arguably get £100m plus for Luiz - if Caicedo and Rice are worth that then so is Doug - and not far off for Watkins.  Watkins would be almost impossible to replace though whereas with Luiz we could probably source someone for quite a lot less who wouldn't represent a significant drop off in quality.

My thoughts are Unai will try and sell Duran, since he's had some issues with him, and that Rogers was brought in on that basis - I think Duran may have gone in January if he hadn't got injured.  Shame because I think the lad has all the tools to be a top player if he can sort his attitude out.

5 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

Do you think the owners would be happy losing 100m every other year should FFP be abolished?

I'm not sure that would happen though.  An initially large investment would be required to catch up with the likes of City, but the the aim should be to use that increase revenue massively with regular CL football, leading to greater commercial revenue and then increasing capacity to improve match day income.  Problem is us and Newcastle, maybe other clubs with very rich owners like Palace and Forest, as well as the sky 6 would be investing on a similar scale so there will be at least 8 or 9 mega rich clubs vying for 4 or 5 CL spots each year.   And I can see that situation leading to the resurrection of super league ideas.  

12 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The problem with FFP is that it’s a gigantic bait and switch.

It was supposedly brought in to prevent a Leeds / Portsmouth scenario, and yes, to some extent it does prevent that from happening.

But it ludicrously forces clubs with enormous external resources to either treat those capital injections as something like debt (Villa) or to play accounting tricks to disguise that money as revenue (all the Middle Eastern owned clubs).

So the main effect is to just pull up the drawbridge after Chelsea, City, PSG, etc had carte blanche to spend their way to established Champions League status.

The worst thing is it may force clubs to undermine their identity by cashing in on academy talent, as that brings the biggest FFP benefit.

The whole thing is a fkin shambles when it’s being tightly enforced while the fit and proper test is routinely ignored for club takeovers. It’s like there are two parallel universes, one where the rules are strictly enforced, and one where they are laughed at, and we seem to operate in the first universe.

It’s completely bent

Absolutely.  In the interview with Palace co-Owner John Textor on the BBC and other websites, he pretty much says this as well.   I know he's come out with some shot about a global superleague but he seems on the money with his PSR comments. 

Laments the fact they have three billionaire co owners but they are not allowed to invest, whereas City, Chelsea, PSG etc. had the opportunity to buy their way in to the elite, and now others are prevented from doing so and the established clubs are protected.  He also makes the point that sustainability should be about  the quality of your balance sheet, not a ratio against P&L.    

He also mentions in one interview that some PL clubs have been meeting outside the official PL meetings to discuss pushing for massive reform to profit and sustainability rules.  But even if they can get the FA/PL to change tack,  there is still FFP when you are in Europe.  A system promoted by the in-no-way-dodgy-or corrupt-at-all Anglophobe Michel Platini to stop English clubs from dominating too much.

5 hours ago, rjw63 said:

 

Dwight Yorke three at Newcastle and we still lost.

 

Yorke was unplayable that night - if I recall correctly he scored a fourth and it was disallowed (wrongly I think) for offside or something.

On 03/03/2024 at 12:16, allani said:

Without FFP all of those clubs you mentioned would have spent more money in January than us.  I don't like the way it has been implemented, I don't like how some clubs have been able to bypass the spirit of the rules and I don't think that the way that money from central deals is distributed is right or fair.  But we do need something.

You're probably right but for me the difference is how much a club like City could actually significantly improve their squad by spending large amounts.  I'd say their squad is pretty close to being at the ceiling of how good a squad can be - spending £500m might maintain that level by bringing in successors to the likes of Walker and De Bruyne, or Haaland if he goes to Real Madrid, but it would be hard to improve on it.    Whereas I think we have a number of squad places and perhaps one or two first choices that could be significantly improved upon - for example squad options for keeper, centre back, defensive midfield, attacking midfield and striker.   Right back/wing back we could improve the first choice.  I like Matty Cash but I don't think he's elite level.  I n other words it ought to be possible to close the gap a little more easily.       

I rated Emery as poor on this one, but poor compared to his usual high standards.  First because I think it's on him that, for the second game in a row whilst cruising to victory,  we switched off during first half added time and then came out half  asleep for the second.   It was obvious very soon after half time we needed to change things - Bailey and Tielemans had clearly clocked off at halftime, McGinn and Luiz had lost control of the midfield, and Watkins was getting no service.   Subs came too late after a lot of damage had been done.

Up to a couple of years ago I used to think Michael Oliver was one of the better refs.  He's been a joke the last couple of years.  I was raging at the TV at some of the soft fouls he was giving to Luton, every time they were touched they went to ground and he just blew like a Pavlovian dog.  In contrast he did little or nothing to protect Ollie who was being fouled in pretty much every challenge by Menge, and also waved away a couple of fairly blatant fouls on McGinn.  He just looked very biased to me yesterday.      

Fair play for digging out the win in the end but we should have won that by 3 or 4.

If you believe the Meedya Emery is supposedly in the conversations about future managers for the likes of Bayern, Barca, Real Madrid and Man Yoo.  If so, that would be largely based on what he's been doing at Villa.  However I'm fairly sure they would also consider his record at regular CL clubs Arsenal and PSG, as well as his league performances at his Spanish clubs.  Those aren't as impressive, and maybe they would conclude his strength is punching above his weight and moulding a team in his own image with aspirational clubs rather than operating at the established elite/galactico level.  I hope that's the case and hopefully Emery thinks the same. 

10 hours ago, DJBOB said:

Seems contradictory, but your best taker should almost definitively not be first if you trust the data. 
 
Your highest percentage converter should go to the highest pressure, highest leverage, lowest percentage spots which would be 3-5.

Even in the small sample size of Villa penalties, the first takers always converted while the misses and saves come in the 3 and 4 spots. 

Don't think so. First, I don't agrees position 3 or 4 would be higher pressure or higher leverage than position 1.  Position 1 is probably the highest pressure apart from maybe 5 in my view.  

Listening to the radio commentary on the Blackburn Newcastle game last night and both the commentators agreed "send your best taker up first". That seems to be the most popular strategy and probably the reason why the first penalty has the highest conversion rate.   

I'd argue that the conversion rate is pretty obviously going to reduce as less competent takers come forward, and is a more logical reason for lower conversion rate at positions 3-5 than additional pressure. 

All your strategy is likely to achieve would be to make the first penalty conversion rate lower,  and whilst that may in turn  increase the conversion rate of later positions as better takers come forward,  the extra pressure of a  missed first pen will add more pressure to subsequent takers.  Sending up a middling taker first merely increases the chances of handing the initiative and a psychological advantage to your opponents from the start.

4 hours ago, DJBOB said:

Maybe so - Watkins will take a penalty when it comes down to it so I'd prefer for him to go first.

He may well take one because of the misconception I mentioned previously. If he must, surely it makes zero sense for someone with a better than even chance of missing to go first.  It puts us immediately on the back foot and places even more pressure on the subsequent takers.  Should always put your best takers first. 

5 hours ago, DJBOB said:

Would be shocked if Watkins isn’t in the first five. Think people are overreacting to a small sample size of penalties. 
 
 

Statistically relevant or not missing 5 out of 9 is more than enough for me not to want him anywhere near penalties.  I suspect some people make the mistake of assuming that because he's a striker, and a more than decent one, it follows that he should be a good penalty taker.  It doesn't work like that, pens are a different ball game.  Not all strikers can hack it, and there are plenty of  consistently successful penalty takers who have been full backs, centre backs etc.   Like Andy Brehme for Germany, Koeman for Barcelona and Netherlands, Julian Dicks for West ham, Phil Neale for Liverpool to name a few.     

Amazed people would trust Watkins let alone make him first up.  He's proved he's pretty shite at pens generally even without the pressure of being in a shoot out.  I wouldn't have him  anywhere near the first 5 takers.  Maybe not even the second five.  Also Diaby looks like he can't strike a ball properly and I'm not convinced Bailey would be suited to pens.   For me Luiz, McGinn, Tielemans, Ramsey, Torres and Digne all look like they have the technique and calmness to take a good pen.    

Whatever Emery has done to Bailey I hope he can do similar to Diaby at some point.  He's having the fullbacks on toast every week now, home and away.  Great to watch.

Cash played quite well but was once again at fault goal for a conceded at home.  Would really like us to sign a powerhouse of right back in the summer.  

Some brilliant attacking play first half and I was livid when we lost focus in the added time and let them score, then did the same at the start of the second.   

Good management by Emery - he could see Luiz had lost focus and gave him a "pep talk", and could see Moreno was having a bit of a mare and got him off early.

I thought Chambers did ok and considering we ended up with 5th and 6th choice CBs on the pitch we were reasonably comfortable winners in the end.

Surprised the ref didn't get more really poor marks.  I thought he was making some absolutely bizarre calls especially first half.

2 hours ago, CVByrne said:

Enjoy watching our season collapse then. Hope you enjoy it

Blimey CV, you must be an absolute riot at parties.

I still think 4th is achievable but no higher.  4th-6th is now between us, Spurs and Man Utd, as it would take quite a collapse for us to end up any lower.  That seems unlikely under Emery.   

I'm not convinced we have the strength in depth or can hit the right form to win that particular battle, but hopefully Ramsey and Digne will get back to their best, Ollie will find his shooting boots, Torres and Konsa will come back strong,  Iroegbunam can step up and maybe the likes of Diaby and Zaniolo will finally start to live up to their reputations and valuations.  

After a full calendar year of being second or third best for points, finishing outside the top four will certainly feel like something of a disappointment.  But not so much when you to look at in the context of how far we've come in the last 5 years, three years and especially the last 15 months since we binned Gerrard.  I remember all too well that absolutely abject night at Craven Cottage.  We're a million miles from that now and 5th or 6th would still be very impressive in that context. 

The sky 6 are far more used to the chase for the CL places and have experience of hitting their stride rather than tailing off when it comes to the final third of the season.  United had a poor-ish first half of last season but ended up in third without doing anything great.  I don't think they are as good as us but they seem to have hit a groove of grinding our results even when outplayed, whereas we have hit a bit of a slump.   This coming weekend will be interesting - if Utd win at Luton and we lose at Fulham the gap is suddenly 2 points, and possibly Spurs further ahead of us.  I wonder if we'll find it hard to respond under the increased pressure.