hippo Posted December 30, 2016 Author Share Posted December 30, 2016 IMO we have changed almost all of the starting 11 2 close seasons running. We need more stability than that. should we not go up this season we need to supplement what is there. players who are not performing should become fringe players, but a complete upheaval for a 3rd season wouldn't be the best move IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 11 hours ago, VillaChris said: We can't win every game guys. Tonight was our first dropped points at home since October and we have won a few late ones recently. I'm o.k with a point...keeps us in touch with Leeds as them winning and they'd have started to disappear into the distance with Newcastle and Brighton. We roughly need 40 points now to make the play offs....I think we'll do it. A criticism yesterday was he struggle to beat anyone around us in the table. On the walk back from the pub just now I calculated we can get about 38 points just from beating the bottom half teams as we've been doing....10 points from the upcoming Cardiff, Bristol, PNE and Wolves games...another 10 from the Forest, Ipswich, Barnsley and Brentford games in Feb....9 points from QPR, Burton and Wigan games and then 9 points from Norwich, Blackburn and SHA (they'll be bottom half when we play them in March. I wouldn't really want to bank on doing it that way but shows a way we could make the top 6 by continuing as we are. What's the point of making it to the playoffs if we can't beat the playoff contenders? Just setting ourselves up for disappointment. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 10 hours ago, Jareth said: Yes but what if Amavi were a fridge, from France? very very good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 17 minutes ago, Keyblade said: What's the point of making it to the playoffs if we can't beat the playoff contenders? Just setting ourselves up for disappointment. You're right. Shouldn't bother then. I'll get Brucey on the phone. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 we have too many players who are either 1) not good enough for PL 2) not good enough to get us to PL Bunn Hutton Elphick Cossokho Bacuna Westwood Gardner Jedi Gaby Gestede Kozak So its better to keep them rather than overhaul them? To get us to the playoffs we need to replace Bunn Hutton & Westwood To beat 2 out of Reading Leeds Derby or Fulham & Hudds we need to replace Bunn Hutton Bacuna Westwood Gardner Gaby & Gestede IF we dont go up and really want to make sure we are top 2 next season we need to replace all the above To SURVIVE PL we would need GK RB Chester Baker Amavi Adomah DM CM LW Grealish Kodjia Possibly McC & Ayew as our ONLY cover We have a shit 11 We have an even shiter squad Bruce is doing fantastic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 Maximum points we can be behind after this round is 7. Who knows, we might just gain a point, teams like Preston are more than capable of beating teams like Sheffield Wednesday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 The 4 play off teams are all on similar points, one or two of them will slip up, the law of averages says so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 Probably the most important window we've had in a long time if you exclude the infamous white flag window. Come the end of Jan we will know what's going to happen when the window closes and our AFCON players are back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 4 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: You're right. Shouldn't bother then. I'll get Brucey on the phone. I mean like aiming only to beat the lower half teams to get into the playoffs and not improve enough to beat the contenders. Seems like an exercise in futility to me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 2 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: Maximum points we can be behind after this round is 7. Who knows, we might just gain a point, teams like Preston are more than capable of beating teams like Sheffield Wednesday. sorry Doug/Dave/oh great yee of foot problem we can only creep up the table with what weve got and kick in if/when we have any new players clicking so its a slow climb 9th 8th 7th then 6th on the last day P.S. I hope we have some good penalty takers by the playoffs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 Every team is going to be looking at picking up most of their points against lower half teams. If you can beat those around you then excellent but the importance is not to lose those games. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 6 minutes ago, Keyblade said: I mean like aiming only to beat the lower half teams to get into the playoffs and not improve enough to beat the contenders. Seems like an exercise in futility to me. I doubt that's the aim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 9 minutes ago, Keyblade said: I mean like aiming only to beat the lower half teams to get into the playoffs and not improve enough to beat the contenders. Seems like an exercise in futility to me. Which ignores the possibility that things might get better after a good jan window. Our season has had an awful start, a stabilised and improved mid season, and IMHO we are set for a bit of an exciting third and final instalment. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 7 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: I doubt that's the aim. Agreed, I was just responding to @VillaChris who suggested that should be our route into the playoffs. That only makes sense of simply getting into the playoffs is our ultimate goal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinker Posted December 30, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted December 30, 2016 Even if we get in the playoffs and go up the squad isn't good enough to stay up, You could see that Leeds have a group of players who are less talented individuals but as a whole they are more affective. We need to build this quality into our squad with a few additions, or recall the likes of Sanchez and Vertout and try and get them to play. Were desperately disjointed in midfield and using Ayew there is a clear indication of this . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 Indeed Under RDM we were only going in one direction slowly downwards, we may even have survived. Let me run this Pause at the sacking come up with a realistic plan of what to do IMMEDIATELY to halt the slide 1) Not lose 2) stop conceeding in the last 15mins 3) compensate an inexperienced GK 4) compensate an incomplete back 4 5) compensate a weak, spineless, non dominating uncreative midfield 6) - (oh as luck would have it we have a few talents up front - ok see what they can conjure up) 7) No heavy or demoralising defeats 8) somehow get an unbeaten run going even if the draws outway the wins 9) get a clean sheet 10) get a narrow win 11) get a win coming from a goal down 12) see where we are after the xmas/NY slog 13) find out what we need in Jan Now is there a manager out there that can do this? Its a tall order Hands up anybody who fancies a crack at it? You there ! the fat one, broken nose, whats your story? "Hi, I've promoted 4 teams from this league - I more than fancy it" Name please!! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 34 minutes ago, Keyblade said: Agreed, I was just responding to @VillaChris who suggested that should be our route into the playoffs. That only makes sense of simply getting into the playoffs is our ultimate goal. To be fair, I don't think he was saying that should be our route, merely that it is technically possible. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 53 minutes ago, tinker said: Even if we get in the playoffs and go up the squad isn't good enough to stay up, People keep saying this, what in the world makes anyone think we would be starting a Premier League season with this line up? We don't need a whole squad, IF we get into the Premier League is when I'm sure we would start seeing real money spent on supplemental quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigAl Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 We have picked up 25 pts out of a possible 39 under Bruce it is almost 2 pts a game if that continues we will make playoffs ,our biggest problem is the players we have ate more suited to hitting teams on the break more so than dominating possession and breaking teams down ,we have lots of pace upfront but this is nullified when teams sit deep against us which most teams do as we are a big name club teams park the bus we lack that bit of quality to break teams down and we need more physicality in the attacking third the likes of Ayew/Grealish/Adomah and McCormack are lightweight you might get away with 1/2 of those type of players but we have too many and teams are bullying is out of it ,we are only a couple of players short of being a really good side Jan is vital and hopefully Bruce can address a few of our problems he had already done a decent job in making us hard to beat it's now time to move us into next level . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted December 30, 2016 Share Posted December 30, 2016 The problem I find is its halfwY in and these players still do not play like a team. They are like a group of good individuals. You need more than that in this sport. For me we have too many super heroes who think they could defeat a army of aliens by themselves on the pitch. These are the players that need to be moved on as well as some with no football ability eg gabby kozak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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