Premier League 2019-2020 Thread

[OxfordVillan]

We’ll lose the league cup final and we’ll lose away at Leicester. The home game with Chelsea looks pivotal, time wise. We have to start picking up wins at VP asap or the pressure just ratchets up and performances get worse everywhere. We need McGinn and Davis back and match fit asap to hopefully give us a little lift. And we have to get flexible with the philosophy, we have to reduce the amount of chances we offer up to the opposition. If that means 3-6-1, 5-4-1, 4-5-1, or whatever, then so be it. More often than not I think we have to go something like;

.........................Reina.........................

Guilbert....Engels....Mings.....Targett

Elmo...SJM...Nak..DWater...Grealish 

......................Samatta.........................
 

ElGhazi unfortunately looks not up for the fight, only seems useful at VP. Ditto Luiz, just seems to get overrun away from home unless coming on from the bench. We need effort now, lots of it. Beef up the midfield and start earning the right to bring on the likes of Luiz later in the game if required. Davis will have a big part to play if he can stay fit. Elmo doesn’t have anything like the natural talent of ElGhazi but you can rely on him most games to deliver a 6 or 7/10 performance. His crossing is also far better. 
I think we need to reboot our mindset and start becoming harder to play against, first and foremost. Playing out from the back may have to be compromised more often.

[Delphinho123]

7 minutes ago, OxfordVillan said:

We’ll lose the league cup final and we’ll lose away at Leicester. The home game with Chelsea looks pivotal, time wise. We have to start picking up wins at VP asap or the pressure just ratchets up and performances get worse everywhere. We need McGinn and Davis back and match fit asap to hopefully give us a little lift. And we have to get flexible with the philosophy, we have to reduce the amount of chances we offer up to the opposition. If that means 3-6-1, 5-4-1, 4-5-1, or whatever, then so be it. More often than not I think we have to go something like;

.........................Reina.........................

Guilbert....Engels....Mings.....Targett

Elmo...SJM...Nak..DWater...Grealish 

......................Samatta.........................
 

ElGhazi unfortunately looks not up for the fight, only seems useful at VP. Ditto Luiz, just seems to get overrun away from home unless coming on from the bench. We need effort now, lots of it. Beef up the midfield and start earning the right to bring on the likes of Luiz later in the game if required. Davis will have a big part to play if he can stay fit. Elmo doesn’t have anything like the natural talent of ElGhazi but you can rely on him most games to deliver a 6 or 7/10 performance. His crossing is also far better. 
I think we need to reboot our mindset and start becoming harder to play against, first and foremost. Playing out from the back may have to be compromised more often.

Agree with you on most of the points. We need to find a way of somehow winning ugly. Looking at the starting XI you propose, that is arguably worse than the XI that got promoted last season.

How much did we spend again?

[sne]

The current form table, ignore Leicester who are irrelevant in this discussion and one can see that pretty much all the bottom team are also in terrible form.

Same goes if you go by the last 10 games where only Watford who had the new manager bounce but then died off has picked up any solid number of  points.

There is always some team who hit a purple patch during the run in but for the most part it will be a slog.

 

Quote

 

12	Newcastle	6	1	3	2	4	8	-4	6	DWDdLL
13	Bournemouth	6	2	0	4	6	11	-5	6	LLWWLL
14	Leicester	6	1	2	3	8	8	0	5	LLWDdL
15	Watford	6	1	2	3	7	9	-2	5	WdLLDL
16	Crystal Palace	6	1	2	3	5	9	-4	5	DDLLLW
17	Brighton	6	0	4	2	7	10	-3	4	LDLDDD
18	Aston Villa	6	1	1	4	7	15	-8	4	LDWLLL
19	Norwich	6	1	1	4	2	10	-8	4	LWLdLL
20	West Ham	6	0	2	4	5	13	-8	2	LDLLDL

 

8

Watford

10

4

3

3

15

11

4

15

WDWWWdLLDL

14	Crystal Palace	10	2	4	4	9	13	-4	10	LWDDDDLLLW
15	Aston Villa	10	3	1	6	11	22	-11	10	LWLWLDWLLL
16	Newcastle	10	2	3	5	7	17	-10	9	WLLLDWDdLL
17	Brighton	10	1	5	4	11	14	-3	8	LLWDLDLDDD
18	West Ham	10	2	2	6	12	17	-5	8	WLLWLDLLDL
19	Bournemouth	10	2	1	7	7	19	-12	7	LDLLLLWWLL
20	Norwich	10	1	3	6	6	16	-10	6	LLDDLWLdLL

 

https://thefishy.co.uk/formtable.php?table=1

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour ago, sne said:

The current form table, ignore Leicester who are irrelevant in this discussion and one can see that pretty much all the bottom team are also in terrible form.

Same goes if you go by the last 10 games where only Watford who had the new manager bounce but then died off has picked up any solid number of  points.

There is always some team who hit a purple patch during the run in but for the most part it will be a slog.

 

https://thefishy.co.uk/formtable.php?table=1

We’re all shit so any points will come from the teams around us. The problem is we’ve pretty much already played them all twice! We’ve only got West Ham, Newcastle and Palace left and 2 of them are away!

[sne]

1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

We’re all shit so any points will come from the teams around us. The problem is we’ve pretty much already played them all twice! We’ve only got West Ham, Newcastle and Palace left and 2 of them are away!

Yeah those recent zero pointers against Bournemouth and Southampton will likely be devastating 

[Rob182]

5 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

We’re all shit so any points will come from the teams around us. The problem is we’ve pretty much already played them all twice! We’ve only got West Ham, Newcastle and Palace left and 2 of them are away!

We are allowed to get points from the teams not around us as well. 2 draws and 1 win against Man Utd and Leicester (cup games) proves that. We came awfully close to getting things from Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal.

We just need to cut out the individual and defensive errors, and the crumbling that seems to happen on 45 & 90 minutes. I think that a lot of it is down to confidence and nerves.

The other teams near the bottom will have their own 'we just need to ________' as well.

[osmark86]

it really has come to the point where we need to start taking points off of the big'uns. I expect nothing less than a fighting performance in each and every remaining game from this point onwards. otherwise we might as well throw in the towel already and if my vocation was as a football player, this is the last thing I would want to do. 

it really is do or die from now towards the end of the season and I sincerely hope that DS drills this home and all our players are onboard and fired up.

[PussEKatt]

9 minutes ago, osmark86 said:

it really has come to the point where we need to start taking points off of the big'uns. I expect nothing less than a fighting performance in each and every remaining game from this point onwards. otherwise we might as well throw in the towel already and if my vocation was as a football player, this is the last thing I would want to do. 

it really is do or die from now towards the end of the season and I sincerely hope that DS drills this home and all our players are onboard and fired up.

Thats the trouble with DS though, isnt it.You use your transfer kitty to buy skill/quality.Motovation must come from the manager.He is the guy that is supposed to get the team fired up and after this amount of games and the way we play its very obvious that DS does not have that capability.He is a Championship manager, and not a very good one at that.

[osmark86]

1 minute ago, PussEKatt said:

Thats the trouble with DS though, isnt it.You use your transfer kitty to buy skill/quality.Motovation must come from the manager.He is the guy that is supposed to get the team fired up and after this amount of games and the way we play its very obvious that DS does not have that capability.He is a Championship manager, and not a very good one at that.

yes I agree motivation has to be instilled by the manager to a certain extend. it also comes from within and each and every individual.

my biggest problem with DS right now is the system we play doesn't appear to be working. we are too easily out-fought (mixture of the above imo), we lack purposeful movement (this is on the coaching imo) and we can't pass (see second problem + player's ability).

we are kind of crap in terms of our players but also a lot of these players can put in a shift and compete so we are kind of crap in coaching too.

we are kind of crap basically and I just hope the players and DS will do their utmost for us to be less so for the remainder of the season given the gravity of the situation.

 

[lexicon]

5 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

Thats the trouble with DS though, isnt it.You use your transfer kitty to buy skill/quality.Motovation must come from the manager.He is the guy that is supposed to get the team fired up and after this amount of games and the way we play its very obvious that DS does not have that capability.He is a Championship manager, and not a very good one at that.

Yeah just fluked a 10 game winning streak to get us promoted. Not a very good championship manager at all. 

[PussEKatt]

2 minutes ago, lexicon said:

Yeah just fluked a 10 game winning streak to get us promoted. Not a very good championship manager at all. 

No.Not a very good championship manager at all.If I remember correctly we were losing games left right and center and we were about 10th, then Jack came back from injury and guess what..........We went on a 10 game winning streak.Had nothing to do with DS AT ALL.If Jack had not of come back we would still be mid table in the championship.

[lexicon]

14 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

No.Not a very good championship manager at all.If I remember correctly we were losing games left right and center and we were about 10th, then Jack came back from injury and guess what..........We went on a 10 game winning streak.Had nothing to do with DS AT ALL.If Jack had not of come back we would still be mid table in the championship.

You don't remember correctly, no. 

[Delphinho123]

42 minutes ago, lexicon said:

You don't remember correctly, no. 

Hmm, It sounds fairly accurate, Lexicon. It's harsh to say Dean had nothing to do with it, but Jack Grealish was the main reason we got promoted last season. He is probably one of the best midfielders in Europe right now and whilst he has got even better this season, any team with JG in it in the championship will have an incredible advantage over others.

Look at us this season, we're the closest thing to a one man team going. We have done nothing to address this in the Summer. Without Grealish, we'd be on less points than Norwich right now. 

[useless]

We had Grealish for two and half seasons in the championship before Smith came in and didn't get promoted and for much of that time didn't even look like getting promoted and were constantly being outplayed by teams with much less resources than ourselves.

[Delphinho123]

1 minute ago, useless said:

We had Grealish for two and half seasons in the championship before Smith came in and didn't get promoted and for much of that time didn't even look like getting promoted and were constantly being outplayed by teams with much less resources than ourselves.

True, but he wasn't at the level he was for the back end of last season. He was on a different planet to other players in the championship for the last 15 or so games. 

I don't want to take all the credit away from Smith for our promotion but Grealish makes every one of our players better and Smith relies on him so much. Pitarch has made Smith's job extremely difficult this season with the signings he (I think) made. I think we've bought a load of championship quality players tbh. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

2 hours ago, Rob182 said:

We are allowed to get points from the teams not around us as well. 2 draws and 1 win against Man Utd and Leicester (cup games) proves that. We came awfully close to getting things from Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal.

We just need to cut out the individual and defensive errors, and the crumbling that seems to happen on 45 & 90 minutes. I think that a lot of it is down to confidence and nerves.

The other teams near the bottom will have their own 'we just need to ________' as well.

True but it does seem that there have been less shock results recently. Hence why we have managed to stay 17th after losing 3 games in a row. Let’s face it., we’re pathetic away from home. We do tend to put up a fight at home though. Looking forward to the Chelsea game.

[Zatman]

10 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

True but it does seem that there have been less shock results recently. Hence why we have managed to stay 17th after losing 3 games in a row. Let’s face it., we’re pathetic away from home. We do tend to put up a fight at home though. Looking forward to the Chelsea game.

United, Arsenal and also Everton are beating the shitter teams that they were dropping points earlier in the season. Tottenham have also won a few against relegation sides

[eholm]

9 hours ago, Rob182 said:

People were saying the same thing before we beat Burnley and Watford.

We're not some cursed team destined to lose every game. We play well in parts, we play crap in parts. Don't let our current form bog you down.

I feel like the Southampton game was a case of players not wanting to get injured for the final, and not playing as intensely as they should - hence Smith's comments after the game. That's not how we'll play for the rest of the season.

We've come 'so close' so many times this season, that we know we have it in us to play well. We just need to hope that some of these 'so close' games turn into actual points!

Arsenal away, we played well but threw it away.

Spurs away, we played well but threw it away.

Man Utd away, we played well (at times) but threw away 2 points.

Leicester (cup) home and away, we played well in both games.

Burnley away, we played well, but (almost!) threw it away near the end.

Liverpool home, we came as close as anyone has this season to beating them, but threw it away in the last 10.

We need Smith to come across the magic formula that gives us a few more of these good performances, and this time round keep the points.

I just don’t share your optimism mate. It’s a lot of ifs buts and maybes in my opinion. I just feel the belief in the team has gone possibly due to realisation that the players are not good enough or experienced enough to achieve the required level. If they had been, lessons would have been learnt and mistakes would have reduced - neither are happening. Obviously I hope I am totally and utterly wrong but having seen every match this season we just do not have the necessary quality across the squad to survive. IMO. 

[eholm]

9 hours ago, DCJonah said:

What have you seen from West Ham to make you think they can grind out more results than us? 

They've been worse than us for awhile now. Their defending at times make us look organised and solid. 

I feel they have a more experienced squad who will grind out the few results they need. Pressure starts really building now and I don’t see enough in our players to be able to improve performances in this environment when they haven’t done it all season. Again, I hope to God I’m wrong but with our run-in and lack of ability, once we drop into the relegation zone we will not get out. 

[Zatman]

FWIW if we win the cup Sunday a big IF but I genuinely would consider this season a success even if we go down