Relegation

[Big_John_10]

The 3 games that followed Liverpool were indeed very poor and thankfully an astute manager did spot the warning signs and acted on them. I'm glad you agree with that.

The 3 games that followed were awful.

He then started the exact same way against swansea. Not sure how you've reached the conclusion he acted on it after the following 3 games.

[CI]

Astute manager lol

Stubborn manager , naive manager, failing manager.

[darrenm]

 

 

 

Indeed. While the 3-5-2 is being looked at as a massive failure now, at the time it was a revelation. That is until it completely backfired against Chelsea.

 

https://plus.google.com/106741222992400580002/posts/1gFn7DkHiBF was my take on it just after the Norwich game, before Liverpool away.

 

 

Lambert can hardly be blamed for giving it another 2 games before changing things.

Hmmm. What do you make of of 3-5-2  now? 1-0 Reading, 1-1 QPR, and 0-0 Stoke is hardly tearing up the trees is it? So only the 4-1 Norwich stands out and the 3-1 against Liverpool. Arguably neither of those results had anything to do with the formation we were playing. In the Liverpool game they had 61-39 possession and 17 shots on target, so their failure to score more than 1 wasn't necessarily to do with our defensive solidity. The warning signs were there for an astute manager to spot.

 

It was a necessity at the time to protect the defence. But its weaknesses were exposed by better teams. The 1-0 Reading, 1-1 QPR and 0-0 Stoke were great results in their own ways. We absolutely dominated Stoke that day, far more than last week, and QPR had and still have some good players and we were the apparent fall guys for King Harry to get his media-willed first win against.

The 3 games that followed Liverpool were indeed very poor and thankfully an astute manager did spot the warning signs and acted on them. I'm glad you agree with that.

 

Ah, the "astute" manager reacted to a 0-8 drubbing by playing the same system to deliver a 0-4 at home to Spurs and 0-3 to Wigan. 

 

Glad we have such a tactical genius at the helm!

 

But surely, going purely by logic, the 3-5-2 was proven to work by at least good performances, at best great results over the previous 5 games.

 

Then also as surely, a good manager doesn't overreact by panicking and changing a proven winning system without being absolutely sure he has to. 

 

The best manager will be assertive and brave in changing the system when they know it needs changing, but not panic and start changing everything around on the back of one bad result.

 

Ever heard of this? http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_the_monkey_banana_and_water_spray_experiment_ever_take_place

[Big_John_10]

meaning they weren't stupid at the time

Regardless of injuries, sticking with a formation that results in heavily losing games is a stupid decision in my book.

Yes injuries dictate a change every so often but that was sticking with something that clearly wasn't working and resulted in some awful performances and results.

Note BJ10, the TEAM we put out in those games was weak in regards to personell, due to—funnily enough—injuries. As if it had nothing to do with anything. Also, funnily enough, we have been much better since those players have come back from injury, allowing us to change formation due to the players available. It is no coincidence that was the period we were relying on Herd, Lichaj, etc, with Lowton playing as a CB, where he is not the same standard as he is at RB.

Are you saying there was no other option than to play that formation?

Even after you've had a 3 game run of losing 15-0 you're going to tell me he had no other choice?

Or how about the newcastle game where we had lowton, bennet, vlaar, clark and baker all fit and once again chose to play 3 at the back?

[Big_John_10]

Then also as surely, a good manager doesn't overreact by panicking and changing a proven winning system without being absolutely sure he has to.

We lost 3 games letting in 15 goals. Would you not think that after that he should be absolutely sure he has to change?

How bad does it have to get?

[darrenm]

 

Then also as surely, a good manager doesn't overreact by panicking and changing a proven winning system without being absolutely sure he has to.

We lost 3 games letting in 15 goals. Would you not think that after that he should be absolutely sure he has to change?

How bad does it have to get?

 

Eh? He did change it after 3 games letting in 15 goals.

[romavillan]

Then also as surely, a good manager doesn't overreact by panicking and changing a proven winning system without being absolutely sure he has to.

We lost 3 games letting in 15 goals. Would you not think that after that he should be absolutely sure he has to change?

How bad does it have to get?

The point stands though. We'd done well enough playing that way before we imploded. Why can't the implosion be down to the personnel? Not solely the shape of the side?

Personally I don't think 3 at the back is so crazy and I don't think we've seen the back of it for good from Lambert either. We could play a good 3-4-3 with...

------------------guzan-----------------

-------clark------vlaar------baker------

Lowton-----delph----westwood-----bennett

--Weimann--------benteke----------gabby-

Clark, vlaar and baker can all pass well enough for that to work.

Anyway. Criticising Lambert so much over his use of 3 at the back but not praising him for finding a good formula is a bit odd. We've played quite a few different formations, all of which were part of the process of him working with the available players, deepening his knowledge of the squad and a process of arriving at where we are now.

[smetrov]

 

The 3 games that followed Liverpool were indeed very poor and thankfully an astute manager did spot the warning signs and acted on them. I'm glad you agree with that.

The 3 games that followed were awful.

He then started the exact same way against swansea. Not sure how you've reached the conclusion he acted on it after the following 3 games.

 

 

Did he have options though ? - the choice seemed to be a pairing of Clark\Baker or play a back 5 with Clark\Baker\Herd - TBH neither selection would fill me with confidence. I could be wrong but thought our form slowly began to improve with the return of Vllaar ?

[samjp26]

It's always interesting to go back to pages 1, 2, 3 of a thread, but this one is just painful. Apart from the odd lunatic, relegation was always on the cards. FFS too many **** ups this year. 26 points dropped from winning positions

If we won all the games we went into the lead in, we would be 5th. Lol.

[chappy]

Massive day today seeing as most of us really expect a loss on Monday... Hopefully qpr and reading will pick up points ideally wins today, then you've got to be backing Everton against Sunderland and hopefully the west ham who got a point against man united will turn up against Wigan. Having said all that, the table could look horrible by the time out game finishes on Monday.

[Oaks]

Today will be like a match day, even though we're not playing.

[Big_John_10]

Then also as surely, a good manager doesn't overreact by panicking and changing a proven winning system without being absolutely sure he has to.

We lost 3 games letting in 15 goals. Would you not think that after that he should be absolutely sure he has to change?

How bad does it have to get?

Eh? He did change it after 3 games letting in 15 goals.

No he didn't.

Against Swansea we started the exact same way and it was only down to awful finishing that stopped us being 4-0 down after 10 minutes in that game.

[CI]

Yeah the opening 15-20 mins at Swansea was like the Alamo

[KennyPowers]

The big games for us today: 

 

West Ham v Wigan 

QPR v Stoke 

Sunderland v Everton

 

Wow, they are some unpredictable games. On the Talksport predictor I've gone for 1-0, 2-0 and 1-2 but it's probably just wishful thinking. I definitely wouldn't be betting on those games. 

[CI]

You've missed Norwich v Reading

[Big_John_10]

The point stands though. We'd done well enough playing that way before we imploded. Why can't the implosion be down to the personnel? Not solely the shape of the side?

A couple of draws and wins against Norwich and Liverpool. It's hardly setting the world on fire. Compare that with the following 4 games playing the same formation.

And the Newcastle game shows how much it was down to the formation. First half awful, change at half time and improved instantly.

Personally I don't think 3 at the back is so crazy

You basing that on how well other teams currently do using it? Our great run of form? How much better we've looked since we stopped using it?

Criticising Lambert so much over his use of 3 at the back but not praising him for finding a good formula is a bit odd

That would be odd. Who hasn't praised him for finding a good formation now?

I think you'll find some just aren't going to make excuses for what a poor year it's been.

Did he have options though ? - the choice seemed to be a pairing of Clark\Baker or play a back 5 with Clark\Baker\Herd - TBH neither selection would fill me with confidence. I could be wrong but thought our form slowly began to improve with the return of Vllaar ?

Of course he had options. The formation was awful defensively and shocking in attack. It's no coincidence that our goal scoring average a game has shot up since we started playing our current formation.

Vlaar started against Newcastle in which the first half was an embarrassing awful performance against one of the worst away teams in the league. And shock we looked much better the moment he changed it.

[smetrov]

 

The point stands though. We'd done well enough playing that way before we imploded. Why can't the implosion be down to the personnel? Not solely the shape of the side?

A couple of draws and wins against Norwich and Liverpool. It's hardly setting the world on fire. Compare that with the following 4 games playing the same formation.

And the Newcastle game shows how much it was down to the formation. First half awful, change at half time and improved instantly.

Personally I don't think 3 at the back is so crazy

You basing that on how well other teams currently do using it? Our great run of form? How much better we've looked since we stopped using it?

Criticising Lambert so much over his use of 3 at the back but not praising him for finding a good formula is a bit odd

That would be odd. Who hasn't praised him for finding a good formation now?

I think you'll find some just aren't going to make excuses for what a poor year it's been.

Did he have options though ? - the choice seemed to be a pairing of Clark\Baker or play a back 5 with Clark\Baker\Herd - TBH neither selection would fill me with confidence. I could be wrong but thought our form slowly began to improve with the return of Vllaar ?

Of course he had options. The formation was awful defensively and shocking in attack. It's no coincidence that our goal scoring average a game has shot up since we started playing our current formation.

Vlaar started against Newcastle in which the first half was an embarrassing awful performance against one of the worst away teams in the league. And shock we looked much better the moment he changed it.

 

 

Like I said as far as I can see the option was a CB pairing of Clark/Baker - or a back 5 containing Clark\Baker\Herd. Pretty much as soon as Vlaar was fit - he went to a back four. 

 

I don't see what other options he had.

[KennyPowers]

You've missed Norwich v Reading

 

I think Norwich will win so it didn't help illustrate my point. I would fancy Newcastle to get at least a point (maybe three) at West Brom as well. I think those games are fairly predictable. 

 

Wigan, Stoke, Sunderland, who knows today. 

[Big_John_10]

The point stands though. We'd done well enough playing that way before we imploded. Why can't the implosion be down to the personnel? Not solely the shape of the side?

A couple of draws and wins against Norwich and Liverpool. It's hardly setting the world on fire. Compare that with the following 4 games playing the same formation.

And the Newcastle game shows how much it was down to the formation. First half awful, change at half time and improved instantly.

Personally I don't think 3 at the back is so crazy

You basing that on how well other teams currently do using it? Our great run of form? How much better we've looked since we stopped using it?

Criticising Lambert so much over his use of 3 at the back but not praising him for finding a good formula is a bit odd

That would be odd. Who hasn't praised him for finding a good formation now?

I think you'll find some just aren't going to make excuses for what a poor year it's been.

Did he have options though ? - the choice seemed to be a pairing of Clark\Baker or play a back 5 with Clark\Baker\Herd - TBH neither selection would fill me with confidence. I could be wrong but thought our form slowly began to improve with the return of Vllaar ?

Of course he had options. The formation was awful defensively and shocking in attack. It's no coincidence that our goal scoring average a game has shot up since we started playing our current formation.

Vlaar started against Newcastle in which the first half was an embarrassing awful performance against one of the worst away teams in the league. And shock we looked much better the moment he changed it.

 

Like I said as far as I can see the option was a CB pairing of Clark/Baker - or a back 5 containing Clark\Baker\Herd. Pretty much as soon as Vlaar was fit - he went to a back four. 

 

I don't see what other options he had.

Vlaar was fit against Newcastle and he started with 3 at the back. Changing because we were 2-0 down and being out played.

I'm not saying his defensive options were brilliant but to suggest he had to play that way is ridiculous. Especially when it did so badly.

After letting in 12 goals in two games do you not think it might have been wise to try something else? Can it get worse?

Then after letting in another 3 goals against Wigan do you not think it might have been wise to try something else?

[Big_John_10]

Also what about the start of the season when he persisted with that ridiculous narrow diamond formation which resulted in our worst ever premiership start? Did he have no other options then?

The man has made mistakes that have led to a poor season. Credit for getting it right recently but that could turn out to be too late.