Hello friends,
When you’re searching “easy” money to win, you use to bet on Man Utd, Chelsea and why not Arsenal. Because you know that, mainly, however they play, they finally win… Especially against small teams, you know it’s almost the same thing: they win inevitably (95%)…
Yesterday, we were playing a “small” team which will surely be back in First Division next season. We were at home, with our fans, with only Cole missing as key player. So, before the match, what are we afraid of ? You know that, as Man U and Chelsea do, with an offense tactic, WBA will be easily KO.
But we started with two defensive midfielders, and we made a poor performance… We were poor technically, physically, without bold, without creativity. We made no impact. It was a boring match… hopefully we have a world class striker !
Pepe almost nothing to do. In defense, even if Agger and Carra made a good match, Skrtel was very limit (we could have a penalty against us for pulling shirt). Johnson as usual, was poor (this player should play right midfielder !).
But the worst was, again, thue duo: Poulsen-Lucas ! I repeat what i said after Trabz match: we don’t need two defensive midfielders if we are ambitious ! Lucas Poulsen duo will never give you the balls to start offensive actions, because they’re almost the same players. First: tackle. Second: give the ball behind.
Lucas improved last year, and adding him Poulsen is not the right thing to do if you hope the brazilian to improve again.
Which are the teams, using two defensive midfielders, having attarctive play?
The “first” balls to make offenses were numebered and poor quality. We couldn’t expect Kirt Jova Torres and Gerrard to shine.
Talking about Steevie, Roy has to convince himself of what we all know: Steevie is not a 10, he can’t play behind a lonely striker. Each time this solution was tried, he made a dispapointing performance. While he’s brillant playing as relayer, like Xabi played before. Come on Roy, it’s written on his shirt: number 8 !
I will no talk about our offensive players, tactically, they could not expect something to shine. They surely felt frustrated… simply frustrated.
Why didn’t we start with Lucas (or Poulsen) alongside of Gerrard, with Torres and Ngog in attack? Or Torres Kuyt with Pacheco or Maxi on the wing?
Come on Roy, you promised “pass and move”. We are tired of feebly tactic. We don’t want to be frustrated again of seeing how our team play so bad while they could play with magic with bolder approach…
Obviously we signed Meireles. I only hope we will play with Gerrard in central midfield. Simply because Gerrard is better at this place. And the team is better when he plays there.
If Roy continues with too defensive midfielders, get ready to eat your nails my friends.
We only want action, pass and move, bold. We only want other teams to be feared of our offensive game…
Oh no not again.
I thought that the stupid comments about playing 2 defensive midfielders were going to stop, since we now have an ingurlish manager !
The utter stupidity of claiming 2 DM will not work and will not be offensive. Just look at the top teams in Europe. Even arsenal deploy that way, with Song and Diaby in that positions against Blackburn. Inter, United, Chelsea, Barca. All have 2 DM because that is the trend. A fluid 4-2-3-1. And if you didn’t watch our last game, in which we lost 3-0. City had 3 DM. So shut up with this nonsense please. The problem is not the 2 DM but that the Lucas-Poulsen partnership will not work because both are virtually the same player with nil creativity.
And come again ? you said that Gerrard does not play behind the lone striker ? what bollocks is that ? did Sky or Andy Gray tell you that ?
Gerrard had played his best football in that position. With him and Torres grabbing more than 50 goals combined in one season. If he continues to play at CM the games will go past him and oh .. players too, just look at Milner for the City goal. At CM he can’t influence the game as much as when playing behind the striker.
Great response Kevin. Spot on.
Just jumping on the back of Kevin’s comments. But with Cole out we don’t have many other options. N’gog is also injured so we couldn’t play the double striker either. Now we have more options so I do agree that we should play Gerrard further back. but yesterday Hodgy did not have the options besides playing a formation that saw us get killed against city.
Every time I read something like this i start to giggle. Why is it always some fans who think they know better that the top managers in the world ? There are many, many more factors which come into play when a manager forms his starting XI. Form, fitness level, mentality, team chemistry, injury proneness, fatigue, future matches, transfer speculations… the list goes on and on …
As for Roy, I am pretty sure that he’s still trying out different tactics and formations and hasn’t really settled into his preferred line-up or formation. And that is yet another reason why your comments are … stupid.
Hmmm don’t remember, only one time, having said to someone who had a different opinion that his words were “stupid”…
Hopefully, we all know factors said before. And we all saw, again, that Lucas and Poulsen playing together is not good. But menancito, as good he is, Roy made his own choices, and we could expect more bold against WBA. We, fans, have to make critisms after what we saw. With players we have, we should have done fucking better…
But you can also think that the most important is three points
Yes, the bottom line is taking the three points. Everyone has his opinion, everyone would make his choices, but its the three points, however obtained, that keep you in contention!
This post is utter rubbish.
If anyone watched the game would have seen, both teams were poor, we edged out in class. West Brom did have a few good chances. We created nothing, but that’s down to not the formation we played 4-2-3-1 <- that is the best formation for us, but down to the quality we don't possess in our midfield. Kevin's comment is pretty spot on.
I can not take part now in discussion – there is no free time. I will be free – I will necessarily write that I think.