verlaine1979

Stoke had very good positions on the edge of our box a number of times, particularly in the first half, but their final ball was catastrophically abysmal. Other teams recently have found themselves in similar positions and punished us.

Happy to get the win, but that's about it. The way we slow down and turn back whenever we get a break or a turnover is incredibly frustrating. Was a great fk, but nine times out of ten the ref turns a blind eye to that and we go home disappointed. All our best moments came from players in motion, playing the ball quickly for other players to run on to. As soon as we slow things down and try to "build" we haven't got a clue. Downes had a good game and Sulemana will have the beating of most fullbacks in the league. The raw materials are there for us to be among the best in the league, but on that performance I'd say we're about where we belong in the table at the moment.

Lol love the "in the trenches" rhetoric. Who's going first to get shot in the head by a jerry sniper just for taking a peek at no man's land, eh? Fonte would've done it.

100% We passed Sheff Weds to death without ever really looking like we were going to turn them over, and it's gone downhill from there. There have been no convincing performances under Martin, only mediocre ones and shit ones.

That's a noble sentiment, but we can't afford to fail so badly that we're not in the running for promotion this season. Solak didn't buy the club to be long-term mid-table Championship also-rans, and he's as likely to cut his losses at that point as he is to pump in additional money.

Question is - with the resources and squad the club has, what should be par performance after 8 games? I'd argue that losing more than we've won on a four game losing streak and having comfortably the worst defensive record in the league is well below par. If we were sitting in sixth with a mixed back of results, I doubt anyone would be complaining and we'd for the most part be optimistic about potentially stringing together a run that would get us up alongside Leicester et al. So then you look at the quality of performances and ask yourself if we've just been on the end of an unlucky series of results, with good performances not getting the points they deserve? On the basis of those quantitative and qualitative criteria, we're nowhere near where we expected to be, and so far the quality of performances is trending down rather than up. Something is very wrong, and from listening to him, it's not clear to me that Martin knows what it is or how to fix it. If he wants to play the possession game he's coaching, he needs the players to be so much more mobile than they currently are. Possession teams are in almost constant motion, while our players (with a few exceptions) are static, waiting for the ball. It's so glaringly obvious, but all Martin talks about are bravery and individual errors, which have nothing to do with our lack of movement. I suspect he has a fundamentally superficial understanding of the game he's trying to play, along with a superficial understanding of the quality of players at his disposal (hence why Aribo, who has spent his whole career playing in the UK, is more trustworthy than Alcaraz, who hasn't). I'll be astonished if he has the capacity to turn this around.

Not really. We just didn't want to be dicked 10-1 on aggregate over the last three games.

Annoying this is, they're not even passing triangles most of the time. At least with a triangle at some point someone has to pass the ball forward. Most of the time we just seem to pass it back and forth along the same flat plane.

It's so basic - whether you're talking about City or Brighton or whoever, the DM is an integral part of playing it out from the back, coming in close to give the more limited CBs options. But our CMs almost never come to collect, leaving the likes of Holgate and Bednarek to act as playmakers. Not only is it idiotic in the extreme, it's doubly annoying as it isn't even the fucking tactic we're meant to be copying.

Can't even claim it's because Pep doesn't play with quick wingers anymore. Doku must be the fastest player in the league and loves a sprint down the wing.

Bonus streams not available if you're logged in to the NOW TV site? Can't download the app because my phone/tablet are set to US app stores and that doesn't change with VPN.

Yeah, by evade I didn't necessarily mean actually take on and beat (though in that Brighton example, their left back does skip around his man with ease). It's as much about having the mobility, speed of thought and passing accuracy to anticipate where the opening will be and put the ball there, rather than standing still and becoming an obvious target for the press. THB might well be capable of it, and I suppose Stephens is a reasonable passer of the ball. But I have no belief in Bednarek's ability to be part of a back line that moves the ball progressively, swiftly and with accuracy. He has to wind up a big swing just to play a 5 yard pass.

Drawing the press means having a back five who are all comfortable enough on the ball that they can evade the opposition as well as a midfield nimble enough to join in and create additional avenues of escape. When, honestly, was the last time we had that kind of technical quality in our backline? Puel, pre-VVD departure?

If you're looking at it as a neutral, he looks like a player completely rejuvenated by moving to a better side. Seems to have at least and assist or a goal per game at the moment? He never got anything like that attacking consistency for us.

I think that had more to do with the fact that they got caught at least 3 times in the first 18 minutes turning over the ball within 25 yards of goal, and were lucky Leicester only converted two of those chances. Not that surprising that Bazunu decided it was probably safer going long for the rest of the match.

Watched City this morning (California time) and noted that their playing out from the back almost never involves passing to a marked fullback with only an inch or two of space inside the touchline. Seems that makes quite a big difference. Who'd have thought?

Got absolutely battered on the counter without ever really being able to do the same back, despite Leicester being open and error prone themselves. We still seem to have no clue how to actually build an attack. A Armstrong and Edozie our only ball carriers, everyone else always looking for the square pass, even if it's to a marked player. Just tedious rinse and repeat possession that eventually gets funneled into a yard of space inside the touchline where we're forced to hand it back. Fucking abysmal.

What do we think we're doing playing it out from the back into an area where the receiving players are completely matched up, and there are two Leicester attackers on their toes ready to counter only 35 yards from goal? I hate to break it to Martin, but that's not how Pep does it.

This would, frankly, be insane. RM's system does not have enough of a track record of overwhelming success that we can sacrifice our most talented players in order to maintain its purity. Get our technically strongest players in each position on the field and figure out the best way to make them play well together. Let's not be fucking about with starting a wheezing Stuart Armstrong every game just because he "fits the system".

I think our issue has long been that we're utterly shit on the counter attack, both through a lack of pace throughout the side, and a lack of clinical decision-making and finishing. Even the most possession-hungry teams don't spurn the opportunity to pour forward when the ball is won back in position promising for a break, but we're just terrible at it. So all we get is the slow build up from positions when the ball finds its way back to our keeper/CBs, with none of the dash and drive that marks out the teams that are actually successful at playing this way.

Possession football works when you have players willing and capable of taking the ball around their opposing number, or at least carrying it forward far enough to compress space and create options. It doesn't work when all you're doing is standing still trying to pass safely to players who aren't under pressure. Watching Brighton this weekend, Gilmour has stepped seamlessly into MacAllister's role, picking up the ball from the defense and carrying it forward quickly. They don't have Dunk and Webster twatting about waiting for space to magically open up.

Ah, that popped up out of nowhere. Wouldn't be surprised to see the same happen for Sulemana before the end of the evening.

Bednarek is one of those we already know isn't good enough for the prem. Don't need him for us to succeed at this level, and don't want him if we reach the level above. Would love to see the back of him.

One of McCartney's best non-Beatles songs. Are we signing Martin Luther or Auntie Gin?

Cannon looks a better finisher than Stewart based on that admittedly small sample (I see he was only at Preston for half a season).