Dman

It’s pretty common knowledge that if you suffer an injury to 1 leg, it increases the risk of an injury to the other due to over compensation and all that. If I know that, I’d like to think medical professionals and a football manager would as well. Which I suspect they did, given they were annoyed about him playing for England U-21’s (and then played him like 3 days later lol).

Yep, spot on. Very poor management by Ralph and the medical Staff. The lad has been ran into the ground.

he’s obviously a bitter man and on a huge wind up, but In fairness, he’s not wrong here. Leicester and Newcastle would be a step up from us. If he wants to cement himself as an England regular, he does need to be competing at the top level (I.e in Europe) and we have been on a downward spiral since koeman.

More than likely out of reach by then if their improvement trend continues at this rate.

We missed the boat not getting Eddie Howe when we had the chance.

Twar has been quiet the past few days….

Welcome, Henri. Just a couple of questions to understand your place on the forum. First question, what is your knowledge of xG. Second, have you ever lived in Glasgow or Kenya?

Only probably Tarkowski himself.

What a load of bollox…. From the person who didn’t obviously read the post. As I said, after his initial bounce when he came in (I.e we improved on Hughes, but haven’t since then).

To be fair, from what I’ve seen this season, it seems to be Romeu who is the more advanced of the 2, in what I’d call a traditional ‘box to box’ type role, when we attack (similar to Sunday), with prowsey sitting a little deeper. Im sure there is a heat map which will prove that to be wrong, but that was my observations from the games I’ve been to this season. how can I check this @TWar probably partly explains why we’re seemingly so easy to counter against. I dont really rate him as a manager, but for me, prowse would develop really well under the guidance of someone like Lampard who was the king of arrive late from deep and scoring goals.

Agree. As much as I’ve given him shit and was unhappy at our form the back end of last season, I kinda deep down, accepted that we had a rotten run of injuries which would have contributed to that. A year on, we’re seeing the exact same issues. He’s been here what, 3 1/2 years now and I honestly don’t think we’ve seen an improvement in the side, post his initial 6month bounce. If anything, I think we’re arguably getting worse.

You made a fairly decent point to be fair mate and as you said, all that matters at the end of the day is the result. Sunday and last Saturday being an example of that, not playing all that well but doing what’s needed to get a result of some kind. for me, I think a one off heavy defeat (however bad it may be) could be put down to a bit of bad luck or just being off on the night, but for it to happen 3 times now (including Chelsea as I honestly think we were lucky to only concede 6), suggest there is a fundamental issue somewhere.

If it was a one off, you could probably brush it under the carpet a little easier. However these performances and these poor runs seemingly happen every single season. We’ve shipped 9 in consecutive seasons and if we’re all honest, we’re extremely fortunate that Chelsea didn’t do the same again this season. A lot of head in sand with your above comment there.

They’ll still come straight back because of the squad they have. Then if they sell any, they’ll be able to replace them within the restraints of FFP. I still think they’ll have just enough to stay up anyway

Pretty damming assessment of Armstrong if Ralph gets a feeling that Long is a better option than him (despite seemingly training all week as if he was going to start).

Looks like it was Tino, rather than Ralph, who inspired the players 😉 A shame it took an injury to a young kid and they couldn’t find the same desire when 3/4-0 down against Leicester, United and Chelsea in recent years. Might have saved a shit load of embarrassment….

Trent looking out his depth again defensively. Gordon has him on toast.

Oh you’ve got me, 85% then.

I don’t really have an answer to why we have a spell of games a season where we look unplayable, despite being fucking rubbish for 90% of the season. If I did, I’d be working for the club I suspect. Player confidence or lack of is probably a big part of the issue.

Football clubs have whole departments to analyse teams. If you’re just trying the same thing over and over again, you’ll get found out. It happened last season, it’s happened again this season.

He won’t find any because he’s wrong. He’ll probably move the goal posts though. Ralph walked a year before the end of his contract due to ‘uncertainty’ about them offering him a new long term deal.

They weren’t prone to ‘brain farts’ from January - March though. for what it’s worth, I think it’s a combination of the manager becoming stale and certain players not being good enough. I think Ralph’s tactics are a huge issue for us though.

We looked better, controlled the ball better but didn’t really create any clear cut chances. The tide turned in their favour after the offside goal though and last 10/15 was all them. Regardless, the game is played over 90 minutes and going 2-0 down in the first half isn’t good enough.

True, although those brain farts seemingly happen every week. Underlying issues…

Try again, Yes he did.