The Kraken

It was also quite possibly the most consistently poor deliveries into Lambert that I've seen to date. Just chipping the ball up to him, not giving him the opportunity of even having a running jump at the ball most of the time. Either that or failing to beat the first man from set pieces. Us using Lambert as an aerial threat is no new news. Teams worked out those were our tactics years ago. The problem for those teams was that its all very well knowing what we're going to do, stopping it is an altogether different thing. When Lambert uses his movement to drop off onto the full back, and when the ball is is played with a bit of pace and lets Lambert move on to it and attack it, then he's exceptionally difficult to defend against. Even when he's got 2 defenders on him. yesterday, the floaty wishy washy balls up to him were pretty average. What was also massively frustrating to see was the lack of players gambling in and around Lambert for those times when he did win a knock-down; there was no-one there to feed off him in any case. Quite how we kept on repeating the same old tactics time and time again was just beyond me. Especially when we switched to just Lambert up front, made no sense to me. Far too obvious, no variety in our play, and the actual delivery of our main tactic was consistently awry.

Well I'm convinced. Phew, that's a relief.

I watched MOTD and I was at the game. I'm yet to see a save that the Sunderland keeper made that was worthy of particular praise. Did I miss one? Which one was it?

442 doesn't work, Nige. It doesn't. Other than that, thanks for the memories so far.

He hasn't made a choice yet. he's being conditioned to what someone wants him to believe. Sometimes that sticks, other times it doesn't. I was raised catholic from very young, I grew up, I learnt more about it all and then rejected it. That lad will also have a choice when he becomes more aware of what religion actually is.

From your stream, which save of those you mention do you think was worthy of particular praise?

:lol:

Were you not there today? We must have played it more than 20 times throughout the game. Painful.

My God, how true is that. It was so frustrating; not just that a hopeful punt was played up to Lambert, but that he so often had no-one else in and around him working off the fact that he might be able to win it and get the ball to them.

I think there was, actually. Luke Shaw played well, and Yoshida and Fonte did nothing too wrong. Cork was also a lot better than Scheniderlin and in turn S.Davis; Puncheon did some good, skillful things but made the wrong decision at crucial times.

Given that this much was fairly obvious from quite an early point, I'm minded to ask why we didn't realise this and try something else? Time and again we kept chipping it up to Lambert, he was most often marked by a couple of defenders, yet we kept trying it over and over and over again. The actual quality of delivery to him was pretty poor in itself, but trying it again and again was just getting us nowhere.

Who is slagging him off? He played poorly today; that's not slagging him off. He has yet to live up to a £12M price tag; that's not slagging him off either.

First half and second, Gaston was below par (of performances we've seen for us) in all departments. So were other players; that doesn't make it any less true of Gaston (especially when he himself has set certain standards by previous performances much better than this one). Your last line is weird; chastising others for not getting behind the team, yet in your first line clamouring that it was a poor SECOND half by the WHOLE team!

Amen to that. Instead we spent nearly £25M on two strikers who barely start for us (one of whom surely won't be again too soon after his abysmal showing today) and a very young playmaker who by his very nature will be hit and miss and will probably need plenty more time to settle. We need the January transfer window to come quickly, I'm just not overly confident we can cover all bases to get the squad we really need.

I don't think anyone is slagging him off. But today was his worst performance for us so far IMO. And from what I've seen of him (which has been very good at times) I don't think he's shown that he's worth anywhere near £12M. Not yet. A bit like Rodriguez hasn't shown he's worth the £7M we spent on him. Both Rodriguez and Ramirez may well prove btheir worth in the future; but nearly £20M spent on future talent rather than an immediate massive impact is looking more and more like a questionable venture.

Were you the other fatty? The one that split his trousers?

That's clearly not what I suggested at all, is it? Rodriguez is also showing that he was vastly overpriced.

But we don't. And it has. £12M? I'm yet to see too much that would value him at more than the £7M we paid for Rodriguez. Awful today; absolutely awful.

4-4-2 doesn't work at this level. It just doesn't. Plus it means we waste our most creative player by dumping him out wide where he doesn't really belong. Admittedly we looked only a little less sh*te when we reverted to 4-3-3 (or whatever we're calling it); but I'll be happy to never see us start with 4-4-2 in the Premier League again. We'd have been better off IMO just slotting in Mayuka at LM (or switching Puncheon there). Forcing a new 2 pronged strike partnership; nope, not for me. Sadly we had no proper replacement for Lallana today, and it very much showed. Anything we did today was a p*ss poor compromise.

Yeah, much better to have Steve de Ridder out there.

He hit the post second time too. What a useless fat mess.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! That is ROFLtastic!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well said Jacko.

Indeed, its a masterstroke to keep that quiet. Besides, I'm sure the fans aren't even interested in the injury situation of the first team capatain.

Well that's a f*cking disaster.