Turkish

No place for Lallana?

I'd stick with 4-2-3-1 at home as it worked well against Villa. Away and trying make best use of what we've got I'd got 4-5-1 which becomes 4-3-2-1 when we are attacking. I'd start with Davis and Cork LM and RM playing in a chris Marsden type role with their main job to be to be solid down the flanks and tuck inside to form a solid midfield 3 covering for the full backs when they get forward. Scniiderlin playing in front of the back 4 and Lallana and Ramirez in front of him who will be responsible for closing space down and them linking up with Lambert as an attacking 3 when going forward. Those 3 wil cause most teams problems and good enough to create 2-3 good chances a game minimum. It's then down to us to be solid and not Give away sloppy goals so we don't have to score 4 to win. If everyone is fit then NC, JF, MY, DF as the back 4 JC, MS, SD, GR and AL are the midfield 5, with RL up top, as things stand with injuries and due to a bungled transfer window then I guess we are left with JWP and RC in the midfield roles instead of MS and JC. It's Alright though, we've got 2 strikers worth £10m on the bench who can't get near the team and least we can all blame Danny Fox again.

Which brings me onto Lallana. Now correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Nige bang on about his new central role during preseason, which lasted about two games before he was back on the wing. Yes I know he drifts in times but essentially we set out with him playing wide left, when we'd prepared all pre season it seemed for him to play in the middle.

So you can be better, but less effective, yes?

Winning away at a relegation rivals and beating midtable sides from last season at home are very good results.

No doubt trotting out the premier league is average, expand the stadium, next stop champions league and all of our squad for England lines.

What would your view be if we were 6th after 6 games, with 11 points from the same fixtures?

They arent dross though are they. I must confess I've only seen fleeting glimpses of them this season but last season they played some really good football at times, at other times they were direct, just like we were.

Fulham, Sunderland, Norwich and Swansea all finished midtable last season and Villa and QPR will probably be relegation rivals, you stay up by getting results in games like these, which they are doing.

What are you about? That is almost 2 points a game, no easy games the premier league, to stay up by beating the teams around you and winning the games you should win, which they are doing. Would you rather be in their position or ours?

And 11 points from 6 games is pretty impressive.

According to a lot on here he's a sh*t manager without a clue.thats what we were told all of last season.

N/t

Quite how we've gone from the well drilled side that played some top stuff last season to this disorganised mess is beyond me. I posted a number of times during last season and over the summer that we didn't get many points last season when we needed to be solid defensively and often gave away sloppy goals, of course I was shouted down and told I was being negative and to go an support some else. Clearly Nige agreed with me as he wanted to bring in defenders and goal custodians so something is amiss there. The other thing I find odd is that we are persisting with a formation that isn't working and we don't have the players to be effective playing it. We keep making the same mistakes and being undone by the same things. The big worry for me is that 7 of the last 9 goals conceded away from home have been in the first half, not when we've finally crumbled after a vallient defensive display, been worn down by great attacking play or been caught on the break as we went for a winner. We've conceded early which says to me team aren't set up correctly and at the back is bluntly a disorganised mess. We keep being told Nige is a fantastic, intelligent manager, but it doesn't seem very intelligent to me to persist with a formaiton that we don't have the players to execute properly and to keep being undone by the same things. So either he isn't as intelligent and fantastic as we've built him up too be, or someone else is dictating the formation.

Hence why I clearly said using Avenues logic.

Who knows? I struggling a bit as we keep being told Adkins is a fantastic, intelligent manager yet it doesn't seem very intelligent to me to keep playing a formation which isn't working with players not suited to it.

And the fact of the matter is we've been battered away from home. People will point to the man City game as being 20 minutes away from glory but in reality City missed a penalty and four or five other good chances and at one point they had 80% possession, to use Avenues reasoning on another day d they'd taken all their chances we could have lost 8-2. Now obviously I'm not saying we should have for a result there but the fact is we've been comfortably beaten on 3 occasion, admittedly by 3 very good sides but it's not as if we've helped ourselves as we've been very open, very easy to score against and made a lot of individual errors. Let's not forget one season in the mid 90s we stayed up on goal difference, let's hope out hopeful away tactics don't come back to haunt us on that account.

'hope' sums it up for me. Madness.

Going by your logic that it's fantastic that we're creating chances it and really encouraging, which to be fair it is, but it also means at the moment we are going to need to score an average of 4 goals a game to win, given were averaging conceeding 3 a game. How many teams win things or even stay up with crap defences and trying to out score teams? Its fine to attack at home but away from one against good sides you need to be solid and set up not to concede. And using th logic that avenue did that Everyting is fine because a goalkeeper most of us have ever seen play would definitely have prevented to of the goals and of we'd taken all of our chances we'd have scored another three is crazy.

Not really, its one thing to say if we'd have strengthened the areas that needed strengthening with players that we're good enough we'd do better. Quite another to say that in a game which we were dominated and outclassed by a better team and made basic errors individually, tactically and in player selection that if we'd had a different goalkeeper he'd definitely have saved at leat two chances and if we'd scored everyone of ours, then on another day we could have won 6-0 so everything is fine. It's idiotic.

It's been an imperious performance.

I met a bloke a few years ago who had been convicted of making up the results of DNA tests. He'd set up a company and people sent them their results for things like paternity tests and had basically made them up the whole time. He was sent down for 4 years.

Except he's not played up front yet, unless you count 20 minutes of running around and not touching the ball against Man U. Clearly he's a decent player but whilst we spent fortune on players including £10m on two that arent first choice and are yet to play in their proper positions in the premier league we fsiled to adequately strengthen the areas that needed it.

Square pegs in round holes, persisting with a formation we don't have the players to play it with for two. But I was referring to the logic that if xxxxx had played we'd have conceded less goals and if we'd have taken every chance we got we'd have scored more, so really we could have won 6-0 on another day. Mental logic.

I certainly won't be glossing over fundemental errors in tactics and players by saying 'what if?' 'if only he'd played' and 'on another day' that's the midset of idiots.