Rasiak-9-

Having said that I thought Morgan was ****ing dreadful today. Where's the spirit and toughness he showed against United (regardless of his goal btw). Davis just isn't a Premiership player and wouldn't start for any team in the top flight. I think the people who believed in Steven Davis as a solution to our midfield tough-guy vacancy have just realised just how poor the SPL has become and how little playing for either of the Old Firm actually means nowadays.

The worrying thing for me is that its hard to single out individual players for not being good enough. I honestly don't think for a second West Brom's first XI is that special, but the problem is that it all it takes from opponents is a very basic and simple game for them to win. Tackle hard and counterattack quickly, get the ball wide, snap shots off when possible at a young keeper and a panicky defence liable to deflect the ball or fail to react to rebounds and run at defenders who you'll know will panic whenever possible. Thats all it takes to beat us. West Brom aren't that brilliant, they just did all the simple stuff and fundamentals well. The sad thing is thats all it takes. Both goals were just so awful to concede from a team point of view I don't really see much point in blaming individual players. ...hence why I think Adkins really should go.

Ultimately we all knew from the word go that a point per game will be whats required to give us a good chance of survival and 3 or 4 more than that to really guaruntee it. The table at the moment is in keeping with that and I think as long as we set our sights on averaging a point per game we'll be ok. Its in our hands overall. The tables actually been very kind to us up until now - and right now the gap is more reflective of how far off realistically achieving survival we are at the moment, which perhaps makes things more depressing.

Being from Clapham its impossible to really say that theres a London club that represents the area I'm from. English side of the family is all Southampton and I just can't quite understand how I could attach myself to a different club unless I lived in a city abroad, set my life up there and felt that I had an attachment to the city and community. S'basically how it works. You should support the team that represents where you're from. Its always nice to watch a team who plays well and provides entertaining football but I don't see how you can have any real vested interest in how well they actually do. They're not really YOUR team. I suppose for a long time I liked Newcastle, still do like to see them do well, but I'm not geordie and for me thats the be all and end all. My sisters bf and likely my future brother-in-law is a Newcastle fan though - so I suppose I'd like to see them do well for his sake...but...nah...they're not a second team. There's no such thing as a "second" team.

This but I think I would have to stick with Lambert ahead of Rodriguez. I think Ramirez is a good enough step-up in central midfield to enable 4-4-2 to at least be a possibility (as opposed to how it was against spurs). So bringing Rodriguez on for Davis and going 4-4-2 I think is a genuine option in the later stages if necessary.

ah thats where you lost it. Your first two posts on this thread had me going 8/10 though - good humorous trolling!

Shame we didn't line up Edgar Davids (only as a manager, not a player/manager obv) and give him a first chance at a managerial career before Barnet beat us to it. Knows the game inside out and has passion as well as tactical knowledge. No defence would dare concede goals like we did today with someone like Edgar Davids in charge.

No, but when you are right it is down entirely to luck as you never get the chance to see the players in training and don't actually have any concrete knowledge of who the most suitable players are for whatever the match is. All we can do is judge the manager on results. I agree, the selection is strange, but we'll never know what the result WOULD be if we had started with a different selection etc. Keep the faith. Like I say all we can do is accept that he's far more qualified to make football managerial decisions than we are and judge him on the results he achieves.

Adkins watches the players train week in week out. Please put a sock in it. He knows a **** load more about football than you.

What a load of twaddle. I bet you think Billy Sharp is a Premier League striker and that Dean Hammond's better than Ramirez because "he can put an effin' tackle in!"

Great confidence considering how young he is.

Come on. If offered 4 points from Villa/Fulham as our next two home games after we lost to United would you have taken it? Course you bloody would (unless you actually thought we could get something from Everton away.

Positives: 1) Jose Fonte is held back only by confidence; and scoring a goal does a world of good for whatever position you're in. All of a sudden even if you do make a mistake you've always got the fact you've scored as a defence and its no coincidence that Jose had a terrific game at the back having had the confidence boost of a goal. Clearly does have the natural ability to some extent. 2) Getting a result playing badly; We got a result of sorts against a decent team when playing poorly. Compare that to Reading who were at 100% vs. Newcastle and Swansea in their last two and all of a sudden a 2-2 seems a decent result. 3) Good set-piece deliveries and goals; I don't much like remembering the days of being utterly harmless from set-pieces so 3 goals in our last two games from corners/FKs is a good sign. We'll need to make them count against teams who beat us in terms of possession. 4) Good fight; Conceding an 88th minute "winner" is sickening. Good fight to pick ourselves up and salvage a draw. 5) Chaplow and Guly; As much as the subs in terms of the tactical side of making them might be criticised as well as who we chose to be replaced, both players did well when they came on. 6) Gazzaniga; Looks a genuinely good keeper and not just a decent prospect. Made a great save today as well and had good hands claiming crosses. Even had the confidence to take a touch and run the clock down here and there even if his kicking wasn't great. Genuinely capable of starting Negatives: 1) Poor defending as a unit from the midfield backwards; Fulham scored simple goals. Preventable ones, but simple ones. Richardson arrived late for a simple pulled-back cross and Riise's shot should have been closed down. 2) Panic at the back; Very often we were spooning the ball away and not quite knowing who's job it was to clear the ball. We looked like a team who knew they would concede at some point. Worrying. 3) Yoshida can't play full back; At the highest levels you need full-backs like Phillip Lahm and Ashley Cole who can match the agility and pace of high-level flicks 'n' tricks wingers. Yoshida isn't a good enough full-back one-on-one although plays well as a centre-half. 4) Rodriguez; His signing becomes more mysterious by the moment. Desperately needs his first goal regardless of how well he plays in other areas of the game. He's an out and out centre-forward who does little else than (what he ought to do) score goals. 5) Lambert; Dossed around a bit. Needs to put more in during "bad" games. Its all well and good being the best and most talented player in the squad but he needs to put in a shift going forward even in games in which he doesn't score. Our best player didn't play well today.

Lousy Sunday kick-off making me choose between playing for my Sunday team or watching this one.

Richard Chaplow is nowhere near good enough to play Premiership football.

Could be worse I suppose, he could be called Todd.

How can ANYONE below the age of 75 be named Arthur!? Don't get me wrong, cool name to switch to as a 70-year-old as it'd make you sound all grand and sh*t. But bloody hell in Primary School!?

Not at all. I've never forgiven them for kicking the sh*t out of Bale in the first leg of that semi. Every fuc*ing player went in late on him and that cu*t Billy Davies got his way as the poor lad (only 17 at the time) was carried off. Disgusting football and hilarious that there team will forever be a punchline after their 11 points.

Why such white-hot hatred? When is the tie played? Considering a fair few Prem clubs are knocking each other out then we might as well give the League cup a decent go.

The comparisons with Holt are lazy and unflattering. Comparisons with this guy, who also climbed the lower leagues and just never stopped scoring at any level despite the doubters who continuously thought whichever step-up it was would be too much (who also thought he was just a big lump from the lower leagues) would be much more accurate.

mmm. Surman and Wotton missed two or three between them as well. Our penalty record that season can't possibly have been the happy side of 50%

Was a bit lame weren't it? I'll give us a pass on this one since being 1-0 down at home and staring down the barrel of a 5th straight loss I think a lot of clubs would have struggled to really get the atmosphere going. In future though we should be noisier regardless of the score barring the game being a total disaster.

Lazy punditry really. Probably only saw the highlights and so naturally commented about Lambert, who did well, but wasn't the MOTM

We'll hold onto him for maybe a couple of seasons but he's destined for bigger teams than us, or indeed Liverpool for that matter. We'll very probably make a tidy profit out of him when alls said and done as well.

Was Hooiveld injured? Brutal sub if purely tactical