tajjuk

We do not look like a team at the moment, there is no fight there and no togetherness, players blaming each other, no one really busting a gut. We went 1-0 up and then the players went into cruise mode. How the hell does Tadic stay on the pitch, Boufal wasn't great but at least he was trying to do something, all Tadic seemed to do is fall over. Gabbi looks isolated and is feeding off scraps. Forster is shot as a keeper, how the hell did that get in, he was already across and then just sort of fell over. It's a shame because the rest of his play was good, he caught well, came out for stuff, passed well under pressure, tried to get us going early but you have to save that. Cedric, Hoedt, Romeu and VVD played well, everyone else was very poor. Felt sorry for Cedric having Tadic in front of him. Oh and Redmond comes on and within minutes cuts inside and sprays a useless ball out of play then seems to blame Ward-Prowse for it.

I can understand his frustration as VVD has hardly been great plus you would think he'd jump ahead of Yoshida.

That article seems to fit more with the Bleacher report and the story Dia says himself.

It's not a Derby.

Thinking like that is what ruins flair players like Boufal. It is how Mourinho completely ruined Joe Cole at Chelsea and just turned him into a fairly generic wide player. As young player Joe Cole used to beat people for fun, but slowly had that enthusiasm and creativity drilled out of him. Every team, especially one like ours that consistently has two DMs can allow a player like Boufal to take some risks with little problem IMO. And someone above mentioned Harry Redknapp, but despite his failings he did generally manage to get the best out of players like Boufal, if you think back to players like Taarabt, Prosinecki and Kranjcar. More recently Puel got the best out of Ben Arfa at Nice whilst still remaining solid and hard to beat.

Austin in for Long and Boufal in for Tadic. Long and Tadic just consistently miss chances that we can't afford to. I'd be tempted to have JWP in for Davis as well as they are pretty much interchangable tidy, hard working, solid footballers but JWP offers more from dead balls and crosses IMO.

Plus he put Austin through at the end who hit the post and probably would have scored it if he wasn't rusty as well. IMO we look more likely to score a goal with Boufal on the pitch then we do with Redmond or Tadic. Plus I'm more confident of him scoring a change than those two when it comes his way. Tadic misses some of our best chances week in week out. The dive to get buy a penalty from Foster being a great example where he should have scored.

Pretty much 7th to 20th, anyone can beat anyone, and even bad runs can be turned around (like us under Koeman), injuries can change seasons etc. managerial changes can change seasons (for the better or worse) so it's too early to tell. We certainly shouldn't be involved, but then we've had some fairly comfortable and 'easier' fixtures and not done that well so we will have to pick up from here and improve. I think it really depends whether the encouraging signs against West Brom (the more forward play, faster tempo etc.) were signs of the managers ideas and influence finally getting across to the players OR it was the players trying to break out of the shackles of the managers restrictive instructions. I'm hoping it's the former, but fear it is the latter.

No it was pretty obvious at the time hence why the crowd booed, Redmond has done sweet FA for 9 months and was very very poor against Newcastle, whereas Boufal was much better against Newcastle and that was in 10 minutes compared to Redmonds 80 minutes. It's not rocket science is it. Player A plays crap for the whole of the previous game. Obviously bad enough to get dropped for it. Player B, in 10 minutes of the previous game shows more energy, creativity and movement than player A showed in that game. Thus when you look to the bench to get goal that might win you the game why would you look to guy that you dropped for being so ineffective, instead of the guy that played much better than him. Logically you wouldn't. Redmond had done nothing in the previous 3/4 games minimum to say he was worth being brought on, whilst Boufal had. Hence the booing. The booing is pretty understandable IMO.

Do any of those clubs need a keeper?, ok Liverpool do but they seem to be oblivious to that. Man City just bought one and he's doing ok, Chelsea have Courtois, Arsenal have Cech, Man Utd De Gea, Spurs Lloris. Plus at the rate they are going Stoke could be going down if they don't sort themselves out. Unless he goes abroad or Liverpool wake up, we would be a pretty solid choice for him.

Whilst we are far from perfect, something has to be said for having a clear structure at a club, a shared philosophy and a thought out recruitment process. When you look at the mess clubs like Everton, West Ham, Stoke, Leicester, Crystal Palace (hell even Liverpool and Arsenal to an extent) etc. are in at the moment with their scatter gun recruitment policy, glaring holes in their squads, no clear identity, changing managers etc. then some credit must be given to Les Reed et al. I mean sure we could get worse from here, and those clubs could improve but on current evidence I doubt it. We at least vaguely look like we know what we are doing and look like we have a plan, even if it's not being executed properly (though there are signs that maybe the manager is starting to get his message across). I'm sure envious eyes were glanced towards Everton and their summer spending by many of our fans, but they are all over the place, I am pretty certain had Les Reed overseen that they'd be in a better position than they are now.

Were the fans more booing the fact that it was Redmond being introduced first, rather than Boufal, who the week before had come on and done very well. Whereas Redmond has been pretty crap for a long while and was deservedly dropped, thus had done nothing to warrant him being the first sub introduced. They were booing the decision to bring him on, not him in particular.

We should get Butland. It's inevitable VVD is going at some point, some of that money should be re-invested in the best keeper we can get, unless Forster can regain his old form.

Even if we had kept Poch we wouldn't have Harry Kane. 86 league goals in a 122 games, we wouldn't have been able to buy that and you get someone like him come through the youth system once in a generation really. What we should do is let Liverpool have VVD for like £80 - 90 million, after these sort of performances they are going to be desperate for a centre-back. Then we go out and get the best two attacking players that want to come to us whatever the fee, or maybe the best attacker we can get and someone like Butland. Our defence without VVD would still be as good as anyone in the top 6, especially if we can get a new keeper or FF finds his old self. Also every time I see him Trippier is just quality, a complete full back, looks better than Walker to me.

But Tadic and Redmond get 9 months of games? Boufal in about 30 minutes of football over the last two games has done like 10 times what Redmond has done in 9 games and probably another dozen games at the end of last season.

Watford's performance against Chelsea makes our defeat against them look less bad, but then watching Stoke makes that loss look even worse. Though I think West Ham, Stoke, Everton and West Brom our perennial 7-10th rivals currently look a lot worse than us.

Along with Boufal, I think Austin needs more game time, I hope people who call Austin slow saw him chase down Foster, cos he did not look like someone who was slow to me. He'll score goals and must be massively frustrated watching Long and Tadic miss chance after chance.

Oh yeh, Forster, pretty much untested but that fumble......

You have to question why Boufal didn't start after last week anyway, but then how Redmond got on the pitch before him. We also do not need two defensive mids at home, unless we are playing like Man City. Overall the performance was sharper I thought, we tried to be quicker, we worked hard to get the ball back. Also West Brom are boring as f*ck, no intention of trying to win the game at all.

Don't bloody give it away now.

What a goal.

Unless we step it up against better teams it's entirely possible.

It was poor all round from Tadic, yet again he's wasted another good chance then he makes a meal of it.

I dont understand how a team that does sweet FA attacking wise can suddenly just switch into the game and make chances.

To be fair against a very negative West Brom we've actually looked better, moving the ball more quickly.