shurlock

"Reports suggest..." Can you turn you lead into gold or make s**t smell like roses the same way you way you turn rumour into fact?

Ok article, nothing particularly illuminating. 4-3-3, substitutions against united/fulham -each of these criticisms is swallowed hook, line and sinker without any critical questioning. Nothing on the defense either.

Yep, my sentiments too. Claiming that we overachieved is not a slight on NA/the club but the very opposite. We saw last season over the winter period how quickly confidence can haemorrhage once you start losing. But unlike last season it's hard to see how we'll turn things around when we lack that bit of prem know-how and experience.

Why bother spending £30m then? Is that part of the strategy of dissimulation and double-bluff.

Lee has been injured on and off since March. That's not the club's fault. From what I hear, he's bit of an immature toss*r to boot. That said, he should not have been played on the left last night.

Yep-that's the one for me, Cork replacing JWP when fit. Guly could also go in there.

Yep that's the way I see it. I guess the most disappointing thing is that having got promoted the club put its hand in its pocket and was serious about strengthening the team -contrary to the usual suspects on here claiming that we wouldn't walk the walk. For that the club should be congratulated. But it's tempered by the nagging sense that, for whatever reason -some controllable, some uncontrollable, the club hasn't made the most of this rare opportunity.

Agree with this- reading some of the posts, you would think that we tanked, not that we suffered a slight dip that, accounting for variance and quality of the opposition, was pretty much consistent with the rest of the season. Even taking the points tally over our last 6 games would have been enough to see us finish 4th.

Yep- would add that we slightly overachieved last season as well, making the step up this season that much harder.

Cheers - didn't know that. Guess than extra day would have made no difference to NA's team/subs selections anyway.

I'd switch JWP/Guly for Lallana and play Lallana instead of Jrod.

Agree- like we did at Palace last season. With our next fixture not until next Monday, it's not as if they don't have time to recover. What I don't understand is why we played last night rather than tonight which would have made the fixture an ordinary midweek fixture. Out of all the teams that played on Sunday, we're the only one that played last night. The rest have been given an extra day.

They've also probably played more competitive football than our fringe players, even if it's only youth level. The closest our lot has come to game time is 6-a-side in training.

I can understand that - guess its a case of ensuring that those 3 CMs play like they did against Man U and don't drop off like they did against Arsenal. Playing Mayuka up top would help push teams back but Jrod/Lambert/Lallana will get the nod if JWP comes in. Which is a shame.

Tbf, Reeves has looked more impressive than Shaw and quite a few on here have wanted to see him given a run at LB, so no complaints there. Didn't help that Lee provided nothing defensively or offensively on the left.

So who would be the third CM? Jwp?

By the same token, how much competitive football had yesterday's XI played? On paper, the quality was there but unless you're playing regularly, it's hard to switch on and off and be match sharp.

You can quibble about whether Lambert played off Jrod but it looked like 4-4-2 to me with plenty of long balls thrown in. We've looked poor each time we've played 4-4-2 this season - teams have played through us with ease.

He likes spoons though.

Exactly- we overachieved last season but pulled through but have been exposed this season. The prem has proved one step too many. The rest is a footnote.

Slow down, take a deep breath. Where did I say it was a form blip - if you dont believe me, read my other posts because I actually travelled up and down the country, watched us play week in, week out and regularly posted on the back from the game threads. You'll discover that I was pretty down on a lot of our performances -even when we were brushing teams aside. I've always maintained that we overachieved and our performances would catch up with us. That is as good as any reason why we wobbled towards the end and it has f**k all to do with hocus-pocus off the field issues.

The fact that we lost to some excellent sides and still managed to haul nearly 2 points a game? Jesus wept.

Even if it wasn't normal -and there are lots of reasons why Nige would - I sleep easy that that is not an explanation for why we lost to the champions (despite battering them) and away to a very strong Blackpool side (without Lambert) and a competitive Boro side (stitched up by a dodgy ref decision).

And that was true all season but maybe that's also due to NA-NC's poor relationship.