melmacian_saint

Evidence shows he doesn't communicate. When he came in against Chelsea, Yoshida looked around for him more often in those minutes than him and Fonte together for each other in all the matches they've been in for. Spurs and WBA were poor team performances, and apart from Tottenham's first goal where Clyne left Bale unmarked none of them came from a clear defensive error. Just like Everton, where our midfield failed to put any pressure on their fast AMs. Also wasn't him being "big" the reason he played at Stoke? If you watch the replays, Jones is miles behind him, and he's not small, but still manages to get to the ball first and backheel it past him without Jos even making an attempt to challenge the ball. When a ball is being played from wide areas you HAVE to being watching out for the strikers. Zero tactical awareness right there, he clearly had no idea someone was coming for it. And again, what is he doing in the six yard box by himself????? I expected that to have gone out of his mind after the Fulham incidents but clearly no... His ideal of "defending= just tackle/sweep/remove any ball coming towards the goal regardless" works for physical and strong leagues like the Championship or the Scandinavian leagues. Exactly where he did well. In the Prem you need more composure, it's more about tactical awareness, good positioning and anticipation, defending ways that can expose your goal rather than reacting to balls that are thrown at you, because you're playing against super-athletes anyway. Falls short of that IMO.

I honestly don't understand why Jos gets so much defense in this forum while Fonte and Yoshida (and Clyne for the matter) get so much stick if things go wrong. Is it because he answers your tweets? Hooiveld is too static and often defends too deep because he does not have the stamina or technical skill to challenge any PL striker without it being in the air or bulldozing him completely a la RVP. Hence why he settles deep and waits for a ball to come. This unsettles the back 4 and especially the fellow CB as he is constantly forced to look at what he is doing and try not to shatter the defensive line apart. Some people will claim he's bossy but what he does is nothing more than defending on his own, almost as if there's no one else there. He has not only scored 2 own goals, both because of his lack of ability but has been at fault for a couple more and the overall stress in the back four because of his reluctancy in communicating and coordinating with the other 3 and if it wasn't for Davis' penalty saves and RVP and Silva's charity none of you would be defending him. People seem to forget that the defense started to settle down way before we got our clean sheets. In fact, it settled down in the Aston Villa game at home, and after a defeat at Everton the only other calamitous defensive show was against West Ham with...Hooiveld back on the side! (Oh, and shall we not forget his gifting of anything out of the game to Fulham with a show of how not to defend low balls into the area) And yet people said what good a job he made of Andy Carroll, but forget to say how he allowed them in the area by acting as a GK for their 2nd goal. How Fonte had to close down from his side for their 4th because he was messing around out of position and was too slow to come back. Everytime he's on the pitch, either Fonte or Yoshida are constantly looking at where he is, and this is what causes them to make mistakes. They are too worried making up for Jos' poor positioning. Jos' season was only good because of the goals he scored. He is not a great defender, and can get away in the Championship because he is bigger than anyone in Hoofville. I fail to see how any of his mistakes in 7 GAMES were any better or not worth the axing shouts Jose recieved after his bad day v. Reading. Oh btw, where was Hooiveld when Fonte "fouled" the Middlesbrough player? Yeup, you guessed it, OUT OF HIS POSITION. It was Hooiveld who was meant to be on that player, not Fonte. Oh and another, do you know who had been marking RVP for the whole game v.ManU bar that exact corner?? You guessed it again!!! Also the fact that you fail to acknowledge Fonte as our most consistent performer at the back so far shows that you really just want to blindly get Jos to play out of loyalty or whatever feelings we should have to him. The MLT syndrome strikes again.

He wasn't tested at all after the Norwich equaliser. And there was also a flawless performance against Newcastle (first clean sheet of the season may I add) with two really good saves, one of which (header from Santon) could definitely run for save of the season. Also worth noting that the team really only started to look settled at the back when he came in for KD.

We've got a group of flair players but with very soft personalities and not exactly big leaders or types on the pitch. We don't have backup for 75% of our positions that ensure at least a decent cover-up role. Our most on-form CB has been injured for most of the half and has now gone off without walking. Our answer to going 1-3 down is getting a Championship level winger in... Someone has got to answer these questions about our squad construction.

I hope and pray it's a precaution, but he was limping a bit through the 2nd half prior to their 3rd and 4th goals so I fear for the worst.

I'd rather have Sorensen than Kelvin mentoring Gazza that's for sure. Between Sorensen and Boruc there isn't much difference right now me thinks, except perhaps the maverick character which may backfire as it already has.

Up there sound more appropriate If you don't mind means Megabus run a few cheap lines up there, but the quick part really is left in the cold. I'm guessing Wigan is only really served by local transport, so anything will have to involve changing in Mancs or Liverpool. You could probably get a good deal up on the Cross Country right now, otherwise London calls. However, I'm not sure CC serves Liverpool, but there are plenty of cheap ways between both big cities.

Stop dreading for butland. Stop promoting average british players to invade and unsurprisingly fail in the england squad, preventing us from success. Stop!!!

I think that it's a big mess, more than anything. Top teams have been inconsistent and the defending meltdown that seemed to live South has spread all over the country. This has meant a lot of unusual results and a lot of fluctuations in the table, which means that a couple of wins could get any relegation fighter looking further up. Great for neutrals that's for sure, but a bit frustrating for fans like us.

If Boruc's fitness was a state and has only been out for 2 months I can't imagine Craig Gordon who has 2 matches in almost 2 years or something like that....

Doesn't Merson live somewhere around Portsea (but not in it)?

Monk never looked like a talent IMO. It was match and age experience that really earnt him a shot a PL football. Also being at a club from the start of its rise helped a lot.

I see Agent Howard has asked for back-up.

Down in Lisbon's waterfront after dinner with my friends from the days in high school/6th form. Been here since the 23rd and grabbing every possible beam of sunlight to take back for the next 3 months.

I may have missed that our last defensive meltdown was a 4-1 defeat at West Ham, where he started at CB. I may have missed that his poor positioning and awareness cost us a win and almost a draw against Fulham at home in a match that we were never going to lose control of. I may have missed 2 ridiculous lunges into Van Persie and Tevez against City and United. I may have missed 2 own goals in about 5/6 PL starts, all due to poor position/lack of ability. But most importantly, I haven't missed the clear collective and individual improvement of our back 4 since he was dropped. A thing I've noticed about our back 4 is that they never seem composed when Jos is playing. With Shaw-Yoshida-Fonte-Clyne, anyone watching us would never tell we just came from the worst defensive record in the early stages of a PL season. Coincidence? I don't think so, and today and West Ham and most games in the middle prove this right I think. I really don't understand our fans sometimes. Fonte was (and if something happens will still be) given a lot more stick than Hooiveld ever was and he committed less mistakes. In fact, it was the Portuguese that was hung drawn and never Jos, even in the early stages of this season. Yes he was good last season, but unlike Fonte in L1 (where we saw his defending potential), I think fan opinion and rating of him was highly blurred by his goals tally. I think Fonte's mistakes when he played with Hooiveld had a lot to do with him gambling to cover up for Jos's "defend anything frantically as it approaches the final third" approach, which was ok in the CCC because it's all about direct physical football down there (and I felt this happened last season where Jos was a hero for most). He is not good enough, and like Hammond, Sharp and Chaplow would've joined the regulars clearance list if it wasn't for our questionable transfer market business.

Speaking about Hooiveld, anyone dare to speculate on his near future (i.e. after 1st January)? Getting him to start seemed a cheeky and reasonable option given Stoke's bully boys, but Jones took the **** out of that ability and him overall by simply being faster and more clever for their first goal, where Jos couldn't even get the challenge right. He also decided to have an angry moan at one of the midfielders after that, something he seems to enjoy way too much for my liking everytime we concede.

Entertaining game but after being 1-3 up at such a difficult ground and them being a player down it is a loss of 2 points rather than what would usually be a point won at the Britannia. I'm afraid that the substitutions cost us again, a frustrating mistake for Nigel after such a great work with the initial tactics and team selection. Not because of who came in, but the timing and what they meant. While Fox for Shaw was fairly routine, bringing Richardson in effectively meant we were a man down upfront for a poisonous counter-attack. Stoke defend as a unit so unless they're given players to worry about they will send more players forward and giving them yards to attack is poison. Great play from Guly but I just hope we don't remember that miss later on. Two bittersweet away days if you ask me.

I would probably send Gazza on a 3 month-loan to a CCC side, pay Boruc his last 6 months and let him go and sign another keeper. NOT: Butland - Hardly an improvement right now and if the club feels Gazza has what it takes to become our future no.1 then it would be a massive mistake to get another young keeper. I'm sure we did this with a keeper of our own (McNiell) when Burley signed Bart and I think it's not good for the GK department overall to keep relying in one keeper without another one tuning up to race with him. Also, I don't know where this media hype about him came to exist but really, he is not that good (nor does he look to be). In fact, he seems a similar story to.... ...Robinson- Always been overrated, now a main act in Blackburn's depressing fall from grace. Shay Given is actually a very good option. I thought he kept getting better and better as he aged, but I don't Villa are happy to rely on Guzan after last week. As for others I doubt Freidel's time is over at Spurs and his wages would be a heavy burden and risk for a newly-promoted team who really isn't looking up the table and can't ensure future revenue to sustain it.

What really surprises me is that when PG made the mistake against Norwich, people said that Kelvin would get slated by everyone for doing something like that. In fact, some people even questioned why most of our fans were that protective of a young keeper who had jumped from a League Two play-off challenger to a PL newbie in a defensive crisis. Well a few weeks later we clearly see that this is not the case, and Kelvin is being covered by many for a bad mistake (no matter what division) while Gazzaniga was described as being a comedy show and immediately linked to Bart Bialkowski's worse times. When will we learn that Matt Le Tissier's case was an exception rather than the rule and realize that loyalty, while noble and something to wish for (and certainly not to be ignored), does not move a team forward on its own?? Especially considering most fans' expectations, it's just delusional!

I think it has to do with the style of play of the teams in the academy. A lot of emphasis is placed on getting the lads to play in an attacking, high-tempo passing style, especially through the wide areas (passing out wide, coming inside, getting crosses in etc.), which means that it's mostly about getting good left and right defenders who can run miles and more importantly wingers who are pacey and can really break defenders apart. If we changed to a less open, more direct, cautious style of play through the ranks, we would see more CBs and holding midfielders coming through, and tall, bulky poachers upfront. Playing like this would also mean that players would have to show a considerable level of mental toughness sooner and in a more regular basis, which would help bringing good keepers up the ranks as well (possibly the only position on the pitch where mental preparation is as crucial as the technical abilities) It's all about how you nurture the players. I think we've chosen a good way of doing it. Truth is you can't do it all.

The problem with most of our fans is that they want us to play like a Champions League challenger and be that high up the table, yet they also want to adulate players who are your run-of-the-mill Football League heroes and expect loyalty to make it all work fine at 100% of times. Que noble IMO, but it is just NOT possible. The world is changing faster, and so is football. There's a reason why MLT was unique. There was and can only ever be one. And he's been gone for a while now. Our fanbase desperately needs to adjust its ambition levels or we will be falling in delusion very shortly (if some haven't already). That's a title I want our neighbours to keep for eternity.

To be absolutely impartial, Lowe is not a bad businessman. Yes he drowned us because of his juvenile hype when things started to go well in the run to Strachan's resignation in 03/04, and his lack of understanding of the football and the sports industry meant that all his experiments from then on were wrong and was never able to at least stop our downward spiral, but he had the right ideas all along. He invested well in SMS and Staplewood/Academy set-up, probably the club's most valuable assets. He guided us through the transition into a trading company business quite well, and gave us stability. It was exactly when he decided it was time to have a more visible say on the pitch that it all went wrong. Maybe he wanted more recognition, or simply got carried away? Maybe he should've just tried to sell the club in 2003, rather than turn it into something that he did not have the knowledge to turn into. In fact, looking back at his 12 years, I would say it was 50-50. 6 years of a reasonably OK work, and 6 years of going bonkers.

Considering how it all started, it wasn't a bad result. Someone should remind Adkins that Steven Davis played out on the left for Rangers for a good number of times. Given he's our main midfield back-up man, I'd rather have him there than anyone else, especially Ramirez who we have seen is at his best when in the middle. Kelvin's mistake was down to him not being able to adequately stretch his body. Has happened before this season, maybe a sign that the PL is too physically demanding for what he can offer at 33? Lambert has been found out and unless he is clearly stronger and bigger than the CBs the odds for him to succeed in his aerial challenges is down to 50-50. We need our wide/other attacking players to have more of the ball, encourage them to run at gaps in the defense or get crosses in and tell Lambert to remain upfront in finishing positions more often. He just doesn't have the fitness to be that present in our build-up play, at least not for a full game. We now need to find an attacking balance given that our defensive work has improved massively and is now fairly consistent.

Just shows how Flybe have SOU trapped in time and progress. All they're achieving with their monopoly position and pricing of flights is that when it finally backfires and the South Hampshire folk decide to go to London/Bournemouth/Bristol as most of them already do for their travelling, BAA won't have too much mercy at a sleepy, horrifically loss-making airport.

How our CB had the most clear chance of a game where we dominated the ball and the territory covered is beyond me. A lot of stick was given in these 4 months to our defenders, but the truth is overall our attacking force has been far more inconsistent, especially since we started getting it right at the back.