mrfahaji

Isn't Keita a central defender? If not then disregard my post! If so, then it's pretty obvious how it would have some relevance.

Liverpool have agreed to sign Keita for £48m next summer. Probably relevant to their position on van Dijk.

Forster Cedric-Yoshida-Hoedt-McQueen Lemina-Romeu JWP-Davis-Boufal Gabbiadini Would consider having Long on the right and JWP in the middle. Would also like to see Hojbjerg as part of a midfield three with Romeu & Lemina but doesn't look likely at this stage. Obviously I don't think McQueen is a better player than Bertrand, but he hasn't let us down there before and not sure Bertrand can be relied on to play anywhere near his potential atm. Even though I wouldn't pick Tadic, I still think at his best he would be in the first XI. I hope we see that level from him again, our side would be much the better for it.

Actually I see Davis looking for forward passes quite a bit, probably as much as any other player. Often against Huddersfield we were going sideways as per usual, until Davis tried to pick out a ball forwards. Unfortunately a lot of those times were difficult passes which had very little chance of making it through unless they were inch perfect (they weren't). Davis has faults, but not sure he is any more "sideways" than anyone else at the moment.

It annoys me that we don't play Tadic left and Redmond right (if they are going to play at all). Getting behind the defence and putting the ball across the goalface is much more dangerous, and although this may sound a bit of a weird thing to say, I also think it raises excitement in the ground, the atmosphere, and the momentum of the team. Even if no one gets on the end of a ball across the middle, or if it gets cleared, there's a sense of "we're getting closer", while cutting inside and eventually lofting a hopeful pass into the middle feels like we're out of ideas, bread and butter for PL defences unless the pass is inch perfect. I don't think our overall game is very good at the moment, so maybe we should give or underperforming players (i.e. Tadic & Redmond) more basic roles. Go past it get some space against your man, put it on your stronger foot, and put the ball in the box. Gabbiadini would know it was the tactic and make gambling runs accordingly. I'm not saying this should be the way forward for every game all season, more of an approach to get more out of our creative players who are currently struggling. Too much "safety" atm, and cutting inside compounds this. When the team/players start playing with a bit more cohesion and confidence, then mix it up and have players cutting in, but it's not working in this side that has forgotten what it means to score goals.

Agree with this, although a little harsh on Cedric, he hasn't been brilliant but nowhere as disinterested as Bertrand

True, but it then begs the question, why get rid of Puel due to "style of football" if we were going to hire someone who does much the same. The comments after he arrived from Les certainly implied they were expecting more pressing this season. Wonder if the interview went something like "so you know Pochettino, you also like a pressing game right? Right?" "Er yeah sure..."

Yeah why haven't we signed Eriksen and Kane? Or Silva and Aguero? Or Sigurdsson and Lukaku? Pathetic from our board.

Never sniff at a point away from home in the Premier League. Today also goes to show how big a factor momentum is in the game. We started well, had chances to quiet them down, didn't take them, felt the force of a team on a massive high for the next 60-70 minutes, and spent the last 10 minutes smelling blood and actually playing with a bit of intent. A few points from today: - Yoshida was excellent, and Lemina had a good first half. Not sure moving him forward in the second worked, but he even did ok there too. A big reason to be positive. - Bertrand has been going through the motions since about half way through last season. Today was one of the most glaring examples. - Gabbiadini is not a bad footballer, nor is Tadic. Redmond is debatable (!) but he has his moments too. I think it's a bit simplistic to suggest the reason we are struggling is because they're not pulling their weight. When we set up as we do, they are all isolated and barely get the ball. Tadic was anonymous after about 10 minutes, but he's never exactly been known for putting himself about. If we got forward quickly and made an effort to get the ball to him, he'd probably do something with it. Instead we expect him to assert himself on a game that isn't running for him. That's never going to happen unfortunately, and I feel the blame lies as much with the manager of not seeing that than the player for not changing his habits of a lifetime. - Ward-Prowse played with a bit of purpose when he came on. Sure, he still did some simple things badly, which is frustrating, but if we're going to play a style of football with no real strategy other than playing sideways passes like we did under Puel (except less incisive than Puel's away matches), perhaps we should start JWP on the right instead of Tadic for a while. - Redmond. Dear me, not sure if it's worse to be anonymous like Tadic or to be "quiet with a few fking terrible moments" like Redmond. So many moments, but a few: Tadic ends up on the left and is behind the full back. Instead of playing him in, Redmond turns in side and plays a 5 yard pass. The move eventually breaks down. Gabbiadini has got the other side of the defender, Redmond could slide him in... shoots, and it's crap. Gabbiadini flicks ball past defender and has ball on left at the byline - needs support, Redmond is walking about 20 yards behind play disinterested - a left winger not getting involved with an attack on the left wing. Plus the countless times he allows the defender to nick the ball away from him with his back to goal. Stupid push (on Mooy?) at end of first half too. - As others have said, perhaps today was a game for Long to play more of a part. Give him one chance to beat someone or score, he'll probably mess it up. But his directness might have led to a few more chances today, and he actually created two of our best chances with smart crosses. - Maybe today wasn't the game for Boufal, but I'm not sure how much worse he can do than Redmond, especially if JWP is on the right. He might overplay but at least he actually tries to beat his man once in a while and also knows where the net is. Although I think today's game may have suited different personnel, I think our style is going to regularly result in disgruntlement with our forward players, whoever they may be on that day. And we have such a variety of clearly talented (at some things) attackers that there must be more to it that individual defeciencies.

Not really, if we'd have won that game it would have been daylight robbery. If they had won it, we couldn't have any complaints.

Yep. Should have put that £10 on.

Yoshida Time

Gabbi hasn't done much, but Tadic has done nothing and Redmond has only done sh1t things. Although makes you wonder, are all our attacking players rubbish because they are rubbish, or because we aren't set up properly to use them effectively?

Redmond always makes the wrong decision. So infuriating. Lemina off... hmmm one of our only decent performers, what on earth is our shape going to be now with Long on?

As much as Stephens is good on the ball, I'm starting to wonder what the real benefit is of that, when you consider his weaknesses in other areas do seem to count for rather a lot.

We look so dodgy at the back, not even limited to the CBS.

Only to people who make basic assumptions.

Yep. Unfortunately, so are we...!

Scrappy in a sort of entertaining way though. I'd much rather we didn't look under threat from their attacks, but it certainly isn't a game at the moment that has "0-0 written all over it". Should probably whack a tenner on 0-0 now...

Nice, cheers! Just been trying loads on feed4u, the only decent one I found was playing some kind of russian folk music loudly over the top... First thing I heard when I loaded this page up was "...Town fans are in dreamland at the moment", I thought the worst... Edit: Does seem to be freezing/buffering quite a lot though

Haha, sounds fair enough! Good luck digging out that black & teal shirt that you never had reason to wear before...

He might not be playing very well, but to say he isn't very good is a bit extreme.

Just out of interest, why does it matter so much to you?!

Ooh, putting yourself forward "I think you should tell someone who posts every day with thousands of posts to their name" "Ok, shurlock?" "Not shurlock, you can't trust someone with a Martin Samuel profile pic. Better to have, say, Markus Liebherr" "Oh ok, ALWAYS_SFC?" "Someone a bit more balanced than ALWAYS..." "S-Clarke?" "Oh give me strength..."

I agree those players would have improved us, but not sure any would fit our business model with the exception of Gueye. Obviously if you disagree with our business model, that's a different argument. I agree that we took a backwards step in the summer Koeman left, a combination of poor recruitment (Mane, Pelle, Wanyama leaving were difficult gaps to fill), new manager style having too much emphasis on possession and defence, seemed to drain our players, and a sense of complacency in terms of the state of the squad (or gambling on too many players "coming good"). Think we have done better this year though, at least in terms of intent. We shall see whether the business we've done has been good, but it's certainly the right kind of business I want to see us doing. Koeman came down to value for money. Is he a good manager? Yes. Is he one of the best in the world that merits a salary to match? I'd say no. And he also wasn't interested in bringing younger players through. He wanted short term results to boost his own stock. Not necessarily a good thing for us. If we may not have got the right men since, it means the Koeman fall out looks the wrong decision in context, but as a standalone decision I'm not sure it was wrong.