Cutrone is a very good and highly rated striker. Vallejo is Spain U21 captain and better than any CB we possess. And not sold anyone of note whilst adding a couple of promising players from Lazio for nearly £30. They’ve improved.
I know Cutrone was highly rated a couple of years ago when he broke through, but he got 3 goals and 2 assists in 34 appearances last season and they were prepared to sell him. On top of that, he's clearly not their first choice striker, because that's Jimenez, and he can't claim to be near him at present. Fairplay about the CB, that must have passed straight over my head. I'm relatively down with the general malaise here, but I don't really see how they've improved more than we have, especially considering Sarr is actually going to be a starter when he's up to speed. Obviously, whether some of our other players have regressed is another story.
Have phoned bet365 to see whether they will offer me odds on Watford keeping the same starting lineup for the WHU game and losing. They were not prepared to offer this as a ‘Special’. Very disappointing
Look at Jimenez's record at Benfica before he signed for Wolves. Similar to Cutrone's last season. As for Sarr - my very real concern is that Gracia is stubbornly sticking to a formation that doesn't play to Sarr's strengths and we will already be asking him to do things he's not comfortable at whilst dumbing down the skills he is good at. Another square peg for the round hole.
I certainly share that concern, although I don't entirely blame Gracia for it, because obviously his best position would be as part of a single striker formation, and as I said over in the Deeney thread, that's just barely an option for us whether we like it or not. I would actually be interested to see the results of a poll here on which option people would prefer we take, should a change be implemented. Would we be looking at Gray, as the most seasoned centre forward who is actually capable of leading the line in terms of movement and energy, but not enough else? Geri, as the best all round player, but not one who's ever shown the capacity or physicality to be able to play alone upfront before? Or Success, who is such a rough diamond and may well never be polished, but is our best hold up player by a country mile who has the fitness levels of a professional footballer, even if he has a rather too intimate relationship with the turf? I imagine a lot would say Welbeck, but as it stands we just cannot be relying on him to be the answer given his record. There's always hope that he might break the habit of a lifetime, but it can't be considered policy at this point.
I'm not sure why you have that concern. I'm pretty sure as soon as Sarr is seen as first team ready he'll be used wide on the right. A lot of fans seem to think that Gracia is wedded to 4-4-2 or 4-2-2-2, but I think he's been forced into playing that as it uses his best players. The only player who is not in his correct position is Hughes. Once Welbeck and Sarr are available, I'm sure he'll being using a slightly different formation in order to accommodate. Anyway, I'm not sure the formation is really the problem. It's the quality of the players. It doesn't matter what formation we have, our defence will always be poor. That's just down to the players we have, and that's nothing Gracia can do too much about. I think he's squeezed out every drop of ability he can from that group of players. He does have an abundance of talent in midfield though, which he could use and once Welbeck and Sarr are fit, he'll have a lot more quality to feed into the first team in the forward line. Let's be honest......Deeney, Gray, Cathcart, Dawson, Holebas, Kiko, Mapps, Prodl, Kabasele, Gomes, Sema, Okaka...…...they are all Championship players really. We are using half of these regularly as first team players. There's only so much you can do with that. People should be rightly questioning Gracia over the performances against Brighton, Man City, Chelsea (second half), West Ham...….but yesterday was a much better performance in terms of application and attitude. He's clearly got through to the players. Now, we have to see that continue against West Ham and Newcastle. If we do, then I see no reason why we won't start picking up good results. If we drop back into the Brighton malaise, then he's got problems as a coach for sure.
Said like you know me. Post count confirms & backs up official findings of pre menstrual delusion amongst forum users in the 10 to 15K range. David Sawyer could do a graph on that. Keep going like this & you'll end up having multiple user log ins like some of the others. Have you nothing better to do with your time??
I noticed they always post some lame cartoon GIF to put you down after as well. Uncanny. Be honest that's hardly a normal thing to do for a middle aged man?
Quite. People have been loudly bemoaning how bad our wing options are. It's not difficult to work out why, therefore, a coach would elect to use a narrow system that lessens the importance of wing play. Thus far, Gracia has been working with what he has. There's no reason to assume he won't start using a winger once he has a reliable one to call upon.
Walking away from the stadium at the moment and I feel pretty resigned to the fact that the manager has to go. This is not a bad group of players. They worked hard for the most part today. What is bad is the system. We play some lovely football but we have absolutely no width and get torn to shreds when the opposition move it wide on the counter. I think Javi is out of ideas. Gino will give him until the Newcastle game, but we could be looking at 6 games with 0 point here.
Being unable to identify a single defender to bring in and improve our already championship defence is the boards fault
No width is the key. Absolutely no width. Old slow central defenders and **** fullbacks. Anyone could play well against us.
Exactly full backs provide the width and as a result the centre backs are often left just completely isolated. It’s not good enough at this level.
The thing with Javi is that he was brought in on the basis that he studied the opposition and got results against the big teams with a limited Malaga side. There seems to be no evidence of that happening now, we have an abysmal record against the big teams so it’s difficult to see what he is actually bringing to the table.
Sure, 10-0-0. I think you might want to go and re-read the match threads from the latter part of his era if you're pining for the return of QSF's style, because they were not good reading.
I know there are numerous threads on this subject, but I thought a poll might be interesting. It also seems as though some opinions may have changed after todays shambles. I think if we fail to win at Newcastle he has to go.
Rather get relegated like this than watch some of the football we had to endure under QSF and Mazzarri. That made me want to stay at home.
You have missed the point I made, perhaps deliberately. A manager worth his salt finds a formation that works with what he has. As QSF did. And no the football wasn't pretty, but he achieved the objective. Gracia has a Plan A.. and that's it. A plan A.
Apart from Brighton performance hasn’t been bad. Today could of gone either way. Javi was about to make a change just before they scored the 2nd. The goal changed his mind and then it’s 3. Had Cleverley put his half chances away or Hughes not missed that sitter today could of been different. Our defence is the most alarming thing too slow Dawson and Cathcart to similar as soon as Antonio came on they looked vulnerable and it was a matter of time. Hopefully the midweek game will give kabasele a run out and he can claim a place for Newcastle and Janmaat. I like kiko but he’s better going forward we need a bit of defensive stability where I find Janmaat slightly better. Javi just needs the balls to change it. He’s under pressure for sure, Gino already has his replacement lined up and then his replacement but for me it’s not like the players have downed tools for him. I’d stick for now but I always say that. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Tacticly he is passed it. We need a new setup and must try to play a defensive game grom now on. Can we not play 5 3 2?
