We have conceded 40 goals in just 22 games. That's worse than the previous two seasons. Silva is saying we are missing Britos and Kaboul and giving that as a reason for it. Are you serious? These guys make no difference whatsoever to the backline. If we do not take our defensive problems seriously and address them in the transfer market, it will take us down. Everyone can score against us. You are never going to win enough games if you haemorrhage goals at the rate we do.
A Ross Jenkins double glazed special. Just read TFTV 6 & had no idea of his varied & slightly eccentric career post WFC.
How many of those goals were conceded in the last 10 minutes? How many points have we lost in the last 10 minutes? If we had won and drawn palace and swansea in either order we'd be safely in 9th and well clear. Let's face it, the 2 bottom teams probably won't clear 33 points. So it's 1 from 8 I guess. We are top of the 8 so form aside we are in the best position. Beat Saints and we are 8 clear of at least 3 teams. We are easily good enough but this managing of the game at the end is killing us. If we are winning with 5 mins to go vs saints we must run it into the corner and bloody sit on it.
That’s the problem. We’re not good enough.we have good attacking elements but that’s it. The defence is so chronically poor that it outdoes anything we can do in an offensive sense. I don’t feel we have a coach that knows how to prepare a side defensively either, so the problem is intensified. A lot of the struggling sides are getting their acts together now. We are still in nosedive mode. I don’t hear any rumours for signing defenders. It’s always midfielders or wingers. The real problem is at the back. Teams feel they are always in with a chance against us, even in the final minutes. They know if they press us we will implode. Teams like Swansea and Palace leave it late because they are wary of our threat on the break, so they play conservatively until the last 10 minutes or so, then push forward if they need to in the belief they will get something from the game.
Better off without Britos, he's yet another over the hill liability who's nowhere near good enough at this level anymore. Same goes for Kaboul... and Holebas... and Gomes... and Watson...
Hmmm. I guess we just need to make sure we score 2 or 3 goals while we are in the ascendency so we are too far away by the time they decide to attack! I seriously think 34 will be enough. 3 more wins. Hughea coming back will be massive along with any January additions. We are still top of the pile so I still have complete faith we will go into our 4th season in the Prem. A lot to sort out though.
A couple of observations. The same players, except Chalobah, were performing wonders for 10 weeks. There are v few/barely any players with Prem experience available to us in this window. Silva has conceded goals from day one. The players’ confidence is exceedingly low & Doucs & Richie are looking knackered. Surely the only way we can begin to tackle survival is to change the head coach & change our approach. We won’t attack our way out of this situation. The defence is the first priority & I’m not certain if Silva even thinks in that way. We need an organiser & a pragmatist. More QSF than Zola. More Mazzarri than Silva. No one managing in the Prem at the mo looks remotely a prospect (in which both parties would be interested). Both Dyche & Wagner would be excellent candidates. Otherwise, Rednapp, Rowett, Jokanovic? The Italian guy no one has heard of? Not a promising long list. Adams the former Arsenal defender? The toughest conundrum yet for Pozzo & you can understand why Plan A is v much for Silva to work out. In which case, I don’t look forward to 22 weeks of clenched buttocks. The neatest solution would, of course, be to swap Silva & Allardyce. Anyway, enough midnight ramblings.
Come on guys . Reality check . Admittedly we don’t look great , but there are 10 teams below us . We still have a great squad, albeit with huge defensive vulnerabilities . There is more than enough in that squad to get 4 or 5 victories . We re not French, so let’s not surrender just yet.
The most annoying thing about our position right now is that Silva may now rest players on Saturday. 4 points better off and we may have put out a relatively strong team.
Swansea are gone. West Brom will have a little bounce and collapse, in serious trouble. Stoke might sack their manager, they're in trouble. Southampton will sack their manager, they're in trouble. West Ham will probably climb away from that bottom bunch I reckon. Bournemouth are in trouble. Newcastle are in trouble. Brighton are in a false position, they are crap and I think might be the surprise team to have a mighty collapse and go down. We. Are. Not. Getting. Relegated.
To put it in perspective here, I have a mate at work who supports Southampton (as does my Father-in-law) and both are much more depressed about football than me at the moment, and that is saying something. However, lose to them and that'll change.
To be fair to them if we had the best striker in the league getting splinters on our bench I'd be depressed too. Especially when the alternative is shane "*****" long. If I were them I'd be camped outside the managers house with a burning torch and pitchfork.
In confronting the situation, we have two options. One, to use unusual punctuation or, two, examine the facts. If we perform over the next 6 matches as per the last 6, we will 16th. WHU will be 4 points ahead, Palace 5. Udders, Brighton & Newcastle may be in the wrong positions but they will also be ahead of us. Our last 6 games were rated as the easiest of any team across the division & only Gabbiadini's Soton got fewer points than us. The next 3 bring Soton & Stoke, who would see us as v beatable. By that stage it's a horrendous scrap. Would you back Silva's WFC in a scrap? It's about contingencies. We beat Soton & Stoke, job done. If we lose to Soton & Stoke, how can you bring in an outsider with any realistic chance that they can turn the tailspin round?
Absolutely. We’d in theory need a defensive minded coach who can make us solid at the back, but then we’d be screwed at the other end as we have no strikers that can score goals. I can’t see how we could shore it up at the back but still have the luxury of getting goals from the rest of the team.
I reckon we'll always score goals with our pace on the break. Against the bus parkers, more tricky. Zarate & Pereyra might help here.
Current thoughts on relegation prospects? 6 points from safety (assuming Stoke get nothing away at United on Monday) and there are certainly worse teams below us, even if their current form isn't as bad as ours Need roughly 5 wins from our remaining fixtures to secure safety
I think our saving grace at the moment is the number of teams below us. 6 points isn't much, but it's 6 points AND 10 teams. It's so tight that every week brings a different team to our attention who look as if they might drop into the relegation places. This weekend that team could well be Brighton, who are finding goals hard to come by, and therefore victories. Except when we played them of course, typically. Swansea drawing with Newcastle was a good result for us. We wait to see whether Brom's win was a flash in the pan. Huddersfield had a bad result, but they do score goals at least. Stoke look to be following Everton's lead in sacking a manager without a replacement lined up, and long may that uncertainty continue. One thing I think we can all agree on. That 'goal' yesterday for us at the death was so so vital. That point, and denial of 3 points to a relegation rival, could still make all the difference.
Need to make sure we have enough points on the board before the last three games, we'll lose to Spurs and United, and Newcastle could be a relegation six pointer at that point.
The conversation with your mate will be interesting tomorrow morning. Tell him to take it handy. Teams have to work for points, they are not just handed to any team. Make sure you shake hands at the end.
As much as I dislike Howe and that an away win would have aided our cause, I cannot feel sympathy for Arsenal. We think we have problems? Look at Arsenal. The highest ticket prices in Europe (?) and because of this a diluted fan base,made up of wealthy home counties late comers or football tourists. Players who seem to have abdicated from the game until they have their required move ( Sanchez). A coach who has over stayed his tenure by some distance. The removal of a true football man ( Dein) who was a wise head to the coach and board. To cap it all an abhorrent owner who thinks it is acceptable to have a TV channel that shows the slaughter of animals. Karma.
It's been a pretty awful week for us, last minute equaliser aside. Wins for West Brom, West Ham, Palace, Muff and a point for Swansea, Newcastle and Saints. Not often that many points are won in the bottom half I'd expect. If Stoke come away from Old Trafford with something tomorrow it'll really ramp up the pressure on us.
It does make you wonder what will happen to them now. They’ve managed to get by qualifying for the CL for god knows how many seasons, but that run has come to an end. Their two best players are off and without them they look mid table. The transfer market has gone completely bonkers so they’ll not have a hope in hell replacing Sanchez and Ozil with like for like talent. They’ve let 5 other clubs gradually overtake them, and with Mourinho saying he needs another £300m to win the league, how much would Arsenal need? They are going to be the new Everton of a few seasons ago.
True draws would have been best outcome except Muff where a loss would obviously have suited us. I suppose another way of looking at it is they took points off each other. It's that Christmas spell starting with Burnley that crippled us, just needed to hold out for a few draws. I guess we are still a lower mid table side and the target is still 40 points but it all feels a bit hollow - we're just another club making up the numbers
I get that some teams have picked up some form of late particularly Palace and West Ham and IMHO anyone bar top 8 could end up in the bottom 3. Us conceding just under 2 goals a game is not good but incredibly we have the least worse goal difference of those 12. Having played Man City twice I think 4 or 5 goal drubbings are possible at Liverpool and Spurs and i reckon we are on target to concede the same as last year-68 but having scored 33 already we are likely to exceed the 40 we scored last year. Can that be enough to get another 14 points to hit the safety bar of 40. Leaving the game yesterday with a get out of jail feeling i was hoping that a turn of luck is due. This time last season we had just beaten Arsenal to hit 27 points after 23 games. We then lost the next 7 away picking up 4 wins at home against fellow relegation threatened sides and 1 draw. 5 positive results out of 15. This season has the same feel about it with our 1 win in last 5 being the same for Swansea, WBA and Brighton (2 of those sides v us !) and none for Stoke, Huddersfield nor Saints. We may not be that good but others are just as poor. I have done my own predictions and i think there are 3 wins and 4 draws against the 7 teams below us and one draw and 7 defeats against 8 of those above us. Not losing as we did to Swansea, Palace and Brighton in the remaining fixtures against those below us will be the key to survival whoever the manager is
If we were playing Muff tomorrow, we'd get destroyed. And when you consider how dominant we were in playing them off the park earlier in the season, it really demonstrates how spectacular our huge drop in quality/form has been. We might be very close to our points tally from last season at this stage, but imo everything feels so much more painful (and worrying), being as we really looked a decent side early doors.
I'd fancy beating Arsenal more than most of the teams we are due to face - because we'll probably be up for it more and play well whereas you feel against the likes of West Brom and Bournemouth at home the pressure will be on and as Watson suggested the other week we don't see to like that.
The difference between this season and last season is we entered freefall earlier this time round. There wasnt enough time for us to really ever be in serious trouble which was right seeing as we lost the last 6 and still stayed up. Other teams below us played each other and it would have been a miracle to go down. This season weve plenty of time left still and are 2 more defeats away from being in the muck.we could do with a couple of scrappy wins or last minute handball equalisers to feel more secure.
