The Premier League - 2019/20

Wouldn't pay to watch that match. It'll be horrible viewing. Again, it's a case of any win will do.

 

I watched the Saints vs Everton match and Saints were rubbish. Everton found it so easy to get in to good positions in the final third against them and really should have won by more were it not for them being so unbelievably wasteful with bad decision making and execution - they had 24 shots in the match compared to Saints' 4.

Everton won't go down but will finish the season in the bottom half on current evidence. Sigurdsson seems to have turned in to for them what Pereyra has turned in to for us, in theory all the ability one could ask for, but rarely does anything with it anymore and messes up loads of chances one would expect should be fairly straight-forward for them.

 

Good news about Soton but a 5 point gap to reach 16th and I don't see catching any of the teams between 16th-12th (WHU, wolves, Man U, Everton, Spurs).
Bad news that NU won again. 5 teams that you'd think might struggle, Muff, Brighton, Burnley, CP and NUFC are currently 7th-11th, 7 or 8 points above us....
Need AV to go on a losing streak.

 

Yes. Feels like we need to get 4 points from the next two games to be genuinely in touch. After that it's 3 very hard games out of 4.

 

Anyone else enjoying Saturday night football for the first time in a long time?!

 

I have to admit I love this Leicester team - despite Rodgers.

 

How dismal would Tottenham Varspur be without all of their dubious decisions?

 

Looking for "...that 3rd team (who are worse than us)..." WHAM are looking likely contenders?

 

Agreed. They look solid throughout.

 

Sheffield Utd up to 5th, and remain unbeaten away from home - is @hornetboy1 still spitting feathers that we played 5-3-2 against them and earned a more than deserved draw?!

 

Aye they’re alright that lot.

I’ve been so impressed with Rodgers in every single way since he arrived. Proper coach, proper tactician, he’s got everyone thinking like him and doing exactly what he wants.

We’re a joy to watch at the minute, the quality and the energy is beautiful to watch.

 

And his integrity is off the charts.

 

The integrity of the group, the fans and Brendan himself is terrific.

 

Yes...and rightly so. Sheff Utd were really ordinary on the day and were there for the taking. Just because they've done well in their subsequent matches is irrelevant. They made three basic errors against us, and we didn't even take them on. Had we attacked them we'd have won, IMO. On the day Sheff Utd didn't look like anything special, quite poor in fact.

Clearly they've been much better than that in their other matches or else they'd be in the relegation zone with us, if the game they played at Vic Road was a typical one for them. They've lost 1-0 at home to Southampton this season as well.

Now they're growing in confidence and are improving as a side...….so a little swipe from you in hindsight is a typical smug sanctimonious reply I expect from certain forum members. You are a new one on me though.

 

It could be looked at in a different way HB1.

They weren't as impressive/as much of a threat against us because of the way we set up.
We also had good chances to win the game so in effect, it could be argued the tactics were correct but the execution was lacking.

The week before we played them I saw some of their game at home against Liverpool on TV and they were unlucky to lose 0-1 (horrendous goalkeeping error). They carved out a few decent chances against a side who aren't doing too badly at the moment but who play in a more expansive way than we do under QSF. Liverpool, to some extent, let United play and they looked a decent side when given space to do so.

You may be correct in saying we'd have won if we'd had a more positive/aggressive starting XI but we could/should have won with the defensive/negative line-up so, personally, I don't think it was the wrong way to approach the game - especially given we'd lost to Wolves the previous week playing in a more attacking way.

 

The big difference is what you're trying to achieve. Of course we could have beaten Sheff Utd with the formation we played, but it would have been because of their unusual "bad day at the office". They defended very poorly against us and made some uncharacteristic mistakes. We cannot legislate for that, and would have been fortunate to have beaten them because ALL our chances came from their mistakes.

Had our intention been more offensive, then it gives the impression that we are trying to win the game. This is the point I'm trying to get across. We wanted to keep a clean sheet at all costs and hoped to win on the back of that. We didn't go out with the intention of winning, it was more a case of trying to not lose.

 

To a point I agree but to reiterate, their 'bad day at the office' may have been because of the way we set up.
Also, our chances only came about because of their mistakes - Liverpool, the week before, only beat them because of a mistake by the United keeper. The difference being United had chances to win against Liverpool because Liverpool played a more expansive way. United didn't create too much against us because we didn't let them.

You're absolutely correct saying we set up not to concede (I don't agree with the intention of not wanting to win) but I think results leading up to this particular fixture was the cause, not the opponents we played.

If we'd been on a decent run of results, I agree we should and probably would have taken the game to them more. But we'd just lost to Wolves and the League game before that was the 0-8 against Manchester City. There was just no way we could risk losing or, put another way, no way we were going to play a more open style of football which had not worked or gained points up to that point. Something had to change.

 

I don't really buy into the theory, by playing an ultra-defensive formation caused them to make mistakes defensively. That has no logic to it. I just think Sheff Utd were off their game against us, but we could not take advantage of it because of how we were set up.

When you look at those three fixtures, Man City (a ), Wolves (a ) and Sheffield United at home. Which games would you have expected the coach to have gone very defensive against? For me, that trio of matches has made me lose all faith in Flores. He could not see we needed to be very solid at City and Wolves, yet sacrificed a winnable match with an experiment against Sheff Utd. I think the logic of the manager has to be questioned for that.

What I would say is that playing 5 at the back and two DMF's is a good policy in the away games, but at home against the likes of Sheff Utd, Bournemouth and the upcoming matches against Burnley and Palace we have to be far more attack minded. We have the ability to have beaten both Bournemouth and Sheff Utd at home. We set up for 0-0 and got exactly what we deserved.

If we are to pull out of danger, we have to take risks in order to win matches. 0-0 draws will not get us out of danger.

We HAVE to go for it in the home games. We cannot have this timid 5 defenders and 2 DMF's at home.

 

The reason I've edited your post is because we'll just go round in circles because of our differing opinions on how we approached that particular game, not because I'm ignoring what you've said within it.

You are of the thinking we should've attacked our way out of a run of poor results against perceived weak opponents whereas I think it was imperative a change of style was needed regardless of the opposition.

What I will say though is I think setting up not to concede and playing on the counter attack (my view) as opposed to setting up not to win, playing ultra defensively (your view), with 3 centre-backs and a narrow midfield, just shows how it's possible to perceive the same match depending on our own want and bias. Opinions, funny ol' things aren't they.

 

Not entirely correct. I'm not of the opinion we should have attacked our way out of the bad run. I'm entirely on board with Flores' approach, but only for certain games. Go ultra-defensive in games at City and Wolves, but we have to take the game to Sheff Utd, Bournemouth etc at home. It's vital we play this way...IMO. He did the exact opposite, which is why I have my reservations about him as a coach. He couldn't see we needed to be robust at Wolves and City, but felt Sheffield United's attack would be vastly superior to those two previous sides. He must have, or else why did he pick the formations he did?

Flores is now using a "one size fits all" policy, but games are not as simplistic as that.

The formation he used at Spurs, fitted perfectly, as this is entirely the correct approach for this type of game.

Against Norwich, they were so poor, I think we could have played in any way we felt, and it would not have made too much of a difference, but it did help once we went down to 10-men for sure.

As a rule of thumb, we need to be far more attacking at home, but the defensive formation is perfectly acceptable in the away games.

 

Liverpool v City with Michael Oliver. If the game is tight the odds on a last minute penalty given must be extremely high.

 

Same thing isn't it?

Liverpool vs. Manchester City - Salah looked offside for the second goal with the freeze frame Sky used. Surprised no official replay has been transmitted (so far).

 

Agreed. Salah looked clearly offside. No analysis of it at all, even during the VAR check. Very strange.

 

I think Gomez and Sterling had a falling out. VAR review has determined that Sterling, our best player was at fault and should be dropped, and Gomez, bit part LIVERPOOL player should be available.

 

I’ve always thought Southgate is a **** man manager and favours young players because he’s not impressive enough tactically or as a person to command much respect. I see he’s nailed his colours to the Liverpool mast here when the obvious and sensible thing to do would be to send both or neither of them home.

Not sure why I give a ****, I’d rather watch park football than international qualifiers.

 

But you are basing everything that actually happened which is much easier to do than plan for something in advance. Maybe Sheff Utd were poor that day but games before that showed they were more than capable and certainly games since then have backed this up. So far they have shown themselves to be a very decent team and we should not look back on that as a wasted opportunity. In fairness, given the seasons we've both had I imagine they are more disappointed not to have won than us!