You were one of those making excuse after excuse for Mazzarri and you were proved wrong about him. So maybe this is what is fuelling your anger now?
Another one out of the woodwork. You say I’m starting last seasons nonsense, but I was proved right about the situation, even though you and a few others gave me a hard time over calling it how it was. I was ridiculed saying we’d lose the last 6 games. I was dismissed out of hand when I said we would probably end up 17th. I think my opinions are fair and reflect current trends. You seem to hate that and will go to great lengths to deny it all, even when history tends to show I was closer to the truth than you were.
We have a Champions League capable midfield We have a mid-lower table defence We have a relegation attack And the best of the midfield are injured HB1 is right, even when he is wrong
Put a bet on relegation at 60/1 or whatever it is so you can afford a holiday to recover from the shock if it happens
Don’t mind others having differing if controversial views even if some on this forum seem wound up by it all for some reason. Relegation is pretty unlikely from here and would be epic if it happened. However, I never relax whether we’re in the Premier, Championship etc... until we reach whatever the ‘magical points total’ to stay up is. If we don’t pick up many points (i.e more than 3) from now until we play City in January then this thread will become much more valid.
You were never proved right though. You were wetting the bed about relegation which never actually came close despite the 17th place finish. This season could go in any direction, most likely is mid table obscurity. If we dont arrest the slide we will be fighting the drop come march.
I see you speak for the entire forum when you use the word “we”. Your arrogance is outstanding. A simple solution for you is use the ignore button. Then you won’t have to read anything I write.
But this is my point - you only make your prediction week to week. How can we go from being a special team to relegation candidates over three weeks? Why don’t you assess the first 17 games as a whole? If you do that and ask whether you’d have been happy with ninth place at this stage you’d have said yes. Has the football improved a lot, yes. Do we have even more talent in our squad, yes. Is our overall squad too light to sustain injuries and suspensions, even before we consider our need for better first team starters at centre half, left back and striker? Yes. You bounce around from week to week with zero insight or consideration. Last seasons missive was that we were in grave danger of relegation. The fact that we lost the last six and came nowhere near it (our points tally six weeks before the end of the season would have had us survive), shows what a pathetic flap you were in. You weren’t contested on the basis of Mazzari losing the plot, but the sheer baseless panic you brought to this forum every week when we were long safe from relegation. And again - why don’t you make a prediction for how the season will end up for us? Even with caveats?
A weatherman also makes predictions from week to week and there’s a reason for it. If you understand a situation you are far more likely to be accurate with short term forecasts because the parameters are far more stable. I’ve not just reacted to last nights defeat, but I’ve looked at a block of games and it’s clear over the last 9 matches something has changed. Good sides do not lose 6 from 9 games. Good sides rarely through away victories with such regularity as we do. We’ve only won 2 home games all season. You do not appear to want to accept there maybe a problem right now when results are there for all to see. However you want to spin it, we were in a nosedive at the end of last season and the season before that. I was one of the first to call it, but so many want to deny these things. Even now they pretend it didn’t happen. It’s strange why fans like you attack me for my views while happily burying your head in the sand.
Expectations were too high. We have a good team but so does almost everyone else. Look at the CP line up last night...Benteke, Zaha, Cabaye, Townsend, and they lost their first 7 without scoring !!!! So many games are won or lost of a knifedge. Just hold on at Everton, CP and Chelsea and we would be flying. No late goals vs arsenal, WBA and Swansea and we would be in the mire. The target for us will always be 40 points first and foremost. Ultimately we should finish above at least Swansea, Huddersfield (though they will beat us on Saturday), Newcastle and Brighton.
The team was performing well due to being carried by an incredible midfield. Now Rich is starting to tire after playing a whole season in Brazil, the central midfielders are getting injured, and we're getting into the grindy bits. Small wonder things tailed off. As mentioned above by someone else, the issue is thatwe have a pathetic frontline and below average defense being carried by a Champions League-capable midfield. It won't be fixed until we get in a couple of good defenders and at least one good striker. Our current not-ostracised front line options are rancid at the level we're aspiring too.
Man for man when fully fit I don't think we're far off the teams around us, like Southampton, Everton, Leicester or Burnley to be honest, until you get to the attack that is. Chalobah, Doccoure, Richarlison, Cleverley, Kiko, Kabasele, Richarlison & Pereyra would all be in the matchday squad at the teams above IMO. We're simply missing a competent striker, a back up winger and a proper quality leader of a centre back. Might seem a lot but it's not too difficult to fix.
The real problem we have is the attrition. Seems like we lose a player a game for months either an injury (long term) or at the least a red card.
This. Our mental strength and other issues would be comfortably papered over if we had a mostly fit squad and Silva's substitutions were made tactically rather than our of necessity due to injuries every game.
Totally agree...win 2 of the games before the FA cup 3rd round and we will all relax..not win any of them and we will be bang in trouble. That is why playing injured players the other night and getting another red costs us more than just losing to Palace. With a remotely fully fit team we should be able to pick up points in all the games before City. Lets hope those limping Tuesday at the end were nothing to worry about because if they are the team Saturday could be very weak. In Jan a decent Striker who hold the ball up and play as a lone striker as Silva wants is a must. The goal scoring of Gray and Deeney is a worry but its their all round play which is even worse. Okaka is clearly out of favour which is a shame as against Liverpool he looked like the player we are crying out for. Like all of us Gino included we will relax once we get to 40 points. I believe this season 40 points will be needed unlike the last couple of seasons.
Still don't get the Okaka thing. Success makes a complete arse of himself all over the press and comes back. Okaka has a great game against Liverpool and doesn't get a sniff after. It may have been a one off but surely its worth a shot even as a sub? What has he done that is so bad that he isn't even considered a sub when we have Gray and Deeney playing?
Board of the pessimism now. Had we beaten palace all would have been good, and pretty much everyone agreed had we kept 10 men we'd have got at least a draw with Burnley. We've had an awful week teams have them. How we respond is what matters, champions pick them selves up, that's what we need to do. We as fans need to do the same. A week ago we were full of confidence, one week shouldn't ruin a season
I'm not actually counselling outright panic either, but your points do not tell the whole story either. We did not lose just thanks to those red cards, especially in the case of Palace, and why did we get those two red cards? Were they necessary? In both cases, undoubtedly not. We were down to 10 for over a half against Brighton and didn't concede; against Palace we only had to survive for less than 1o minutes, and yet we managed to go from a goal up to losing. Why have we got more red cards than any other team since the start of last season? Why are we suffering a ridiculous injury crisis in the winter again? I'm not predicting anything, and I still think we'll have our best season since we've come up. But there are obvious patterns emerging at this point that can't be ignored, and that's why people are being 'pessimistic'. In reality, they are just engaging with the reality of the situation, discussing it and expressing hope that it will be remedied, with some suggestions of how it might be. You surely can't deny that something has to give with our striking options, if nothing else? Would you be happy going the rest of the season with a strike force that have scored 2 goals from open play in half a season?
The problems with getting a new striker in during January: A)The selling club mustn't want him. B)He has to be good enough to score goals. C)He has to fit in with the planned tactics of the squad. D)We have to be able to afford him. E)He has to find us an attractive alternative to his current position. F) He has to pass the 'due diligence' tests. These guys just don't grow on trees. Also we would probably have to shift Okaka/Deeney/Gray to afford this. If I was Deeney I'd sit it out on £100000 a nanosecond or whatever it is he's on. The ace up Gino's sleeve in all this is he has a good range of contacts in less well-off nations.
All good points, and let’s be honest if we get to January and we are close to 30 points, considering we’ve already spent £18m on Grey, is Gino really going to put his hand in his pocket and fork out an inflated amount for another striker? If the right target comes up at the right price then of course I’m sure he’ll move for them, but at this stage relegation looks as likely as getting into Europe (as in neither look that likely) so I’m not sure why they’d bother until the end of the season.
If we can shift Deeney (unlikely on his wages) and bring in Slimani that would be good business. Even at a 10m net outlay. Deeney is close to being an asset worth zero in my opinion.
All valid points, and the discussion is good, apologies if it looked like I was trying to shut it down, that wasn't the intention but I can see how it was interpreted in that way. I just feel that a week ago our discipline wasn't that big an issue (I think we'd only had 2 reds, one in the league) but I would agree all 4 could have been avoided and it seems we have players who sometimes lack a bit of intelligence. The red cards have probably cost us as much as 7 points and it's frustrating when we played 10 men (Spurs) we couldn't finish the job (though I would argue they'd have won with 11) but I suppose I see that as a positive - think of how good we good be, rather than how bad we are. Yes there are areas of concern in defence and up front and having been up to Burnley I was pretty annoyed however on reflection overall I am pleased with our performances, at least unlike last year we do attack so games are normally exciting and I think we are probably where we should be.
