There isn't one. Who knows what he thinks. Mind you I do presume he will have to be more convinced by Val than he was with Edwards.
Bachmann; Andrews, Porteous, Hoedt, Lewis; New DM, Louza, Kayembe(?); Martins, Ince; Rajovic. Subs: Hamer, Ngakia, Sierralta, Sema, Livermore, Asprilla, Chakve, Bayo, Healey. That’s potentially our best matchday squad, might need one more HG. Can’t say I love it. Relies on a new DM coming in and being great and that’s still with Kayembe starting, just don’t think we have the right midfield balance. My best injury free squad still totally leaves out Dele-Bashiru, Kone & Morris which is probably harsh.
I would normally agree but too many times over the last few years we've had players that are good at the cameo role and then bloody awful when they start! Then the player they replaced has a decent cameo and we think they should be back in the team, rinse and repeat. Agree he did look quite good today and like he had a bit more know-how than some of the younger bucks.
Think he just showed a bit of urgency and very traditional wing play which is what we needed. Both Martins & Asprilla are good in their own unique ways but Ince knows the division, knows how to play as a winger which we need as we desperately lacked width today.
2 premier League players in a premier League team that at no time looked relegation threatened, being compared with a team full of ratbags who are very likely to get relegated to the third tier. Surely comparison with some of the terds from the 90s is more apt.
Ince is virtually the only player that has proven that he can actually score and assist at this level. Before the game Sky put up a chart which highlighted Joao Pedros and Ismaila Sarrs goals last season and they asked who is going to replace the goals. However, I felt that Sky Sports completely overlooked the fact that last season Sarr only managed 1 more goal than Ince and JP managed 2 more and achieved the same number of assists.
He's clearly not saying they're exactly the same quality of player - more that they're similar type of player stylistically, i.e. non-goalscoring wingers. At the moment we seem to have the Champ equivalents of Amrabat and Jurado, when I think we'd rather the Champ equivalents of Deulofeu and Pereyra.
I think @reids might frame this. Expected Threat Timeline? New one to me that one. Well for us, I guess a flatline would more than be apt.
I read it on the forum. Are you saying that things quoted on here are not true? No, surely not. This would make nearly every journalist redundant.
Who said that then ? Pozzo doesn’t talk to fans so unless someone got lucky and got such a bold statement even that sort of comment would be second hand. And certainly not everything written by the press is true- well not here anyway !
Don't think it was a penalty as was outside the box but would've been a dangerous (well maybe not for us) free kick.
I think (hope) you're right. Most of the Pozzo sackings came when we were playing really poorly and didn’t look like we had a clue. Even darling boy Rob Andrews, we looked absolutely sh1te in games like West Brom away and others at the start of last season. In some ways the sackings could almost be justified, although this did not mitigate the responsibility for the appointments in the first place. It's different at the moment with VI and I'd be gutted if he got sacked. If the performances start to nosedive then I think he will go but that's not the case as things stand.
He's exciting to watch, not short of confidence and there's lot to like. I do wonder if he needs to mix it up a bit more and sometimes go for the line. He always cuts inside which may become predictable.
We did more than enough to win that game, we just lack good decision making in the final 3rd Teams have seen us play now, so know we are playing with inverted wing backs and are happy to close that space, then sit 25yarss out and defend as a block. We aren't the sort of team to whip it in the line behind that. The subs seemed to have a negative effect. No problem with Kone going off, but Louza made no difference, in fact he was worse. Momentum went when TDB was replaced, but Ince picked up where Asprilla was in the 1st half. If the systems not working, change the system. Different personal in the same system doesn't make a lot of difference. A typical mid table obscurity performance
2nd in the league on xG Difference (xG - xG Conceded). We're doing really well at creating chances. We're doing really well at stopping the opponent creating chances. But most importantly we can't hit the back of the net. - Dominated the game chance wise, even before the goal. They didn't take another shot after the goal. - Martins chance inside the area in the first half was our best chance. - Their goal was a paltry 2% chance of going in from that angle - Bachmann should've done better. - Those passmaps above reminded me of something I posted in the VI thread when he was hired:
Now that IS interesting. I had the feeling we’d been the best team in every league game but unable to translate that into the score. I guess the question is whether we have just been really unlucky or whether we have brought it on ourselves by fielding a team of players unable to convert chances.
That's a problem, considering Koné and TDB hardly set the world alight when they were on the pitch. Have to hope Louza has learned his lesson and is ready to buckle down because we know he's more than capable at this level, Chak I think is the kind of player who will turn it on in fits and bursts but won't really be the player to take the game by the scruff of the neck too often
It would be generous to say we were the better team at Stoke tbf, even if we didn't really deserve to lose. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, we won't be prolific this season, but nor will about 20 of the other 23 teams in this league, some days (like QPR) we'll get lucky and the shots will go in, and that'll be enough to keep us in the league comfortably, other days (perhaps more often than the reverse) we'll be frustrated like we've been after Plymouth and Blackburn
Ok but I think @reids data is saying we have been the second best team in the league after 4 games based on net xG chances created ? (My phone wants to autocorrect “xG” to “cog”. Make of that what you will . )
Styles walks into the team if he arrives tbf, other than that, I think that's pretty much spot on. I think yesterday's goal really showed the need for a holding midfielder, Porteous tried his level best to stop that goal, but he was left high and dry by the midfield, even though we only have 4 players in the squad who are CBs by trade, we at least have 3 very good options (including Sierralta), Pollock and a few who could fill in, our best DM is Sierralta who is injured at the moment. Obviously we need goals in the team to really progress, but they won't come easy, what's the going rate for a reliable goalscorer in this division?
I think the net difference in that game was only about 2 as we were very clinical with the chances we created. The opposite has been the case ever since.
Blackburn: 1.40 xG (0.39 against) Stoke: 0.50 (0.86 against) Plymouth: 1.31 (0.99 against) QPR: 2.35 (0.33 against) Out of our 5.56 xG created - 42% of it came from the QPR game, but (small sample size!) bar the Stoke game we've been pretty consistent in how many decent chances we've created. On average we've created 1.38 xG (per game) whilst conceding 0.64 xG
Thank you Reids! I know some people don’t rate statistics (which is fair enough) but to me they tell a worthwhile story. Clearly VI has us set up really well. We just need to, and it’s only a small thing, but we just need to score goals.
He was Icelandic, not Scandanavian. Good lad, quiet as a mouse and scared of his shadow off the pitch.
