By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions. We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Please log in or register. Registered visitors get fewer ads.
Kompany took Anderlecht to a cup final and then won the Championship with Burnley. That's a lot better than finishing 19th and 13th with MK Dons, 15th and 10th with Swansea and 4th with Saints.
If Martin had won the Championship for us, we'd all be cutting him a lot of slack now.
I don't recall fans turning against Adkins, Pochettino, Koemann or Hasenhüttl after 3 games. Our fans are no different to any others and probably less fickle than some, but when a manager looks out of his depth, some will say so online, as happened with Nathan Jones.
Has any team ever got through to the end of October with no points at all? (and stayed up)? What manager would want to come here then? Not a very good one.
Of course, if Martin starts picking our best 11 players to start games and stops the suicidal passing around at the back AND finds a centre forward, we might get points before then, in which case he wouldn't be sacked anyway.
This is good news. Edozie was one of the players we had to get rid of so Russell Martin couldn't pick him any more. For the same reason, we need to offload Smallbone, Aribo and Stephens. Then we might start to see our best XI starting games.
I agree. We need, Charlie Taylor at left back, KWP at right back and Sugawara playing wide midfield. Sugawara should also be taking all of our set pieces. He is the most skilful player we have to take them and probably also our best finisher.
The lesser teams don't have top strikers, but at least, unlike us, they have strikers, who'll convert 1 in 3 or 4 attempts at goal. The 1 in 2 strikers play for the top teams.
If you're going to make hundreds of sideways and backwards passes in your own half, they are inevitably not all going to be perfect, which makes the interceptions leading to the goals against us also inevitable, which makes it a stupid thing to do.
We are top of the Premier League backwards passing stats. Most of Man City's passes are forwards.
Lately, I've noticed that most PL games are won by the team with less possession, for example, Newcastle just beat Spurs, who had 66% possession.
Man City's team is so much stronger than the other teams that they'd win whatever system they played, even if they had Harry Redknapp telling them to just go out and play.
But, for most teams, the posssession game is a recipe for disaster. The opponents know you are going to spend most of the game passing sideways and backwards in your own half and just wait like vultures to intercept the passes, which is what they all do to us. We are far too naive and predictable for the Premier League.
For a women's pre-season friendly, that's pretty good.
"The game attracted an impressive attendance of 5,379 and Allen expressed her appreciation for those who came out in support of her side. The Saints boss emphasised her desire to build on last season’s solid support at St Mary’s Stadium this year.”
1 sub appearance in a friendly v the USA. That was enough. Every English goalkeeper in the Premier League was getting called up to see if they were any good, and McCarthy wasn't. Fraser Forster was a regular in the squad and won 6 caps.
Zirkzee is very likely to profit from one of our misplaced passes. In fact these sideways and backwards passes we do in front of out goal will only benefit one team and it's not ours.
Another thing I've noticed is that nowadays, the team with the most possession usually loses Premier League games.
It happened again today, when Man United had more possession but lost 3-0, while Spurs had 66% possession and lost to Newcastle.
Basically, passing for long spells to retain possession is a recipe for disaster. The opposition just bides their time and intercepts to score goals and take the points. While we are concentrating on passing to keep possession, which usually means spending a lot of time in our own half in a vain attempt to keep the ball, the opposition is focused on scoring goals and winning, and goals come easily with the element of surprise you get when you intercept a pass.
The first team I saw playing the low possession game to win was the great Bayern Munich side of the 1970s. I used to think it was unfair that they beat teams that had spent most of the game with the ball but nowadays a lot of successful teams do, and we are the ideal opponents for them. Our tactics are so predictable that they are queueing up to be the next team to beat us. At the end of the season we are going to be top of the passing league and bottom of the real league.
And Russell Martin isn't good enough to manage this way in the world of top flight football, where any flaws will be ruthlessly exploited by opposition managers, every one of whom will have his players primed to intercept the sideways and backwards passes we make around our own penalty area.
The Man United players will already be practising how they're going to score the goals we'll gift them. They'll be shown videos of how our passes have been picked off by other teams and which of our players are most likely to give the ball away. They'll know our left flank is particularly vulnerable. Martin is making it that easy for them with his naive tactics and team selection.
Armstrong, Smallbone and Aribo are going to be picked by Martin because last season they were good enough to finish 4th in the Championship as part of the most succesful team in his entire managerial career, but they are not good enough for the Premier League. Playing so many sub-standard players at this level can only have one result.
We could just about field a team of 11 players, which would exclude Armstrong, Smallbone and Aribo, that might be good enough to stay up, but Martin isn't going to start our best 11 players together until it's too late.
Has any team that finished 4th in the Championship and lost its first 3 games in the Premier League ever stayed up before? Promoted teams usually do better in the early part of the season than they do later.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
