Pre-Season Blues?

[Oztoffee]

Maybe I'm being too picky here. If I am you'll surely let me know!

Why do we piss around with pre-season games against the likes of Coventry (no offence meant,really), Bury etc. and the N.American fiascos where there's no real competition, yet many of the Prem teams are playing in hard-assed competition against real opposition?

Hull, Spurs & West Ham in Beijing, Manure in the Audi Cup (OK not a real competition but real opposition), like wise our esteemed neighbours are playing against top class teams.

We've done this sort of thing for a few years now and our early season form has been crap for at least that long.

Bout time someone at the club put 2 and 2 together. Look at last season's early form: what a difference to our whole season would a draw instead of losses or a win instead of a draw meant?

OK, I know you could say that about any team, but I believe the poor early season form and our pre-season lack of competition are linked.

Anyone have any better ideas?

[MikeO]

Historically I think who and how clubs play pre-season is fairly irrelevant to how things go when the season starts. No-one's playing hard-arse games against hard-arsed opposition...it's all about money and profile (as well as slowly building match fitness).

The MLS game was in fact probably one of the most serious pre-season games any club took part in, purely because it was serious for the MLS.

Last seasons poor start was down to DM's contract problems more than anything else in my view (along with a paper-thin squad).

[FairWooney]

agree to some extent.

 

mike your points about the teams being in those tournaments for profile and money. thing is that's exactly what we want and I don't think it would do us any harm to play some tough games, fully televised with a little meaning added with a trophy and pride in beating quality opposition.

 

On the other hand as we don't beat the likes of Coventry maybe a game against Milan or someone of the like wouldn't be a great confidence booster!

[CaptainFerguson10]

Doesn't really matter who we play, Manure routinely play crap teams and doesn't hurt their season preparations. The big question this season is do we have the squad to survive four competitions? Currently, we are NO WHERE NEAR strong enough to beat Arsenal on the opening day.

[Blue 250]

I remember a great start to one season! won the first three games....last game of that season was against Wimbledon, remember that

 

In answer to your question, we could play a couple of really hard games leading into the season, you would think that would put us up to speed.But that would just be two more games to add to a busy season and potential injuries.Moyes and his staff should be able to get them ready with fitness and passing, the rest should come easy to pros.

I think it's a good time to play Arsenal.........let's just hope were ready.

[Romey 1878]

I think it's a good time to play Arsenal.........let's just hope were ready.

 

 

Did you see them play today? They were awesome. I wish we weren't playing them first up.

 

I'm not particularly bothered that we don't play in tournaments for our pre-season games, I just wish we'd get a really big club for our only home pre-season game.

[MikeO]

I think it's a good time to play Arsenal.........let's just hope were ready.

I'd feel better if Arshavin could have a little accident. Nothing too serious (he's in my fantasy team), stubbed toe or something...just enough to keep him out of their first game .

[Oztoffee]

I put this thread up just before the start of the season.

To those who poo-poohed the idea of having better opponents in pre-season - I told you so!

Yes I know it's only early in the season, but this is a race and we're still doing our boots up while the teams around us at the end of last season are up and running.

[duncanmckenzieismagic]

I put this thread up just before the start of the season.

To those who poo-poohed the idea of having better opponents in pre-season - I told you so!

Yes I know it's only early in the season, but this is a race and we're still doing our boots up while the teams around us at the end of last season are up and running.

 

 

I dont think our poor start has got anything to do with the standard of opposition we have faced in preseason to be honest. I think it is more to do with the farcial transfer policy at the club and the general state of the squad ie no Arteta, Jags and Yak added to the Lescott saga

[nogs]

I don't know if it's the choice of pre-season opposition but something is going badly wrong in our preparations, we've started badly in the majority of seasons Moyes has been in charge. And yes, failure to bring players in in good time, injuries, arsehole 'star' players deciding they want to leave two weeks before transfer deadline day and speculation over Moyes' own future doesn't help. BUT, why are we the only team that year in, year out goes through these same dramas? Why aren't we learning from oyur mistakes? And ok, we're missing three first teamers through injury but bar Lescott, this is pretty much the same squad that finished last season - why, then, has the standard of performance slipped so badly? I don't accept that it's all down to off-the-field stuff, something is not working right on the training pitch in pre-season, Moyes has time and time again failed to get his players up to speed in time for the new season. So whether it's playing in these pre-season tournaments or not, something has to change.

[The Beard]

I don't know if it's the choice of pre-season opposition but something is going badly wrong in our preparations, we've started badly in the majority of seasons Moyes has been in charge. And yes, failure to bring players in in good time, injuries, arsehole 'star' players deciding they want to leave two weeks before transfer deadline day and speculation over Moyes' own future doesn't help. BUT, why are we the only team that year in, year out goes through these same dramas? Why aren't we learning from oyur mistakes? And ok, we're missing three first teamers through injury but bar Lescott, this is pretty much the same squad that finished last season - why, then, has the standard of performance slipped so badly? I don't accept that it's all down to off-the-field stuff, something is not working right on the training pitch in pre-season, Moyes has time and time again failed to get his players up to speed in time for the new season. So whether it's playing in these pre-season tournaments or not, something has to change.

 

Can't agree more. If its about profile then we need revenue coming from playing in better games than Coventry, Rochdale, Bury and Blackpool, maybe one of them for the first team, the rest to send the second string (if we have enough bodies that is). We had a chance to earn some money by playing in Oz. Cahill is currently the number one sports star with masive profile potential for the club and with many many ex-pats from this neck of the woods a sure sell out. What did we do, dilly dallied and basically got told to stop wasting time with Oz counterparts who then turned to Fulham, Boro and Hull for christs sake, another opportunity wasted....ah well thats Everton for you!!!!!!!!

[Oztoffee]

I don't know if it's the choice of pre-season opposition but something is going badly wrong in our preparations, we've started badly in the majority of seasons Moyes has been in charge. And yes, failure to bring players in in good time, injuries, arsehole 'star' players deciding they want to leave two weeks before transfer deadline day and speculation over Moyes' own future doesn't help. BUT, why are we the only team that year in, year out goes through these same dramas? Why aren't we learning from oyur mistakes? And ok, we're missing three first teamers through injury but bar Lescott, this is pretty much the same squad that finished last season - why, then, has the standard of performance slipped so badly? I don't accept that it's all down to off-the-field stuff, something is not working right on the training pitch in pre-season, Moyes has time and time again failed to get his players up to speed in time for the new season. So whether it's playing in these pre-season tournaments or not, something has to change.

Absolutely right - that's my whole point!

Here we are already 9 points behind the teams we are supposed to be up against in the final reckoning. It took about 5 weeks last season to get going and we still finished 5th!(fortunately Villa faded badly in the last 6/7 weeks). How well could we do if we weren't only half-cooked as the season starts? We have to be out of the blocks at top speed, not winding it up slowly on the back straight.