JoeQuince

GANAAAAAAAA

Niasse on for DCL... what I wouldn’t give for some fucking width

Agreed. Take Schneiderlin/Gana and McCarthy off. Move Sigurdsson inside, have Rooney dropping back into midfield. And we can actually play with two real wingers.

I can’t believe I left the house for this.

We’re playing a team that has conceded three or more goals in each of their past three matches. Yet, we come out with a side that is the antithesis of attacking football. Big Sam can eat a bag of shit.

Well, we deserved that.

I don’t recall one. Why does Sam have us play such a garbage game?

I said this a few days ago. I was told something like, “It doesn’t matter. At least we’re getting points.”

Everton joined you for a lie down.

There’s been so much bullshit on here lately that I can’t even tell if you’re joking or not.

I still don’t understand why we’re only playing with one winger. Our best play in recent weeks has come from the wings, both as outlets to get the ball up the field and generate attacks and for creating chances. Yet, we persist with Sigurdsson on one side (and I’ll give him credit, because he’s done the best that he could when asked to play a position he has no business playing). We lump straight balls up the pitch, when diagonals have been more dangerous and have stuck better. We continue to play a game where we don’t even use our midfield, even though we have plenty of solid midfielders. We’re so spread out and static with the ball that our only options are lumps up the pitch or passes backwards. And, even when we get the ball to stick up front, every other player is 50 yards away from the player with the ball, so it all breaks down. This is lunacy.

They. Haven’t. Done. Fuck. All. Also, I’d say they played better football than we did. Sam never had us set up to win this. Please stop making excuses for this dross.

Sure. That would make sense, if that’s what actually happened here. But, they haven’t had to do dick.

No. Zilch. Nada. If anything, we’ve been worse and have invited more pressure into ourselves. I can imagine West Brom scoring soon. So many free kicks in dangerous positions.

Hey guys, maybe we’ll get a lucky penalty and win this 0-1. Then, we can continue to pretend it doesn’t matter that we don’t actually play football anymore.

Now, I know these are both professional football clubs, technically speaking, but I don’t know that either one actually wants to play football.

What’s the point of having a midfield, anyhow?

Agreed. Though, I’m loving Bolasie’s spirit out there. What I don’t understand is why we make attacking so hard on ourselves. If we just had movement around the ball, we would have less of a need for a player to do something miraculous or intelligent. Our tactics are plain stupid.

I swear, we are the least compact attacking side in the league. Why do all of our players run away from the one with the ball? These are basic fundamentals that we’re neglecting in our tactics.

Jags was amazing today. Goal line clearances. Tough, timely tackles. Smartly played them offside several times. And, kept us organized.

We’ve scored five in the last four. We’ve had a lot of luck, too, thanks to Pickford’s posts. And two of our recent goals were relatively dubious penalties. Our offensive play has been mostly uninspiring. I’m glad to get results. Lord knows we need them. And, I’m more than happy to see us play a game like we did today against the likes of Chelsea, knowing they are capable of tearing us apart. But, we seem to be only playing one note. I’m glad we have stopped leaking goals. But, we don’t look to be serious about winning. Anyhow, I’m not trying to be all doom and gloom. Frankly, I’m just ambivalent about all of this (the good results but the frustrating style of play). Ideally, I’d like to see us get results by taking it to the teams that we can dominate and frustrating those who can dominate us. I know everything is a process. I just hope that we are going to evolve and not stagnate.

This. 100%. Also, Paul, you can put whatever striker you want at the top of this team. They’re still going to be isolated, frustrated, and (barring miraculous individual efforts) relatively unproductive. The quality of striker we have at the moment isn’t great, it’s true. But, our tactics are a much bigger problem.

I’m glad to know that we are getting points lately. But, I take no joy from how we are doing it. This is such shit to watch, and I just can’t wait for this period in our history to be over with.

I would love this. Excellent young player.

I second this. Let’s make it happen!