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The Relegation Dogfight 23/24

Gyros Peter

Gyros Peter

Sauce salad?
MaxiRobriguez said:
It's even worse than that, I think Nuno only knows that Murillo is his favoured defender but every other 3 remaining slots are up for grabs. Maybe Neco and Tavares have those slots nailed now but equally wouldn't surprise me if Montiel and Aina finished the season.
Click to expand...
In fairness there's a difference between slots being up for grabs and having to chop and change due to injury/international call ups, which has certainly been the case with the full backs.
 
Gyros Peter

Gyros Peter

Sauce salad?
Felipe looked so far off the pace today, and that was Murrilo's poorest game for us - he almost looked human - though wouldn't have been helped out by the full back thing.
 
M

MaxiRobriguez

Bob McKinlay
Gyros Peter said:
In fairness there's a difference between slots being up for grabs and having to chop and change due to injury/international call ups, which has certainly been the case with the full backs.
Click to expand...

I get that but I think if Nuno had a full complement if defenders available he still wouldn't know his favourite four.

Murillo and Tavares most nailed, then Williams next and then anyone's guess for the final CB slot.
 
Robertson

Robertson

Geoff Thomas
Yeah - and add in the revolving door at goalkeeper as well. No wonder we can’t keep a clean sheet. In our favour, at least we have a goal or two in us. The game against Luton will probably end up 5-5
 
Gyros Peter

Gyros Peter

Sauce salad?
MaxiRobriguez said:
I get that but I think if Nuno had a full complement if defenders available he still wouldn't know his favourite four.

Murillo and Tavares most nailed, then Williams next and then anyone's guess for the final CB slot.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure Tavares is nailed over Aina tbh, and I stick to my point on the first comment because we haven't had anything like that luxury.
 
Statto

Statto

Free Kick Specialist
MaxiRobriguez said:
We simply need to learn how to stop the individual mistakes at the back.

Unfortunately for Nuno the fluid play from the back is seeing us make more of them. Villas second goal there were three mistakes with Niakhate, Dominguez and Danilo all switching off and not following their runner and thats before we get to the final goal with the comedy of errors.

Honestly we do look better going forward but we're conceding 2+ goals in almost all our games so it leaves us needing to score three in a game to have a chance of winning. That's not sustainable.
Click to expand...
It's things like that which retreated cooper into the low block to stop teams scoring.

Last season we tried to be open at first, even the West Ham game which we won, they hit the woodwork like 10 times and had basically all the chances and missed but we put ours away.

We then got battered by city, let in 3 at home to the sides who came up with us, and let in 4 at Leicester who ended up going down.

Cooper adopts the low block and by and large these stop and most of our losses drop back to the odd goal but at the detriment of the attacking play

Nuno is trying to be more progressive and it's going back the same way but we have a better team to cope with it long term. We do look a lot better and just need the results to match.

It will help when everyone is back or when more people are. Playing kitty at LB was a bit of a mistake but for some reason Nuno preferred that over toff. Aina is out so he isn't an option but if Nuno is still injured then he will probably play LB or Neco with Montiel at RB. Danilo and Dominguez are high risk players and some of their passing won't come off because they're not always tapping 5 yard square ones to the other players. But we seem to be slow at reacting to losing the ball and we seem to be slow to try and get it back where other teams are straight on the press.

It's like when we were 0-0 with 20 mins to go at west ham last season. Cooper twisted and we lost 4-0.
 
T

tomw94

Geoff Thomas
Rubics said:
Big and experienced alongside Murillo - Boly.
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Yep this for me too, Boly & Murillo is our best partnership.
Niakhate is much better when he is in a 3 rather than a 2.
Felipe is past it, we got the last of his legs last season.
Omobamidele is not quite ready yet but has shown signs that he can potentially step up.
 
Eddie Yates

Eddie Yates

I ♥️ Nigel Farage 🇬🇧
Col Steve Austin said:
Which is fecking depressing when you compare how much money we've spent in the last couple of years compared to them.
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We've spent money because we're trying to build a squad capable of competing at PL level, folk would be moaning like f*** if we'd just bent over for PL teams to go in dry like Norwich & Sheff U

Luton have to be fair have made a great effort but their lack of quality is what will send them down
 
C

Cloughie1975

John Robertson
Eddie Yates said:
We've spent money because we're trying to build a squad capable of competing at PL level, folk would be moaning like f*** if we'd just bent over for PL teams to go in dry like Norwich & Sheff U

Luton have to be fair have made a great effort but their lack of quality is what will send them down
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Our overspending is just as likely to send us down,Eddie.
I agree that we had to spend (preferably within allowed limits) but it’s very disappointing that
we’re still scratching around having spent that much.
 
Eddie Yates

Eddie Yates

I ♥️ Nigel Farage 🇬🇧
Cloughie1975 said:
Our overspending is just as likely to send us down,Eddie.
I agree that we had to spend (preferably within allowed limits) but it’s very disappointing that
we’re still scratching around having spent that much.
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Mr C what do you think it takes to a build a competitive PL squad from scratch which is practically what we've done

Have we actually spent that much in comparison to other PL clubs since July 22

If you step back you'll see that we're assembling a decent young squad, that's not to say we haven't dropped the odd bollock especially the 2 keepers we bought in the summer
 
C

Cloughie1975

John Robertson
Eddie Yates said:
Mr C what do you think it takes to a build a competitive PL squad from scratch which is practically what we've done

Have we actually spent that much in comparison to other PL clubs since July 22

If you step back you'll see that we're assembling a decent young squad, that's not to say we haven't dropped the odd bollock especially the 2 keepers we bought in the summer
Click to expand...
I agree about the goalkeepers,Eddie (by the way,I’m not convinced about Sels either!).
Having avoided relegation against the odds last season I feel this year should have been the
easiest to stay up for many years (given the promoted sides were not that strong).
However,we failed to move Johnson on quickly enough (we wouldn’t have needed to if we
hadn’t pissed money up the wall on Wood and Shelvey last season and made silly purchases like Lingard) and have ended up fighting for survival again having spent around £300 million
since we gained promotion.
Obviously,it takes a lot to build a competitive Premier League squad but I think we have been
somewhat reckless and naive (notwithstanding the fact that the rules are set up to prevent
any newly promoted club having a chance to survive).
 
Rockabilly

Rockabilly

GAFF LAD. "Open your knees and feel the breeze"
Cloughie1975 said:
I agree about the goalkeepers,Eddie (by the way,I’m not convinced about Sels either!).
Having avoided relegation against the odds last season I feel this year should have been the
easiest to stay up for many years (given the promoted sides were not that strong).
However,we failed to move Johnson on quickly enough (we wouldn’t have needed to if we
hadn’t pissed money up the wall on Wood and Shelvey last season and made silly purchases like Lingard) and have ended up fighting for survival again having spent around £300 million
since we gained promotion.
Obviously,it takes a lot to build a competitive Premier League squad but I think we have been
somewhat reckless and naive (notwithstanding the fact that the rules are set up to prevent
any newly promoted club having a chance to survive).
Click to expand...
A fair comment there Cloughie.
 
Eddie Yates

Eddie Yates

I ♥️ Nigel Farage 🇬🇧
Cloughie1975 said:
I agree about the goalkeepers,Eddie (by the way,I’m not convinced about Sels either!).
Having avoided relegation against the odds last season I feel this year should have been the
easiest to stay up for many years (given the promoted sides were not that strong).
However,we failed to move Johnson on quickly enough (we wouldn’t have needed to if we
hadn’t pissed money up the wall on Wood and Shelvey last season and made silly purchases like Lingard) and have ended up fighting for survival again having spent around £300 million
since we gained promotion.
Obviously,it takes a lot to build a competitive Premier League squad but I think we have been
somewhat reckless and naive (notwithstanding the fact that the rules are set up to prevent
any newly promoted club having a chance to survive).
Click to expand...
I agree on the keeper as I think he's just about adequate enough to get us through which is a massive improvement on Turner & the Greek lad

Obviously we gambled with some signings & some paid off and some didn't but the whole club is on a PL learning curve, personally I think we'll stay up comfortably unless we're properly f**ked over with FFP and we'll be in decent position next season
 
C

Cloughie1975

John Robertson
Eddie Yates said:
I agree on the keeper as I think he's just about adequate enough to get us through which is a massive improvement on Turner & the Greek lad

Obviously we gambled with some signings & some paid off and some didn't but the whole club is on a PL learning curve, personally I think we'll stay up comfortably unless we're properly f**ked over with FFP and we'll be in decent position next season
Click to expand...
Let’s hope so,Eddie.
 
Redemption

Redemption

One less gobshite...
Rockabilly

Rockabilly

GAFF LAD. "Open your knees and feel the breeze"
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