tmonkey

Most annoying thing in football, aside from diving, is watching Barcelona work their way into good positions on the flanks and not have a single person in the box.

Keegan and Bobby had plenty of experience at the very top level of English football. Hughton, as well as we did for him in the Championship, doesn't really belong there. So basically you want someone with either playing or managerial experience in the Premiership - why? I assume it's somehow tied in with you thinking that this squad we have is relatively mediocre? FWIW Wenger had neither playing nor managing experience in England when he was appointed. Nor did Jose Mourinho, or Rafa Benitez (who I think you've said you want), or Gerrard Houllier (half a decade or more ago and lots of folk on here were wanting him). Pochettino and Laudrup have had zilch to do with the UK too. Would it really be that bad if we were to broaden the scope to beyond these shores, like other, more progresive clubs do?

If we stay up and Pardew goes, I do hope we get the right man in irrespective of Premiership experience. Look at this list of permanent appointments we've made based on Premiership experience because we're afraid that managers who don't "know" this league might not do well: - Dalglish - Gullitt - Souness - Roeder - Allardyce - Kinnear - Pardew Compared to this (no experience of managing in the Premiership): - Keegan - Bobby Robson - Chris Hughton This squad we have is easily the best since the Sir Bobby era in terms of talent. The right manager could work wonders with it by simply getting them back to basics, passing and moving, attacking as a unit, showing for each other, etc etc, as opposed to rigidly staying in position and eventually lumping it in behind Cisse with blind hope. Any manager capable of "coaching" talented players would be a major improvement and would comfortably have this lot in the top half of the table at the very least.

I think MYM was trying to step up and leave Sturridge offside, so when Coutinho plays the pass Sturridge is caught out, as you can see in the screenshot above - either that or he was hoping both himself and Saylor would block Coutinho together. He probably didn't calculate Saylor backpeddling to such an extent that he plays Sturridge on and leaves a nice little gap between the two defenders. Hence the goal. Some of the fault does lie with MYM, as he took the "wrong" option here, however for me most of it lies with Saylor for allowing the situation to develop to the extent that it did. FWIW, I have no idea what Saylor is thinking, as Coutinho did look a class act but at no point looked to be a great dribbler with pace, so there's really no excuse for him not trying to tackle or at least get tight and show him onto his weaker foot (beyond the explanation already provided as to why he backs off).

IMO since his return from injury we've conceded a bucketload of goals where Saylor has contributed massively to the poor overall levels of defending by e.g. leaving ridiculous gaps all over the pitch, backing off and watching the play develop in front of him, hoping to get a cheap interception in or to throw his body in the way when the final pass/shot is made, etc etc. For me his "good" games have been those where the gamble has paid off, but ultimately at this level we just can't afford to have a defender in the first team who defends in this manner. I'm also getting sick of him being so deceptively s*** in the air. His headed clearances will go straight to an opposition player 99% of the time, and if he's up against a big target man he seems to just faff around putting in a weak challenge. On top of this, he ha now started to run into a "false keeper" position, i.e. shirking his marking responsibilities and positioning himself in front of his own keeper as a sort of initial shield - it flabberghasts me as to how he's getting away with this. Take for example some of the goals yesterday: 1st goal: http://imageshack.us/a/img20/835/saylor1.jpg Saylor runs back a few yards for no reason at all into the "false keeper" position. Haidara may have played Agger on, but it was very tight and plenty of times the linesman will call it because by the time the ball is slightly in mid air the attacking player looks offside. Saylor running back to that position basically ensured there was no possibilty of an offside being called. 2nd goal: http://imageshack.us/a/img837/2416/salyor2.jpg When the ball gets kicked by Reina and by the time Sturridge lays it off, Saylor has dropped about 10 yards deep for absolutely no reason, with noone anywhere close to him. The amount of space he's leaving, and the opportunities he's providing to the opposition, is ridiculous. It's akin to a boxer standing in front of his opponent, chin out, arms by his side, saying "go on, give me your best shot", and then trying to deal with things from that moment onwards. 3rd goal: http://imageshack.us/a/img197/9240/saylor31.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img824/9788/saylor32.jpg http://imageshack.us/a/img823/111/saylor33.jpg The absolute worst of Saylor. Look at him. Just look at him backing off as Coutinho carries the ball forward unchallenged from the half way line to our penalty box - Saylor is backing off so much that he turns his back on Coutinho and ends up moonwalking backwards towards our penalty box, whilst MYM forgets the man behind him and decides to try to close Coutinho down because Saylor won't. Beyond pathetic. That was the goal which killed the tie off, as at 0-2 we were pressing them back into their own half and looking to actually do something. I appreciate it's normal for good defenders to back off a bit, but they're always much tighter when they do it, and the idea has always been to force the attacker to go down the route they don't want to go before getting the tackle/block in. Saylor just allows the opposition player to do whatever he wants 4th, 5th, 6th goals - doesn't matter anymore as the players have given up. IMO the instances highlighted above are entirely about the style of Saylor's defending, i.e. he has consistently been doing the above throughout this season (and even last, though having Krul is great form papered over some of those cracks), and are to do with flaws in his makeup, so this isn't a case of singling him out for criticism after another horrendous result (he wasn't even close to our worst player to be fair). By contrast, MYM has been pretty disappointing with the mistakes and all-round naivety at times, but at least he tries to snuff the danger out, and doesn't hide - unlike Saylor. To be frank, sometimes I think Saylor is at the same level as Danny Simpson, i.e. they might ocassionally look decent in the Premiership depending on who the opposition have, but the rest of the time they're major liabilities not up to facing Premiership opposition week in week out, and will let the team suffer as they hide.

Worth putting money on Pardew to get sacked?

Hatem ffs. But Saylor....two goals scored by Liverpool today with Saylor just a spectator as he backs off and watches the play in front of him. Make a fucking challenge ffs.

Oh dear Hatem.

Only once we're 2 nil down. Absolutely hate that about Pardew.

Fuck off Jonas.

Pardew is probably shouting at them to work harder and get stuck in.

Absolutely pathetic.

It's like that great Milan side raping the original Barca Dream Team all over again.

Kapow.

Bartra Simpson.

Haha, cheating Germans.

Valdes

Ribery showing Messi how it's done.

"World class" Ribery shoots 10 yards wide.

Ze Germans are winning.

Ribery being his usual shit self.

We did that under Freddie Shepherd, when we'd sack managers a few games into the new season and then find that most other managers already in employment would rule themselves out because they don't want to leave their current clubs so soon into the new season (having just spent the summer persuading new players to join them). The absolute primary reason why this club has sucked so badly at appointing the right man since Sir Bobby's dismissal is that we seem to have nothing resembling a well researched, educated, informed, and thoroughly planned approach to appointing managers. It has usually been done on a whim, often after sacking the last guy, and pretty much never involves considering talented managers from abroad (last one was Sir Bobby himself). If we want to appoint a new manager, it needs to be early in the summer, long before a ball has been kicked. Ideally, bring him in now, give him a few games to get to know the players, and don't waste the summer transfer budget on players Pardew wants (and I'd harbour a guess that he'll be wanting to bring in players who'll suit the direct/long ball approach).

Saylor's pathetic backing off has cost us two goals today. Field day for Sessegnon.