Parky

Butt and Geremi are no good at keeping postive posession (ie not a silly backwards pass or one to another player closely marked). I honestly wouldn't want either in the team next year.

Statistics - can be used to prove or disprove anything you want. - Discuss Best league start in ages - Discuss "Easiest" season start of any other team in the league. Current league positions of teams we've played so far: 18, 8, 17, 19, 20, 10, 3, 9, 14, 12, 6, 16 2 teams in the top 7, 6 of the bottom 7. This is the worry and 3 straight loses in the next 3 games is entirely possible. Then what?

What if you only play 12 games before Christmas? Then by default it passed to Easter.

You can criticise a manager but you don't judge how well he's doing 12 games into the season. Christmas maybe.

They banned Thatcher for decapitating Mendes, even tho the ref had seen (and booked him for) it. They can act if the ref has penalised a player by upgrading the punishment but they can't if the ref has seen it and taken no action.

Corluka, Garrido, Bianchi, Fernandes and Boijnov i would have taken. i've mentioned before i don't rate petrov one bit. he's got a bit lucky so far imo, but his technique whenever i've seen him has been pretty poor. None of the others have really stood out as much for me, it's all about accommodating them in the team and I don't think any of them are really any better than what we have, they're just being used better. Elano is a different class though and he's the one that pulls the strings for them, we're desperate for a player of his ability and we're suffering because of it. I think we may see someone come in in January to fill that role. Would you rather a RW or creative CM? Or both. And how much do you think they'll let Sam spend? I think that depends on what formation he wants us to play long term, if he plans on sticking with a 4-4-2 then I'd look to bring in a right winger who can stretch games, with a 4-3-3 I'd look to bring in a more creative force in midfield. I can see him having £20 million to spend in January if the right players are available and I think he'll try and bring in 2 or 3. Generally agree. Also Ashley will be keen to make a statement and stop the fiasco that is clearly unfolding.

Corluka, Garrido, Bianchi, Fernandes and Boijnov i would have taken. i've mentioned before i don't rate petrov one bit. he's got a bit lucky so far imo, but his technique whenever i've seen him has been pretty poor. None of the others have really stood out as much for me, it's all about accommodating them in the team and I don't think any of them are really any better than what we have, they're just being used better. Elano is a different class though and he's the one that pulls the strings for them, we're desperate for a player of his ability and we're suffering because of it. I think we may see someone come in in January to fill that role. Would you rather a RW or creative CM? Or both. And how much do you think they'll let Sam spend?

Alan Curbishley isn't the most inspiring of managers, but you can't argue with signing players like Solano and Bellamy. Shame we didn't still have both of those players here. We would be a different team entirely. he only bought solano because dyer got injured though. aye i'd have bellamy, but he's done exactly what we did, give champions league wages and transfer fees (or better) to uefa cup players. its also the same as what sunderland and fulham did in the transfer window. spend ludicrous sums on players who aren't worth half as much because they are desperate and can't attract better. one thing i will say is that none of that happened to us. man citeh did everything perfectly. didn't buy overpaid wasters but good players, quite unkown most of them. Actually, I don't think West Ham have spent much "net" to be honest, maybe because they've done well with getting so many of our ex players on the cheap, apart from Dire But any club that wants to join the top 4 clubs has to match them. There are no budget short cuts. We got close and got in there for a short while because we operated like them, and that is the ONLY reason why. no they don't, don't get me wrong they'll have to give some players 80grand a week or more, there's no getting round that depressingly, but they'll not be giving the dyers and bellamy's of this world that much money. i can't see west ham getting anywhere, they'll do well to finish top half, but i can see citeh breaking the top 4 by 2009/2010 or 2010/2011 if they match the improvement they've made this season every season. i think west ham will still be mid table then. in 2010 citeh will be paying a few players top dollar, if they have ambition, but it will be players with the desired quality. we can do that as well if we manage it right. i don't think we've done that badly in august. more will need to be spent next august that last august, but we've got some good names in defence now at least, and we can build on that. I don't really think that a smart cookie like Sven is thinking in terms of 2010 (after the start they've had) he's thinking of attacking the top 4 in 2008. We will see who they buy in Jan. Our main drawback in the window was the focus we had to give to rebuild the defence and that was right...But I am now beginning to see the price for not being a bit more bold in the market regarding the midfield. YOu don't have to pay off so much debt if the club starts generating more money by being successful on the pitch.

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it. Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation. There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind and set up two goals. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue. Uh huh. But I think he would know his best XI if he had signed less unknown quantities. There would be no settling in periods or owt, you could just plop em in and away you go. Maybe you wouldn't be unbeatable from minute 1. But you would be improving far quicker if the manager had faith enough in his players to play them consistently in the knowledge that these guys are definetly good enough and he could play them week in, week out, not dropping them after 1 mistake, or 1 game where the opposition striker got the better of them. And you wouldn't need to play CNZ in defence either. Obviously that wouldn't have been the answer to all your ills - good individuals defenders wont turn you into Brazil overnight, but Im not sure thats what Allardyce is aiming for. The way you talk about keeping possesion under pressure, this attack being the best form of defence type thing, I'm not sure thats the "winning football" Allardyce talks about. Whether he is right or not is niether here nor there (Well, he's not, but thats not the point of this thread is it...) but I reckon his methods would be working far better if it wasn't relying on a weak backline to keep his all important clean sheets. Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive. Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality. I also don't think Liverpool's defence is much better than ours man for man but they have to deal with a lot less pressure as thier mf has much more posession. parky no matter who we'd bought in august we needed 4 new defenders and a defence who are completely new to each other is not going to be solid immediately. i consider cacapa as stand out quality and beye and enrique come with great reputations, also rozy and faye have been very highly rated by their previous fans. quality teams aren't built overnight, it needs to be gradual. we should know better than anyone that having 5 champions league quality players playing alongside 5 championship quality players gets you nowhere. if you're unhappy with the quality of the defenders bought then it would be a waste to spend 25mill on 4 defenders (we spent 14 on 4 defenders (plus one free) who you are not happy with, so i presume this is around the figure you would have preffered) without spending the equivilent on our midfield, as a defence without a midfield who cant keep the ball is like sunderland spending 9million on a goalkeeper (i.e. he may be good but how many points will they actually gain? they'll just lose games by 2-3 goals and not 5, and maybe gain them a few draws). we'll now need at least 3 midfielders to match the defenders, and for the desired quality we're looking at another 30-40 million. we're probably right in the striking department, but with an unfit viduka, uncultured martins and a broken owen a 15-20mill striker would probably be good just to be safe, because we don't want to spend 65 million on a defence and midfield to find owen and viduka out for 3 months and having to rely on a very inconsistant martins and fucking ameobi. now we've spent 80-85 million on team we better hope allardyce works out, or we're well and truely fucked, and what if some of these new players don't work out? better imo to take it step by step rather than putting £80,000,000 on red and hoping for the best. We needed at least one quality mf to come in...One of my huge mf threads I think 80% or summat agreed. In relative terms wev'e really spent very little and it was silly not to get another winger or creative CM. As a club we either compete or we don't and clubs that don't compete now will miss out as the top tier of football is changing.

But Baggy it seems proposterous to view Solano as a right back don't you think?

But you were happy with the defenders he brought in at the time. Tbf I was and continue to be overjoyed with Enrique who will get better and better and Faye who is coming into his own. But as my many whinging threads about CM's (creative or otherwise) are a testament I was worried as soon as the window shut about our ability to compete with proper football in mf. I said all summer that the lack of pace and creativity would cost us and it has, replacing Dyer with Smith was madness and we're now left with a team of grafters rather than any genuine pace and penetration in the team, our only players capable of this are either on the bench or playing out of position at left back. As for signing better quality defenders, he said players wouldn't come here because we were not in Europe and I believe him, Ben Haim went to Chelsea, Distin had already agreed to join Pompey, Heinze turned us down flat, Silvestre turned us down because he didn't like Barton and Man Utd would only sell Brown if Heinze stayed, what other players with Premiership experience stand out apart from them who would leave their current club to come here? My biggest worry now is that if players turned us down last year because of no European football, there's a good chance we're going to have the same problem next Summer too. To take on your points and jpd, speccy and ohml...Quality and league position attracts further quality as ambition and potential can be sold to a target acqusition. As Neef also says and you've said frequently the dyer/solano axis ie the attack on the right side wether it be pace or the guile of Solano hasn't been addressed and this is a gigantic mistake which might cost us a Euro spot this year and the kudos which would have helped to attract better players in Jan and the summer. Someone has fucked up royally. How much more attractive Man C already look for players we will be competing to sign and they were rubbish last year.

Out of order. > Its not though really is it? The click said it was ok, so it was, but really it isn't. I have to hold back on SA for now and I made a promise to myself to give him till Christmas at least.

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it. Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation. There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind and set up two goals. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue. Uh huh. But I think he would know his best XI if he had signed less unknown quantities. There would be no settling in periods or owt, you could just plop em in and away you go. Maybe you wouldn't be unbeatable from minute 1. But you would be improving far quicker if the manager had faith enough in his players to play them consistently in the knowledge that these guys are definetly good enough and he could play them week in, week out, not dropping them after 1 mistake, or 1 game where the opposition striker got the better of them. And you wouldn't need to play CNZ in defence either. Obviously that wouldn't have been the answer to all your ills - good individuals defenders wont turn you into Brazil overnight, but Im not sure thats what Allardyce is aiming for. The way you talk about keeping possesion under pressure, this attack being the best form of defence type thing, I'm not sure thats the "winning football" Allardyce talks about. Whether he is right or not is niether here nor there (Well, he's not, but thats not the point of this thread is it...) but I reckon his methods would be working far better if it wasn't relying on a weak backline to keep his all important clean sheets. Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive. Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality. But you were happy with the defenders he brought in at the time. Tbf I was and continue to be overjoyed with Enrique who will get better and better and Faye who is coming into his own. But as my many whinging threads about CM's (creative or otherwise) are a testament I was worried as soon as the window shut about our ability to compete with proper football in mf.

Out of order. >

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it. Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation. There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind and set up two goals. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue. Uh huh. But I think he would know his best XI if he had signed less unknown quantities. There would be no settling in periods or owt, you could just plop em in and away you go. Maybe you wouldn't be unbeatable from minute 1. But you would be improving far quicker if the manager had faith enough in his players to play them consistently in the knowledge that these guys are definetly good enough and he could play them week in, week out, not dropping them after 1 mistake, or 1 game where the opposition striker got the better of them. And you wouldn't need to play CNZ in defence either. Obviously that wouldn't have been the answer to all your ills - good individuals defenders wont turn you into Brazil overnight, but Im not sure thats what Allardyce is aiming for. The way you talk about keeping possesion under pressure, this attack being the best form of defence type thing, I'm not sure thats the "winning football" Allardyce talks about. Whether he is right or not is niether here nor there (Well, he's not, but thats not the point of this thread is it...) but I reckon his methods would be working far better if it wasn't relying on a weak backline to keep his all important clean sheets. Hence my angle on this thread ie the spend could have done with being a touch more aggressive. Also a lot of this tinkering is cause he didn't buy any utter stand out quality. I also don't think Liverpool's defence is much better than ours man for man but they have to deal with a lot less pressure as thier mf has much more posession.

That's a worthy point about the foreign defenders, but I'm not sure assembling a whole new back four is ever easy, even if they're all English, as Optymystyc Nyt points out. I strongly agree with you about experimenting in Premier League games as if they're friendlies. We only have two fit wingers and two fit full backs, that's been the case all season, and yet the four of them have only started one league game together (when we beat Everton in one of our most convincing performances of the season). The spine of the team changes every week, in central defence, central midfield and attack, and we haven't had many injuries for once either. There's no excuse for it. Parky is right about the need for some attacking quality though. It says a lot about the transfer window that many fans were hoping Barton would come in and give the team some flair and excitement. The longer he was out injured, the more he was being hyped up by fans desperate to see some decent football. In our last three games we have scored courtesy of two own goals and a fluke. We got 1 point out of 9, and it's more than we deserved. We were second best every time, all over the park, and two of those sides will be fighting relegation. There's a bigger picture to our defensive problems though beyond the individuals at the back. It's the inability to keep possession under pressure and a lack of quality on the ball and pace off it to put the other team on the back foot. It's not helped by our lack of width or wingers on the wrong flanks who keep cutting inside. Because we can't get in behind any teams they are quite happy to nudge their defence forward and congest our midfield, who can't handle it. The last time we got in behind a defence repeatedly was when N'Zogbia was in his proper position on the left, he got in behind, set up one goal and scored another. Sam's reaction was to move him to the right, drop him, then put him in defence. Against sunderland Sam dropped his only full backs, against Reading he dropped his only wingers. I think these wacky managerial decisions have largely contributed to the totally disjointed performances, add that to the fact the spine of the team changes every week and you can see why noone has had a chance to gel yet. Quite what Allardyce is up to I don't know, it appears he has used a third of the season to experiment and as you say you can't expect fans to tolerate that. He still doesn't seem to have any idea of his best team yet, so we can probably expect these experiments to continue. Great post fella. Agree with it all. One of the golden rules is if you can't spread play to pacey players and have to play narrow you make sure you can keep the ball for good periods and move up as a unit. We don't spread play and we don't move up as a unit either.

Excellent analysis.

The three united players you mentioned cost a combined £60m so unless you have that to spend trhen it's a pretty irrelevant comparison. If someone had mentioned Heskeys or Jones' name as a possible signing for you 3 months ago I bet you'd have pi**ed yourself laughing, two good games later and a couple of goals in Jones' case and now they're viable options. Personally, I think you have three very good stikers on your books, but with the midfield that Big sam has built around them and the style of play that comes with it ther's no way that you're going to be getting the best out of Owen or Martins for that matter.Allardyce spent £13/£14m on three midfielders - not one of which offer you any penetration either by their movement into the box or their passing ability and as a result you have a midfield that works hard, is physically strong and can "put their foot in" but creates very little and IMO, in Alan Smith, you have a player that contributes nothing except aggression. As a result, your strikers are having to make what little service they get go a long way, and if truth be told I can see Allardyce getting rid of both Owen and Martins by the summer. If the rumours are to be believed about you being interested in Crouch then that'd be an interesting signing for you, but again it doesn't get round the problem of the style of play or your midfield. If Crouch does come then yes, he'll be able to hold the ball up better than Martins and Owen (although Owen is decent in that respect) but then who from the midfield will be running beyond him through on goal? At Liverpool we have Gerrard, Babel,Benayoun etc but the only person I could see doing that for you would be N'Zogbia - more often than not you'll have Crouch(or an other target man) isolated against 3 defenders whilst he's waiting for a slow midfield to catch up. This is what I said about Crouch earlier. A piece of the puzzle but nowhere near the complete jigsaw. Personally I hope we don't sign Crouch for me he isn't mobile enough or dynamic, he's also relatively lazy and seems to get tired easily.

Use fresh local produce don't over do the sauces let the the simple clean ingredients speak for themselves. You Gordon Ramsey or what eh?! Honoured to be even referred in the same post to the great man.

We didn't really spend much, should we have spent more though and patched up plus one or two quality players? In an ideal world, but was the money there? I got the impression that that t*** Shepherd gave that even bigger t*** Souness most of the transfer kitty for the next few seasons. Well initially I thought as you the money wasn't really there...But then Ashley paid off a huge chunk of the debt... He can't be enjoying what he's watching. After the transfer window had closed? I don't know the details. How much did he pay off? How much debt is left? Two chunks iirc £30m and then £45m.

Agree. Iv'e said repeatedly on here that we're being too hard on Owen. After all we haven't got one single player in the side who can create a beautiful opening.

We didn't really spend much, should we have spent more though and patched up plus one or two quality players? In an ideal world, but was the money there? I got the impression that that twat Shepherd gave that even bigger twat Souness most of the transfer kitty for the next few seasons. Well initially I thought as you the money wasn't really there...But then Ashley paid off a huge chunk of the debt... He can't be enjoying what he's watching.

We didn't really spend much, should we have spent more though and patched up plus one or two quality players?

Kinda have to disagree with that, Real Madrid have been suffering that 'theory' for years now. For me, its a cae of tryin to enforce a system of play which is uncomfortable to the players that he has at his disposable, his ideal system at home would be 433, now anyone on this board could fill about 8/9 of those positions without hesitation "with the best players" but if you look at the Bolton set up at the end, you see that the players he had all fitted in his system perfectly. For example, if you look at the forward line of Stellios, Davies/Anelka(?), Diouf. (Cant remember how Anelka fitted in), you have 3 forwards who have roles which suit there style of play. Stellios are the hard working grafting forwards who get back and niggle, and you have the out and out striker who is able to knock on the ball for long balls while the 2 forwards make advanced runs, Now if you look at our frontline, we have no one like that. I.e, grafting forwards who work non stop, support the midfield and are able to get in the box and make advanced runs, we dont have that, we have owen and Martins, they certainly arent this type of player. Now you might try and argue that Zog and Milner could play there, and again i dont agree , when defence turns to attack and you require 2 forwards who are able to play inside the opposition box, put themselves about physically and provide a potent threat, you still arent gonna get that from Zog and Milner, whereas you will get that from Diouf and Stellios. For me its the frontline that is causing the problems for the rest of the squad, if he wanted to play the 3 in midfield then he be able to do that, no problms, he has the players to do so, the backline whilst not exactly organsied and water tight definetely has a very good combinations of players. So, for me its a case of Allardyce not being able to play the type of system he wants, his style of play is not suited to the system he's trying to implement. Its a big problem because SA is specialized at playing one type of system and play. If you were to ask Ferguson or Wenger to play percentage long ball football they'd fail, when Mourihno was asked to play open attacking football he struggled to implement it. I agree with you as well. I could see after the Wigan game although we won it and created a hatful of chances due mainly to their mistakes and the sending off we weren't creating the right kind of chances, we couldn't really carve them up as we failed to do with Derby and Reading. So with the current players his system or variations of it will continue to misfire. I'm saying he should go to plan B ditch the system for now and play 442 and put the players where they want to play and play to our strengths.

The quality of the top 10 sides has improved across the board and we seem to be falling behind to the point it looks like ManC and Pompey have both jumped over us this season. Along with them we have to deal with the already developed sides such as Everton, Blackburn and Spurs (they will get stronger no doubt).