mrmojorisin75

best thing for all concerned would be for ashley to take his annual holiday safe in the knowledge we've breezed to 25 points i reckon, rock back on 1st feb looking forward to another year on the PL gravy train

howe always goes on these shite runs then turns it around doesn't he?

i've repeatedly said i think he could do a job in the firminho sort of role, false nine or whatever, but that would require a coach that knows what he's doing

Absolutely spot on that. The 2 central midfielders are playing just in front of the back four more often than not. This is then inviting pressure from the opposition and as said resulting in the the play being so compressed because there is no out ball through the midfield to start an attack. The ball is then given away cheaply (hoofed) and the pressure starts again. It's so annoying as it's so obvious to see why we only have 30% possession in nearly every game. 3 knackers on a message board can see what's going on, apparently a mystery to brewcey et al EDIT: funny thing he changed it at OT of all places and both longstaff brothers were all over the place rather than holding in front of defence, we then get cut to shreds in the space they left behind and it's another shitshow because he doesn't try to play a higher line and press up or anything to compensate, just leaves a 40 yard gap for them to stroll into it's honestly pretty impressive the man is getting paid to do this Yeah either too far back or too far forward, no wonder he has one of the worse % wins in the history of the premiership to be fair rafa had a similar problem for a long time, albeit not as bad obviously i think he only really solved it after Ki came in last season and then longstaff to replace him, that's why we never saw shelvey again - the midfield moved the whole team up with them gradually including CBs, so they were rarely isolated and we got better support in attack, hence we scored well end of last season...did it through short triangle passing We need a box to box player (with ability) desperately and a holding player to receive the ball and the ability to keep the ball moving. I thought S Longstaff may have been the box to box player but under Bruce he has looked horrific. Shelvey should be perfect for the holding player (he's not however), but he is playing too deep and directly on top of the defenders, whilst looking for the 'hollywood' ball every time. i don't how a box to box helps in the setup as it stands, but then i don't see how anything would help

Absolutely spot on that. The 2 central midfielders are playing just in front of the back four more often than not. This is then inviting pressure from the opposition and as said resulting in the the play being so compressed because there is no out ball through the midfield to start an attack. The ball is then given away cheaply (hoofed) and the pressure starts again. It's so annoying as it's so obvious to see why we only have 30% possession in nearly every game. 3 knackers on a message board can see what's going on, apparently a mystery to brewcey et al EDIT: funny thing he changed it at OT of all places and both longstaff brothers were all over the place rather than holding in front of defence, we then get cut to shreds in the space they left behind and it's another shitshow because he doesn't try to play a higher line and press up or anything to compensate, just leaves a 40 yard gap for them to stroll into it's honestly pretty impressive the man is getting paid to do this Yeah either too far back or too far forward, no wonder he has one of the worse % wins in the history of the premiership to be fair rafa had a similar problem for a long time, albeit not as bad obviously i think he only really solved it after Ki came in last season and then longstaff to replace him, that's why we never saw shelvey again - the midfield moved the whole team up with them gradually including CBs, so they were rarely isolated and we got better support in attack, hence we scored well end of last season...did it through short triangle passing

Absolutely spot on that. The 2 central midfielders are playing just in front of the back four more often than not. This is then inviting pressure from the opposition and as said resulting in the the play being so compressed because there is no out ball through the midfield to start an attack. The ball is then given away cheaply (hoofed) and the pressure starts again. It's so annoying as it's so obvious to see why we only have 30% possession in nearly every game. 3 knackers on a message board can see what's going on, apparently a mystery to brewcey et al EDIT: funny thing he changed it at OT of all places and both longstaff brothers were all over the place rather than holding in front of defence, we then get cut to shreds in the space they left behind and it's another shitshow because he doesn't try to play a higher line and press up or anything to compensate, just leaves a 40 yard gap for them to stroll into it's honestly pretty impressive the man is getting paid to do this

we deserved none of the wins we got either did we? spurs i guess, and west ham

anyone that thinks we're up is a lunatic the only thing we had going for us was not conceding too many and we're now basically throwing the ball into the net as rafa's coaching starts to unravel under bruce - people blame the individuals for getting caught with passes across the defence but it's a clear symptom of how shit the system is as we're so compressed there's no way to pass it out other than long ball strikers can't score, they aren't even getting near the other goal for the most part players dropping like flies because he's flogged them too early and doesn't know how to manage players' fitness i thought he'd ride to the end of the season but i'm not so sure, other clubs will try and improve in january and we'll think we're safe could be on lads

Spot on. Our fans need to fuck right off. was hoping for a hattrick when i heard it

yeah very true, son/alli/kane in front of him would be nuts He’d massively help with their current problem when Dier-Sissoko play together of not having someone their defence can play passes into and make them play. my mates a spurs ST holder and we were on about where it all went wrong, he says it was eriksen losing form and getting dropped so they had no one else to play the passes to delle etc. and that's why he went to shit that's what he'd need to bring to spurs, i think he'd need to adapt his game a fair bit tbh

yeah very true, son/alli/kane in front of him would be nuts

Love Grealish. Wonder if anyone will try for him in Jan. Villa are down pretty much he's brilliant, if southgate has any sense whatsoever he'd get him in the team asap and not drop him

it'll be very interesting to see where we are after the arsenal game like, a bad run looks inevitable, just how bad it'll be is key

good

profit motive doesn't make sense for joelinton tbph, not at a reported cost of 40m anyways

18 month deal as well

This is not really directed/a dig at you, but I've seen this sort of thing creep in a lot. It's basically what Ashley wants, isn't it? The manager being the lightning rod for most of the anger towards the club, taking the majority of the heat for the problems ultimately caused by the ownership. Get half the fan base attacking the manager, half the fan base defending him, keep the attention over there until it becomes unsustainable then refresh and start again. It’s not Mike Ashley’s fault that Bruce is getting so little out of Joelinton. Is he a £40million striker? No Would we be seeing a better Joelinton if he wasn’t managed by Bruce though? Yes. We shouldn’t have spent so much money on him but Bruce should be getting way more out of him. aye, this is what i meant - if bruce knew how to play people properly there likely wouldn't be an issue to discuss it's the same with playing almiron right all season, he'd probably have fucked a less positive player completely by now and anyone with eyes could see it wasn't working, that's not ashley's fault for signing almiron it's bruce's for being a shit manager

i won't disagree with what you've said, my only gripe is with criticism thrown at the lad himself, bruce "signed off" on him right? hasn't a clue how to play him fwiw if almiron & ASM are fit i'd play him deeper and those two more forward almiron left, get him to link between the CM's who are often too deep and the two pacy wide forwards with him coming up onto stuff a la firmino, which is another thing we completely lack - but again that would require bruce to know what he's doing

he's not a line leader, i think that's one thing we can all agree, therefore the fault should be on bruce who continually plays him as one as if it's the only way to play football

Agree think he would fit in quite well with the current setup. you think he'd score at the same rate against PL defenders in a team that doesn't create chances for its strikers? Yeah he’d fit right in with a team that are 20th for amount of crosses put in the box I don’t even think prime Shearer would get more than 10 under Bruce. this is why i find the joelinton criticism particularly harsh, he's had fuck all to work with and his confidence as a young kid in a new country will be utterly fucked i fear for the lad under bruce actually, i think he needs to be in a deeper role but will never get it

can we fast forward to the bit where dunce gets banned for calling disco a cunt pls

this is the crux of the issue, we've paid £40m but he's not a £40m player and never was, we need to get past it imo he's another ASM/Almiron level gamble around the £20m mark that might come good, but a standard fee for a decent player these days and we couldn't complain yet at that price as he's 23 and new to the country but we paid £40m bent as fuck - i wonder in retrospect if ashley doesn't completely regret binning off the most bent manager in the game when he took over, could have been a marriage made in heaven that

I'm far more concerned about the football we are producing, can't really see any striker getting goals from the stuff we produce. The goals are coming out of the blue generally, we don't look capable of fashioning a goal from good play. How are people not getting this?