Jayson

Gutierrez just probably tries to do to much because he thinks most of his teammates are crap

Never understood this "dont take them lightly" talk. Man united & Chelsea's players likely take near every side they play in the league lightly & expect to win. Thats the mentality you need when you're better than everyone else. You dont go into it worrying that the oppositions better than you expect. You think that you'll piss all over them & then you do it. They need to be confident in their own ability being better than everyone elses.

When people talk about the quality of our players, which ones are they referring to exactly? I'm struggling to name more than three who have looked any better than the opposition in their respective positions in this league. Well thats the whole point isnt it, that the players we have are better than what theyve shown this season. Guthrie, Barton, Jonas, smith, Nolan is a better midfield than any other championship side has available to them on paper. They've also individually put in performances, showing this is true in different games. None of them have been consistant, bar smith. Our midfield should be our strongest area in this league, so we are massively underperforming if we're not dominating the opposition in midfield. Then you add in Jose, Colo & Taylor. Harper behind them. Our foward line is our weakest area & Carroll/Ameobi had been stepping up pretty well until recently. We've actually been pretty awful since signing Harewood tbh. Anyway, this group of players should be far better than near every other side in this divison. Some are underperforming & recently most of them are. Doesnt mean they're all rubbish suddenly & the same standard as the opposition, it means theyre underperforming.

Problem is we've been lucky a lot & its catching up with us now. Luck not going for us atall. The only games id say we properly outplayed the opposition is Reading & Ipswich. Which isnt good enough with players of the standard that we have, some of which were expected to compete in the premiership. Our main plus this season has been our finishing, we're scoring the chances the opposition are missing. Now thats changed & now so have the results obv. Its a big task for him to get them going again now, as it'll be very very easy for this to turn into a negative few weeks. If he stops the long balls & pushes the team to attack more, we have the best chance of turning it around easily. If he stays cautious & we start lumping it up constantly, we wont be top for much longer atall.

Theyve just got their 1st win in 5 against sheff united, so not the best time to play them really on our form. But Plymouth beat them the game before & theyre 2nd bottom. So basically i have no idea wtf to expect, apart from us underperforming & making everything harder than it needs to be. Which is nailed on.

We should have had more than enough quality to beat forest regardless. They are not performing to their full ability recently atall & there more to it than just lovenkrands being shoved on the wing.

Hes been getting an assist in near every game he's played for us much atall, ofcourse he'll go to world cup. Easily. He'll get games to.

Beckham still creates with his passing, wouldnt start him obv. He's not bad a replacement to have on the wing atall.

Unlucky for milner, becks could have done better. He's a legend btw.

Where as you seem to have been traumatized at birth by Owens pure existance. Its not a laughable return if you're not providing to the "out n out goalscorer", its a pretty simple argument that you're not getting your head around as usual. There was no point in any of those tournaments where he was missing masses of chances. Making a case for the 2004 tournament doesnt back up a claim of him being gash in every major tournament post 1998. Not much point saying anything else to you about it. You are a long way from balanced on the issue (you know this to) & i often just argue with you because of that rather than thinking Owen was amazing.

class save that

Lampard got one goal more, massive. Rooney did well to get 4 in two games against average sides & has done nothing else. Owen scored against portugal the side which ended up putting us out. If you're going to get goals in tournaments, not bad to get them against the harder sides. Regardless, that wasnt the only tournament post world cup 98 which is what your arguments based on.

nice goal

As i said though, in comparison to who which you didnt answer. A striker will only perform so well if the rest of the team isnt doing much. If others were doing far better ud have a case, they werent & so you dont.

Hardly crap in all of them. 2002 he was top scorer. Euro 2000 shearer got the most with 2, 1 more than owen. 2004 scored against portugal what would have been a winner if theyd not scored 7 mins from time. Talk about pointlessly biased. If owens been crap, the entire England squad has been far worse. So pointless to focus much at him.

Yep, even Owen managed it He also managed it against the top countries. (Germany, Argentina, Brazil...) Aye. Barring '98 in a couple of games he was normally absolutely horrific for England in the major tournaments. (I am aware his goal against Brazil was in the quarter final of the World Cup) Said it before on here, but it's ignored. His reputation is an absolute f***ing sham. Give over man. Top class player until we signed him. A good goalscorer, never a top class player in a million years post 2002 4 goals in 3 major tournaments following 1998 isnt that disasterous tbh considering how the rest of our side played. Or how anyone else has done for us in that time either. He actually tended to score against the better sides in major tournaments.

Dont think it will be that big a deal to lose taylor/harewood, think we have decent enough replacements. Not perfect but decent enough. The last two games we've been unfortunate, we'll create chances in this game & hopefully start putting them away again.

Lost. Worst match ive seen in a long time, should have beaten them with 10 men. Wasted chances.

Yep, hardly a deserved win. They look rubbish.

another class save from James. Ferdinand has been shocking, just let the lad go there. Pathetic performance.

milner inches from an own goal

Chance here

Think he shoulda taken Heskey off rather than Lennon, the long ball isnt working for us.

Great save that from James

Gerrard off for Milner then, thats different