St1pe

But but Murphy is shite?

WBA, Fulham and I can’t think of another side that’s going to get less points than us?

These are the type of odd points here and there that kept us away from a proper relegation battle last season. We’re not lucking out games like this anymore so there’s no way we’re not right in amongst it by the end of this season.

I wonder if it’ll be like that cup game against Man City years ago where Pardew lucked out on a formation and system that worked.

Hands down the worst 11 I can remember him picking. I hope this comes back to make me look stupid but there’s no chance we’re getting anything from this.

Grim ?

I don’t hate this at all. I hope he has a good game, he’s look much better since he was last given a chance and we need an actual wide player on that side.

Sterling has been absolutely awful

That looked a pen to me?

Took Antonio out last week ?

That's a massive drop from him, he was never amazing but always thought he'd be a decent League 1 or 2 player. Same

Has Penn not demolished this yet? ?

He’s blaming social media now.

Is that the guy who scored the training ground overhead kick that did the rounds on social media?

I don’t think it’s complete nonsense personally. I think it’s balanced. There’s stuff I don’t agree with in it but you can see why as a captain he’s trying to maintain belief in a system they’re being required to play. He’s suggest what he thinks they should have done instead and they’re not happy with how they played. It’s hard in print to infer the correct meaning but I don’t get the arrogance from Lascelles like you get from some of the quotes say from Shelvey. He’s trying to be a captain here, he’s not the enemy or the problem, Bruce is. At least in terms of team performances that is.

Doesn’t seem like the West Ham fans are taking that well at all ?

No. He's not right about anything. He's talking about how we started well, and how we played good for 70 mins. We didn't. We were open the whole game and they ultimately got 4 goals. Just because they ended up getting them a bit later on, doesn't mean they weren't carving us open throughout. His quotes are shocking and completely clueless. What’s the lad supposed to say? He’s said we started “pretty well” we did start pretty well. He’s not saying we were amazing. He said we maybe should have realised who we were playing and shut up shop and played on the counter. He’s right. He’s said things like they’re angry and themselves and thinks they should do better. He’s right. There’s some spin in there too that I don’t agree with but it’s a balanced set of quotes from an honest captain who’s always tried to do his best. The reaction is pathetic. Did we ever open the shop, though? I don’t think we do either. A defensive counter attacking side is entirely different from putting 11 men behind the ball like Bruce does. His attacking set up just leaves massive gaps between the team with little benefit to attacking returns. It’s awful and a damning indictment of his management and coaches.

Armstrong looked like a fish out of water in our side. He started well last season too but only ended up with 16 goals in 46 appearances at Championship level. He’s a decent Championship player but doesn’t look any better than that. He only scored 5 the season before despite starting regularly (31 starts). Didn’t realise but he never scored a single goal for us. Toney wasn’t ever given a single chance though and has always looked good whenever I’ve seen him. Arma never got a chance either like. Started one league game for us when he was 17/18 and that was basically the last time he got a chance He made 11 appearances in 14/15 (albeit only 1 start) but his minutes on the pitch totalled nearly 3 full matches, he was fairly poor throughout. We’ve also had him in training/preseason and he’s been sent out on loan to Barnsley, Bolton & Blackburn before he was sold - he tends to perform well at the first part of the season and then tail off (he did it for both Barnsley and Blackburn and has started well again this year). Throughout the whole of that period he has been managed/overseen by 4(?) different managers, including Rafa and none of them have obviously rated him enough to play him. Other than playing him upfront for 5-10 games (with no indication he’s actually good enough for the role), what other chance does he need? On that basis we need to give every youth player a run in the side in the PL before deciding to flog them. It’s hardly like he was given 1 start and then flogged, he was here for years and didn’t show anything at any point that he’d have been a useful player. He maybe could have got more chance when we were relegated, but we had a good squad at that level so he was never needed. The whole youth setup is dreadful and as others have said before, the fact that our youth players tend to move to L2 and below in their career goes to show the poor development we have. I sort of see where you’re coming from here but the alternatives that were given starts turned out to be awful. Apart from the season Armstrong played left wing for Blackburn he’s looked really good, albeit a bit weak (from the odd highlights I’ve seen). I wish he’d have been given a few starts in the Championship to see how he’d have fared here. He’d certainly have been more use to us now in his current state than Carroll, Joselu, Muto and Gayle has been. Toney is a more difficult one and it’s more a pier reflection on how we deal with youth players. He absolutely wasn’t ready at for Premier League football but he started to look decent at the time we sold him. I don’t get why he wasn’t given a new contact and loaned a couple more times. That one will definitely be looked back on as poor business.

https://twitter.com/moneymikeashley/status/1319205088783704066?s=21 Wow

No. He's not right about anything. He's talking about how we started well, and how we played good for 70 mins. We didn't. We were open the whole game and they ultimately got 4 goals. Just because they ended up getting them a bit later on, doesn't mean they weren't carving us open throughout. His quotes are shocking and completely clueless. What’s the lad supposed to say? He’s said we started “pretty well” we did start pretty well. He’s not saying we were amazing. He said we maybe should have realised who we were playing and shut up shop and played on the counter. He’s right. He’s said things like they’re angry and themselves and thinks they should do better. He’s right. There’s some spin in there too that I don’t agree with but it’s a balanced set of quotes from an honest captain who’s always tried to do his best. The reaction is pathetic.

Wolves seem to fall under the radar a little but I think tactically they’re one of the best set up teams in the league. I honestly can’t see a single chance of us getting anything from them, we’re set up like an absolute mess. Would take a point.

The reaction to his quotes on social media is absolutely embarrassing from our fan base. He’s right. The gaps, especially between the defence and midfield is absolutely massive at times. With the forward players we have we’d been way better suited to the low block, counter attacking system we had under Rafa. Whatever it is we’re doing doesn’t work. Whatever we were doing against Man U didn’t work. He’s also right, man for man they are way better that us and making it difficult for them and countering fast is exactly what they’ve struggled against in recent weeks.

???

He’s got a point