Steve McClaren

[STM]

It's night and day to me, compared to last season (which I recognise is no benchmark).

 

When we get our first win, a few might calm down a touch.

[ExiledGeordie]

I just don't buy this s*** about having to bed in and the 'good football will come later', it just seems like a s*** excuse for not taking the game to the opposition.

 

that's just a half-empty, half-full way of looking at the same thing

 

none of us really know what mclaren is really thinking at this stage, imo he's either come into the club and seen what an utter shambles it is from top to bottom and decided to build slowly starting by not conceding millions of goals and getting raped week in week out

 

or his natural inclination is to be dour and defensive which some seem to think it is

 

in fairness to mclaren 'building from the back' is a tried and tested strategy of both his generation of managers and the biggest influence on his career, fergie...worth remembering how fragile the confidence is/was of a lot of our senior players tbh, as much as anything that's probably not something you can just change overnight

 

Well summed up

[Village Idiot]

Valencia were pretty much a "build from the back" team the year Cathro was there, and I suspect NUFC was looking to get a bit of that when they signed him. To Cathro's credit, Valencia were an exceptionally hard team to break.

 

That said, the only defensive thing I have spotted in McClaren (didn't see the Arsenal game), is the Colback-Anita pairing, and having two mids sit back isn't hardly something out of this world, it would help if at least one of them was more creative though.

 

I think it's too soon to really appraise the manager's intent. A transfer window where you signed one defender and three attacking players doesn't scream "the new Fat Sam" to me, though.

 

 

[themanupstairs]

Valencia were pretty much a "build from the back" team the year Cathro was there, and I suspect NUFC was looking to get a bit of that when they signed him. To Cathro's credit, Valencia were an exceptionally hard team to break.

 

That said, the only defensive thing I have spotted in McClaren (didn't see the Arsenal game), is the Colback-Anita pairing, and having two mids sit back isn't hardly something out of this world, it would help if at least one of them was more creative though.

 

I think it's too soon to really appraise the manager's intent. A transfer window where you signed one defender and three attacking players doesn't scream "the new Fat Sam" to me, though.

 

Going down marra 9-1 FTM, divn't you know?

[Elliottman]

it's tough reading some of this. Looking at the positives, we've just conceded 1 (deflected) goal against two of the best sides in the country. We looked solid for the majority of the two games and finally look like we can defend as a team again. Lets see how the next two games go. International break has come at an awful time.

[Deckard 13]

2nd worst defensive record in the league last season and people are complaining that we're looking "too defensive" now.

 

Words fail me. Lets go back to 5-0 batterings on a weekly basis.

[Figures 1-0 Football]

2nd worst defensive record in the league last season and people are complaining that we're looking "too defensive" now.

 

Words fail me. Lets go back to 5-0 batterings on a weekly basis.

 

This.

 

Everyone was crying out for us to sort out the defence during the whole summer - we have finally done that.

And now we're awful because we've not scored 20 goals in our opening four games.

[Foluwashola]

Thought it would take a bit longer than this for the massively negative posts to start creeping into every thread.

 

Despite the results there have been many positives to take from the first few games. This is the internet though, and the Internet is mental.

[mrmojorisin75]

2nd worst defensive record in the league last season and people are complaining that we're looking "too defensive" now.

 

Words fail me. Lets go back to 5-0 batterings on a weekly basis.

 

This.

 

Everyone was crying out for us to sort out the defence during the whole summer - we have finally done that.

And now we're awful because we've not scored 20 goals in our opening four games.

I think it's very early to be saying we've "sorted" the defence mind. He's got the entire team working on protecting them and the moment they get exposed to fend for themselves they still look pretty shaky to me.

 

They're not a back 4 unit imo, very far from it.

[geordiedean]

The thing that is concerning to me is that unless we take 4-6 points from the Watford and West Ham games we are going to be sitting rock bottom after 8 games that's nearly a quarter of the season gone and we're playing catchup completely it's not a good scenario. The longer it goes without a win as the confidence we are trying to build. You can make any excuse you want but to be bottom of the league after 8 games with possibly less than 5 points is very very worrying, you just don't come back from such horrendous starts. We have taken 11 points in 2015 FFs. It's imperative we get at least 1 win from the hammers or hornets

[Guest ElCid]

2nd worst defensive record in the league last season and people are complaining that we're looking "too defensive" now.

 

Words fail me. Lets go back to 5-0 batterings on a weekly basis.

 

This.

 

Everyone was crying out for us to sort out the defence during the whole summer - we have finally done that.

And now we're awful because we've not scored 20 goals in our opening four games.

 

So would you play Colback and Anita  easy question?

[triggs]

The thing that is concerning to me is that unless we take 4-6 points from the Watford and West Ham games we are going to be sitting rock bottom after 8 games that's nearly a quarter of the season gone and we're playing catchup completely it's not a good scenario. The longer it goes without a win as the confidence we are trying to build. You can make any excuse you want but to be bottom of the league after 8 games with possibly less than 5 points is very very worrying, you just don't come back from such horrendous starts. We have taken 11 points in 2015 FFs. It's imperative we get at least 1 win from the hammers or hornets

We should beat both really or at least 4 points out of the two. West Ham had two good wins but looked poor in the other two games.

[Figures 1-0 Football]

2nd worst defensive record in the league last season and people are complaining that we're looking "too defensive" now.

 

Words fail me. Lets go back to 5-0 batterings on a weekly basis.

 

This.

 

Everyone was crying out for us to sort out the defence during the whole summer - we have finally done that.

And now we're awful because we've not scored 20 goals in our opening four games.

 

So would you play Colback and Anita  easy question?

 

Possibly not, but I can understand why he is playing both of them.

There is never going to be a situation where every supporter agrees with the starting 11, no matter who he picks.

 

Colback and Anita both played excellently on Saturday btw, as they did against Man Utd - had we had gone more attacking in both of those games, we'd probably have been stuffed 4-0 in both games. We were a toenail away from a victory at Man Utd and unlucky on Saturday to have the game ruined inside 16 minutes - neither of those were effected by Colback and Anita.

[mrmojorisin75]

The thing that is concerning to me is that unless we take 4-6 points from the Watford and West Ham games we are going to be sitting rock bottom after 8 games that's nearly a quarter of the season gone and we're playing catchup completely it's not a good scenario. The longer it goes without a win as the confidence we are trying to build. You can make any excuse you want but to be bottom of the league after 8 games with possibly less than 5 points is very very worrying, you just don't come back from such horrendous starts. We have taken 11 points in 2015 FFs. It's imperative we get at least 1 win from the hammers or hornets

It's concerning but how many points did we have under Pardew last season after the first 8 games? Can't have been much more than 5 and a quick run of wins had us into 5th man.

 

No reason we couldn't win 6-8 games to the halfway point assuming we manage to turn the tide.

 

I'm not expecting a thing at WHU btw, beat Watford, get reamed by Citeh and Chelsea.

[Hanshithispantz]

I fail to see why you cannot be disappointed with how reserved we've been just because we were shipping goals for fun last season like

 

We were awful last season, the worst I've ever seen us.

[Figures 1-0 Football]

The thing that is concerning to me is that unless we take 4-6 points from the Watford and West Ham games we are going to be sitting rock bottom after 8 games that's nearly a quarter of the season gone and we're playing catchup completely it's not a good scenario. The longer it goes without a win as the confidence we are trying to build. You can make any excuse you want but to be bottom of the league after 8 games with possibly less than 5 points is very very worrying, you just don't come back from such horrendous starts. We have taken 11 points in 2015 FFs. It's imperative we get at least 1 win from the hammers or hornets

It's concerning but how many points did we have under Pardew last season after the first 8 games? Can't have been much more than 5 and a quick run of wins had us into 5th man.

 

No reason we couldn't win 6-8 games to the halfway point assuming we manage to turn the tide.

 

I'm not expecting a thing at WHU btw, beat Watford, get reamed by Citeh and Chelsea.

 

8 games in we had 7 points and arguable a much easier start to the season of:

Man City (h), Aston Villa (a), Crystal Palace (h), Southampton (a), Hull (h), Stoke (a), Swansea (a), Leicester (h).

 

Leicester being the start of the run of wins.

 

We have West Ham (a) and Watford (h) next two games - easily acceptable to class both of them as winnable.

Chelsea (h) is nothing to fear, we play well against them for some reason and they are down on their knees atm.

Man City away, will be difficult.

 

After that, we have a run of 11 games where the hardest fixtures are Liverpool (h) and Tottenham (a) - but all easily winnable games.

 

We've had probably one of the hardest starts to the season.

[Interpolic]

I'm pretty positive tbh, think it'll come "good" by October if our confidence isn't shattered by then after our nightmare run of fixtures. Very impressed with the new signings so far.

 

[mrmojorisin75]

The thing that is concerning to me is that unless we take 4-6 points from the Watford and West Ham games we are going to be sitting rock bottom after 8 games that's nearly a quarter of the season gone and we're playing catchup completely it's not a good scenario. The longer it goes without a win as the confidence we are trying to build. You can make any excuse you want but to be bottom of the league after 8 games with possibly less than 5 points is very very worrying, you just don't come back from such horrendous starts. We have taken 11 points in 2015 FFs. It's imperative we get at least 1 win from the hammers or hornets

It's concerning but how many points did we have under Pardew last season after the first 8 games? Can't have been much more than 5 and a quick run of wins had us into 5th man.

 

No reason we couldn't win 6-8 games to the halfway point assuming we manage to turn the tide.

 

I'm not expecting a thing at WHU btw, beat Watford, get reamed by Citeh and Chelsea.

 

8 games in we had 7 points and arguable a much easier start to the season of:

Man City (h), Aston Villa (a), Crystal Palace (h), Southampton (a), Hull (h), Stoke (a), Swansea (a), Leicester (h).

 

Leicester being the start of the run of wins.

 

We have West Ham (a) and Watford (h) next two games - easily acceptable to class both of them as winnable.

Chelsea (h) is nothing to fear, we play well against them for some reason and they are down on their knees atm.

Man City away, will be difficult.

 

After that, we have a run of 11 games where the hardest fixtures are Liverpool (h) and Tottenham (a) - but all easily winnable games.

 

We've had probably one of the hardest starts to the season.

 

aye, we need to win one of west ham or watford and hope chelsea's form is still balls when we meet them, but i suspect it won't be

 

5 points from a difficult start...looking at swansea just now you'd have to say southampton was our missed opportunity for more points really from the 'easier' fixtures so far

 

i think west ham will beat us comfortably btw, like swansea they've started in good form

[Guest ElCid]

2nd worst defensive record in the league last season and people are complaining that we're looking "too defensive" now.

 

Words fail me. Lets go back to 5-0 batterings on a weekly basis.

 

This.

 

Everyone was crying out for us to sort out the defence during the whole summer - we have finally done that.

And now we're awful because we've not scored 20 goals in our opening four games.

 

So would you play Colback and Anita  easy question?

 

Possibly not, but I can understand why he is playing both of them.

There is never going to be a situation where every supporter agrees with the starting 11, no matter who he picks.

 

Colback and Anita both played excellently on Saturday btw, as they did against Man Utd - had we had gone more attacking in both of those games, we'd probably have been stuffed 4-0 in both games. We were a toenail away from a victory at Man Utd and unlucky on Saturday to have the game ruined inside 16 minutes - neither of those were effected by Colback and Anita.

 

You need to score to win games and yes I can understand being down to 10 men and even away from home against the top teams you may have to play like that but ffs man start the game like you want to win the game especially at home - if you allow teams like Arsenal to dominate you from the off they will and that's still not an excuse for playing them both against Swansea and Southampton. And if you think Colback had a good against Man Utd then you really are taking the p*ss as he was shocking. Also have a look at the number of times both give the ball away against Man Utd and Arsenal and you will be surprised at how regular they give possession back to the opposition. 

 

Lets also be serious here we are not talking about top quality players either, we are talking about bang average players who cannot do anything more than pass the ball 10 - 15 yards usually in a backwards and sideways direction. These are the same two players who played quite a few games together last season and were involved in some of our worst performances i.e. Man City away, Southampton away, Man Utd away, Swansea home, Tottenham home when a total of 18 goals were shipped in. If Pardew was still here and playing those two together he would be getting absolutely slaughtered on here and rightly so. It pisses me off when people argue about that it's wrong to call McClaren and then admit they wouldn't play these two together either  - total bollocks and you can argue all you want but having these two in the team at the same time is a total detriment to the team and inexcusable. If you play average players then your not going to win many matches and that's a fact!

[Stottie]

In case anyone is worried about all the cards, we're actually only midtable when it comes to fouls committed as a team. The cards seem to be more of an individual thing than the way we are set up to play. Top of the league in fouls committed are Crystal Palace.

[M4]

I wouldn't be too worried about the cards especially because the yellows picked up on Saturday have doubled our Premier League tally and they were almost all absolutely grotesque.

[The College Dropout]

I'm willing to give SMC a try. But when he decided to defend the 0-0 at OT with half an hour to go it felt like what I had always expected.  We really sat back and didn't offer up any threat for that whole half. Invited Man U to try and score and had they scored we could have had no complaints. That Thauvin chance was a true an anamoly.

 

Swansea first half was also very worrying.

 

I expect us to start picking up results soon though. 

[Twinport53]

I'm willing to give SMC a try. But when he decided to defend the 0-0 at OT with half an hour to go it felt like what I had always expected.  We really sat back and didn't offer up any threat for that whole half. Invited Man U to try and score and had they scored we could have had no complaints. That Thauvin chance was a true an anamoly.

 

Swansea first half was also very worrying.

 

I expect us to start picking up results soon though.

 

Did you prefer getting beat by 3+ goals to nil under Super Al?

[Hanshithispantz]

Odd question that like.

[TRon]

Odd question that like.

 

I think he's alluding that if we had attacked Man U more in the last 30 minutes we'd probably have conceded 3+ goals as they would have enjoyed raping us on the counter.