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What is wrong...


James

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...with the following team?:

 

Harper

Beye Faye Taylor Enrique

Geremi Butt Barton

Owen Viduka Martins

 

This was the team that had us on that unbeaten run.

 

Of course, we have to be able to account for injuries and whatnot, but if that team or similar plays often next season with Keegan as manager, are people really worried that we aren't going to improve on the past two seasons?

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...with the following team?:

 

Harper

Beye Faye Taylor Enrique

Geremi Butt Barton

Owen Viduka Martins

 

This was the team that had us on that unbeaten run.

 

Of course, we have to be able to account for injuries and whatnot, but if that team or similar plays often next season with Keegan as manager, are people really worried that we aren't going to improve on the past two seasons?

 

Well the midfield is pants for a start. :razz:

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...with the following team?:

 

Harper

Beye Faye Taylor Enrique

Geremi Butt Barton

Owen Viduka Martins

 

This was the team that had us on that unbeaten run.

 

Of course, we have to be able to account for injuries and whatnot, but if that team or similar plays often next season with Keegan as manager, are people really worried that we aren't going to improve on the past two seasons?

 

Well the midfield is pants for a start. :razz:

 

Well as far as I remember, those three kept the team together well as a unit both in attack and defence, and with less intelligent players (Smith) the formation would have collapsed and we'd get overrun.

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...with the following team?:

 

Harper

Beye Faye Taylor Enrique

Geremi Butt Barton

Owen Viduka Martins

 

This was the team that had us on that unbeaten run.

 

Of course, we have to be able to account for injuries and whatnot, but if that team or similar plays often next season with Keegan as manager, are people really worried that we aren't going to improve on the past two seasons?

 

Viduka is injured...................... probably.

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More of a 4-3-1-2 tbh.

 

I agree with the general tone though; I've said loads of times I think Keegan would have had us in the top half last year with that squad for the full year.

 

A few upgrades in key positions (Geremi, Butt, Viduka plus others as necessary/if possible) and we'll be much better than 10th IMO.

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...with the following team?:

 

Harper

Beye Faye Taylor Enrique

Geremi Butt Barton

Owen Viduka Martins

 

This was the team that had us on that unbeaten run.

 

Of course, we have to be able to account for injuries and whatnot, but if that team or similar plays often next season with Keegan as manager, are people really worried that we aren't going to improve on the past two seasons?

 

Viduka is injured...................... probably.

 

Competition for Viduka should be easy to sign (Derdiyok)

 

I'm honestly not worried about next season. As long as we keep who we've got, it is not going to need major adjustments to get a much better season. anything extra is just a brilliant bonus.

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Viduka is unreliable and despite his class, his legs have gone. Geremi and Butt are both on the slide, who knows whether Barton will ever regain his Citeh form or even be here for that matter. Taylor still has a long way to go.

 

Apart from that, not a lot imo. When we were at West Ham, we kept saying to each other what a difference it would make just to have a midfield that could pass the ball consistently.

 

With that formation and that front three, teams other than the big guns will never feel totally comfortable and we'll always create chances and score goals. If we had a younger, fitter Viduka, we'd win a substantial amount of games just because of the strike power.

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Viduka is unreliable and despite his class, his legs have gone. Geremi and Butt are both on the slide, who knows whether Barton will ever regain his Citeh form or even be here for that matter. Taylor still has a long way to go.

 

Apart from that, not a lot imo. When we were at West Ham, we kept saying to each other what a difference it would make just to have a midfield that could pass the ball consistently.

 

With that formation and that front three, teams other than the big guns will never feel totally comfortable and we'll always create chances and score goals. If we had a younger, fitter Viduka, we'd win a substantial amount of games just because of the strike power.

 

And someone with legs and a bit of drive. That right hand flank was open all fucking day, they just knew Geremi couldn't do anything with it.

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The midfield lacks any creativity, KK managed to paper over the cracks for a short spell towards the end of the season. I doubt very much that that can be sustain over the course of a whole season.

 

As Liam says Viduka is injured yet again and if we get more than 20 games out of him next season we'll have done very well. Viduka is absolutely essential to playing that 4-3-3 system. I fail to be convinced that Martins and Owen, despite their individual skills work as a partnership.

 

The defence is probably the least of my concerns but it still lacks confidence because when the midfield fail to do their job in protecting the back four, it's the defence that invariably gets the blame and confidence ebbs away.

 

Of course we'll buy some more players, even the most pessimistic of us does not think that Jonas is the end of our summer recruitment policy. But it's all about the qulaity and if the new signings can't oust some of the current starting 11, then mid table mediocrity is about all we can look forward to.

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It worked for those few games against shite teams - Fulham, Sunderland, Spurs (;)) etc. We'd get stuffed by a top 8 side imo.

 

Plus the backups are dire.

 

I reckon we played alright in the first 45 minutes against Chelsea with the formation and gave them some problems but that all changed when Smith came on for Viduka and the system fell apart and were subsequently destroyed.

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...with the following team?:

 

Harper

Beye Faye Taylor Enrique

Geremi Butt Barton

Owen Viduka Martins

 

This was the team that had us on that unbeaten run.

 

Of course, we have to be able to account for injuries and whatnot, but if that team or similar plays often next season with Keegan as manager, are people really worried that we aren't going to improve on the past two seasons?

Im reasonably happy with that team, but could do with a new defensive midfielder (younger) and either milner or guiterez? on the right, see which is better first though.

N'Zogbia for Barton and we are pretty much sorted for a comfortable 8th-11th finish.

To break into top 8 i think we also need a new centre half and a target striker (instead of viduka)

 

 

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Please God no more Geremi taking corners.

 

This. I remember the game against Portsmouth, if I wasn't a Newcastle fan I'd have been laughing every time he attempted taking a corner. Useless.

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The midfield lacks any creativity, KK managed to paper over the cracks for a short spell towards the end of the season. I doubt very much that that can be sustain over the course of a whole season.

 

As Liam says Viduka is injured yet again and if we get more than 20 games out of him next season we'll have done very well. Viduka is absolutely essential to playing that 4-3-3 system. I fail to be convinced that Martins and Owen, despite their individual skills work as a partnership.

 

The defence is probably the least of my concerns but it still lacks confidence because when the midfield fail to do their job in protecting the back four, it's the defence that invariably gets the blame and confidence ebbs away.

 

Of course we'll buy some more players, even the most pessimistic of us does not think that Jonas is the end of our summer recruitment policy. But it's all about the qulaity and if the new signings can't oust some of the current starting 11, then mid table mediocrity is about all we can look forward to.

Exactly the point I was making. Be prepared to be called a twat.
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Why would we sign people that we didn't believe were capable of playing better football than those we have already?

 

No club intentionally signs players they think are going to be shit, but nevertheless it happens.

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Why would we sign people that we didn't believe were capable of playing better football than those we have already?

 

No club intentionally signs players they think are going to be shit, but nevertheless it happens.

 

Of course; I'm not suggesting every player we buy will be a certain hit. I do however trust Keegan's eye for getting in a player who can do a job for him better than those already here.

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For starters, the team is slow, short and numerically small.  It doesn't have any creative flair, Viduka never plays, set pieces have been atrocious and the defence struggled against very average attacking talent last season. 

 

But more generally, the league table doesn't lie.  Those 11 players earned their 12th place finish.  Smith and Allardyce were bad, but I'm not scapegoating those two for some collectively inept team performances.  Big Sam wasn't masterminding all those mistakes.  Yes...in the end we were six points off the top 10.  But worrying about relegation in April wasn't just our imagination.  Maybe Keegan can get them playing consistently better, and cracking the top 10.  But that is the absolute limit of where a midfield of Geremi, Butt and Barton will take you, even under excellent management.  I don't want the best possible performance from average players (sub-average when you consider that a team like Pompey has a midfield that is 10x as good as ours) because it will always yield average results in the long term. 

 

You are placing an extraordinary amount of faith in a team that has shown us nothing and putting too much pressure on Keegan to overachieve with players of limited ability.

 

 

 

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