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Jonjo Shelvey (now playing for Çaykur Rizespor, on loan from Nottingham Forest)


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Can’t believe people are not bothered if any of our players get injured. Shelvey has a big role to play in some of our remaining fixtures; we have nobody who can pick some of the passes he can. We’re not exactly blessed in midfield. Baffling.

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Merino is a totally different kind of player and more akin to a less clumsy Diame than Shelvey as well. He's not a replacement and doesn't replace the void in creativity.

 

I suspect it'll be Hayden anyway. Blegh.

I reckon both will start, as well as Diame.

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Because people think we have better options for some reason, completely forgetting that for all his early promise Merino's form dropped, he's been injured/potentially playing through injury, and that he doesn't always necessary put in the graft at the back either. He's been guilty of not tracking runners in two goals that I can think of. That's not a criticism of him either btw, more making the point that whoever you play there is limited and has strengths and weaknesses. Singling out Shelvey for disdain is particularly odd considering he's been one of our best players over the last month.

 

This.

 

He hasn't got a single goal or assist in the league all season. He's supposed to be our creative force. For every pass like that one on Saturday there's a moment where he's breathing out of his arse 75 minutes in. Merino is a perfectly adequate replacement and if fit should be starting imo.

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Shelvey can't directly assist in our team easily because of the poor options we have up top, but the pass prior to the assist? I'd be surprised if less than a third were from Shelvey.

 

Kind of where stats fall down a bit to be honest. Just because there's no official 'stat' to express the offensive impact he sometimes demonstrates, doesn't mean he doesn't contribute offensively. Far from it imo.

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I don't think it's fair to solely judge him on goals and assists. It's a harder stat to get accurately, but I'd guess he has contributed integrally to many goals this season via starting moves off from deep putting the other team on the back foot with a long, accurate pass. Creating chances we simply wouldn't have had without him & his passing range in the team. Just because he is not there finishing the chance off or providing the cross, it's unfair to say he has not contributed to our goals scored this season.

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Guest firetotheworks

 

 

Because people think we have better options for some reason, completely forgetting that for all his early promise Merino's form dropped, he's been injured/potentially playing through injury, and that he doesn't always necessary put in the graft at the back either. He's been guilty of not tracking runners in two goals that I can think of. That's not a criticism of him either btw, more making the point that whoever you play there is limited and has strengths and weaknesses. Singling out Shelvey for disdain is particularly odd considering he's been one of our best players over the last month.

 

This.

 

He hasn't got a single goal or assist in the league all season. He's supposed to be our creative force. For every pass like that one on Saturday there's a moment where he's breathing out of his arse 75 minutes in. Merino is a perfectly adequate replacement and if fit should be starting imo.

 

That's a bit simplistic tbh, yeah he should have scored or assisted at some point, but if he's creating overall, it shouldn't matter. That's before you consider that the players he can be replaced with haven't exactly banged them in or provided assists either, so it's a bit moot. And again, Merino's been responsible for not tracking his man and the opposition scoring at least twice, so I'm not sure why that's being ignored.

 

Whoever's in there will have their weaknesses.

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Didn't we have our best spell early in the season when Shelvey was suspended/dropped and Merino played?

 

We also had Isaac Hayden playing every week and Diame couldn't even stand up.

 

Last time they (Hayden and Merino) were together against Brighton they barely even had a go. Ever since then Shelvey and Diame have been driving us forward.

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Fully understand how s*** our squad is, I really do! Still think it's a little reaching.

 

All those draws are against Bournemouth, Burnley, Palace, Swansea and Brighton. All games in which we've either not taken key chances, or thrown winning positions away, or just been f***ing s*** (Brighton) Respect that we can't win all games, and on reflection not losing those games could prove important - but I'm not crowning it as some sort of achievement that would merit 'unbeaten run'.

 

Having a shit squad has nothing to do with it. Those are the games that you've got to be taking wins from if you want to stay in the league, and we haven't. Joselu scores his penalty, we don't collapse against Palace and Bouremouth we're as good as home and hosed. Not unrealistic to expect those eventualities. That's not even considering failures in plenty of other games.

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unbeaten run :facepalm:

What’s wrong with that? We’ve lost one of the last eight PL games; two of the last ten. Both to Man City (who barely count).

 

We're 3 wins in 10, one of which against Man United. We've dropped quite a few points across games against teams around us. Terms like 'unbeaten run' is a bit reaching don't you think?

Well, I guess technically we have a four game unbeaten run. But 3 wins, 5 draws and 2 defeats is pretty good recent form--we would have 8 wins, 14 draw and 6 losses if this was our 'average' form for the season (sitting on 38 points, in seventh)--which is how I interpreted Zero's original meaning, i.e. we're doing alright recently and Shelvey has been part of that.

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Hmm, would say that Shelvey's at the heart of everything we're doing well of late, but sadly also at the heart of everything that's going wrong.

 

Bossed Man United, but not holding out hope seeing a performance like that for a while over 90mins. Can look brilliant when we are on top, but has nothing about him to arrest situations in games going against us. We're no doubt a better side with him than without, but it shouldn't be overlooked he totally melts away and is a hologram whenever we need to hold on, or control a game (Man U aside).

 

Last 10 games, he's been pretty anonymous in the majority - which has also coincided in us dropping points in very winnable games.

 

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Man United, and Bournemouth games - can anyone remember him doing anything of note at all in those games? Personally would be inclined to take Man U out of there, as it's a game of no expectation vs. games where we'd be taking points from direct rivals - to conclude on the whole, he's been fairly bad.

 

Not saying that there is anyone better to come in, but at same time he shouldn't be void of criticism just because he's deemed the 'best of a bad bunch'.

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