A league table is a funny thing...

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TopCat said:
I'm certain we will stay up (largely down to the ineptitude of others) and the time to take stock is in the summer. The questions that the owner must ask himself are:
  • Has Gus Poyet underachieved?
  • Would replacing the Head Coach improve the quality of play, but most importantly - the results?
  • Who would be willing to come to Sunderland? Are they any better than Poyet?
  • Is the current approach of minimal investment v annual relegation battle really what he wants to be involved in?
I don't expect any changes in the summer, nor do I expect any major investment. Again, we will be told that IF we can get some big wages off the books (Brown, Graham, Fletcher) then there will be "some" money to reinvest. Probably sign Vergini permenently and look for bosmans/loans to bulk up the squad. Whilst this model continues, we will continue to struggle
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My worry about Short is that when he`s backed managers well its mainly been blown on shite. Maybe he fears a repeat of that with whoever the feck buys players now. However if he isn't going to back managers well, we`re only going to go in one direction.
 


SPUFF said:
My worry about Short is that when he`s backed managers well its mainly been blown on shite. Maybe he fears a repeat of that with whoever the feck buys players now. However if he isn't going to back managers well, we`re only going to go in one direction.
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The last manager to get proper backing was MON - The signings of AJ and Fletcher were good at the time. Unfortunately he followed that up spunking best part of £9M on N'Diaye and Graham who were(are) dreadful. Especially when them up the road were unearthing gems like Sissoko (whom MON "passed" on) for £3m or so....

I think Short is wary of spending money now but as you say, there's only one way it's going to
 
TopCat said:
The last manager to get proper backing was MON - The signings of AJ and Fletcher were good at the time. Unfortunately he followed that up spunking best part of £9M on N'Diaye and Graham who were(are) dreadful. Especially when them up the road were unearthing gems like Sissoko (whom MON "passed" on) for £3m or so....

I think Short is wary of spending money now but as you say, there's only one way it's going to
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I don't feel/and I don't think Short will, that either of those were worth their outlay and associated wages to be honest.

Way,way too many offdays the pair of them, ferk me when the Johnson scandal was announced you`d think he was Pele, only a fortnight since he failed to put one decent effort into the box despite around a dozen opportunities v WBA. The same day a lad who cost now won Hull a game with a fantastic ball.
 
cronnyberg said:
This season has been tough; undoubtedly.

I change my mind how I feel about Poyet almost daily, and it's undeniable that our lack of wins has been nothing short of embarrassing. However, it's very easy to notice when you aren't winning, while its a lot harder to register the idea that we aren't losing either.

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Yes, we have the joint lowest win rate in the league, but we have an excellent loss record, one that puts us on par with the teams in and around 6th-10th.

Considering we spent half of the season with the likes of Jozy up front, had prolonged injuries to much of our attacking midfield (as well as signing fewer midfielders than intended), and have just missed out on many close opportunities to convert draws into wins, it becomes easy to see why we are where we are, and it becomes easier to see that, although it doesn't feel like it, we have made significant progress from last season.

What we need is a couple more attacking players to build on our solid foundation. This season was always going to be transitional, all we can hope is that the long term strategy works.
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Same way we just managed to convert some defeats into draws. I can't see anything that looks even near to a long term strategy.
 
SPUFF said:
I don't feel/and I don't think Short will, that either of those were worth their outlay and associated wages to be honest.

Way,way too many offdays the pair of them, ferk me when the Johnson scandal was announced you`d think he was Pele, only a fortnight since he failed to put one decent effort into the box despite around a dozen opportunities v WBA. The same day a lad who cost now won Hull a game with a fantastic ball.
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Like it or not. Johnno is still our best player. He is criticised on here becasue he came from City and was an England player so the expectations are higher. Ironically, its's easier to look a good player in a stellar team. The problem is, unless you are Messi or Ronaldo, you can't do it all on your own. The biggest problem with him is that he too often gets the ball 30 yards from his own goal with 2 players around him and no-one to pass to. We don't play to his strengths.....
 
cronnyberg said:
This season has been tough; undoubtedly.

I change my mind how I feel about Poyet almost daily, and it's undeniable that our lack of wins has been nothing short of embarrassing. However, it's very easy to notice when you aren't winning, while its a lot harder to register the idea that we aren't losing either.

Logon or register to see this image


Yes, we have the joint lowest win rate in the league, but we have an excellent loss record, one that puts us on par with the teams in and around 6th-10th.

Considering we spent half of the season with the likes of Jozy up front, had prolonged injuries to much of our attacking midfield (as well as signing fewer midfielders than intended), and have just missed out on many close opportunities to convert draws into wins, it becomes easy to see why we are where we are, and it becomes easier to see that, although it doesn't feel like it, we have made significant progress from last season.

What we need is a couple more attacking players to build on our solid foundation. This season was always going to be transitional, all we can hope is that the long term strategy works.
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You have been Peruzzied :(
 
TopCat said:
Like it or not. Johnno is still our best player. He is criticised on here becasue he came from City and was an England player so the expectations are higher. Ironically, its's easier to look a good player in a stellar team. The problem is, unless you are Messi or Ronaldo, you can't do it all on your own. The biggest problem with him is that he too often gets the ball 30 yards from his own goal with 2 players around him and no-one to pass to. We don't play to his strengths.....
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I disagree with that mind. Hes criticised because he often appears disinterested despite bags of ability and a huge paypacket imo. I know its common with flair players it just seems he`s a class act `when he can be arsed`. If you`d bankrolled his move that would piss you off massively.
 
Dexter said:
Do we have a solid foundation though? Goalkeeper is fine, but we've got a 35 year old right back, a centre back pairing with a combined age of about 70 with Brown almost certainly on his way out of the club and massive question marks over Vergini, and a left back who isn't very good at the old defending there mate.

I'd say our defensive stats are somewhat misleading because we rarely try to win games, and focus on not trying to lose. It's not hard to concede fewer goals than other teams if you're more intent on stopping them from scoring than scoring yourself.

And as someone else said, we've looked far more likely to turn those draws into defeats than we have wins most of the time.
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Great post from one of the experts of the board there mate, there iirc.
 
Littlerobbieh said:
We probably won't go down this year but that's not the point, us fans don't just judge the entire season on final league position. It's been a fuckin disaster and an absolute disgrace.
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Far too harsh. It's not a disaster. That would be bottom of the league and adrift.

As it stands we are 4 points clear. Disappointing, but not a disaster.
 
Morny said:
Who gives a fuck if we scrape survival playing rancid, terrible football? Is that success now, is that what we should dream of?

How about we get to see us put in the odd decent performance, actually try to win rather than set up 'not to lose'. If we'd lost five more of them draws but won two of them wed be on more points now, but by the Ops reckoning we'd be more likely to drop and in a worst state because our loss ratio is worse. There's no point never losing if you're never winning either, football is entertainment and we don't provide any, we're dreadful
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No we wouldn't. That's 7 points off and only 6 points more. (Or 5 pts off and 4 pts on. You only get 2 EXTRA points for a win)
 
cronnyberg said:
This season has been tough; undoubtedly.

I change my mind how I feel about Poyet almost daily, and it's undeniable that our lack of wins has been nothing short of embarrassing. However, it's very easy to notice when you aren't winning, while its a lot harder to register the idea that we aren't losing either.

Logon or register to see this image


Yes, we have the joint lowest win rate in the league, but we have an excellent loss record, one that puts us on par with the teams in and around 6th-10th.

Considering we spent half of the season with the likes of Jozy up front, had prolonged injuries to much of our attacking midfield (as well as signing fewer midfielders than intended), and have just missed out on many close opportunities to convert draws into wins, it becomes easy to see why we are where we are, and it becomes easier to see that, although it doesn't feel like it, we have made significant progress from last season.

What we need is a couple more attacking players to build on our solid foundation. This season was always going to be transitional, all we can hope is that the long term strategy works.
Click to expand...
This is why I would still keep poyet as I think he's built a great foundation to work with, but I must admit he's not helping my argument by picking defensive players in certain games and a real lack of creativity. I also think a lot of our fans seem to skate over the fact that our creative players seem to pick up a ridiculous amount of injuries and when he came we had a 15 goal striker that's turned to shit and wickham who had a good run then also turned to shit!
 
jamesmcsafc said:
This is why I would still keep poyet as I think he's built a great foundation to work with, but I must admit he's not helping my argument by picking defensive players in certain games and a real lack of creativity. I also think a lot of our fans seem to skate over the fact that our creative players seem to pick up a ridiculous amount of injuries and when he came we had a 15 goal striker that's turned to shit and wickham who had a good run then also turned to shit!
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What foundation would that be?
 
Randy Ostrich said:
What foundation would that be?
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Being really hard to beat.

The way I see it, a win against Villa will see us break away from the pack, if we're 4 points ahead of Villa and more points ahead of QPR/Burnley then it looks likely we will survive comfortably. 4 points is a big gap right now when you add in goal difference (and we have better GD than all the teams below us). The teams below us effectively need two wins to move ahead of us, 4 points won't do it because of our superior goal difference. That's very significant. And if we move 7 points clear of the bottom 3 after Villa, I can't see us being dragged into it. 7 points would be a huge gap at this stage, the bottom 3 teams just aren't winning games, and none of them look like putting two wins in a row together anytime soon. Even if Villa did go on a bit of a run, it wouldn't necessarily matter, as long as we do better than QPR, Hull and Burnley. I've looked at all of their remaining fixtures and it doesn't look good for any of them.
 
PeruzziWatch said:
Being really hard to beat.

The way I see it, a win against Villa will see us break away from the pack, if we're 4 points ahead of Villa and more points ahead of QPR/Burnley then it looks likely we will survive comfortably. 4 points is a big gap right now when you add in goal difference (and we have better GD than all the teams below us). The teams below us effectively need two wins to move ahead of us, 4 points won't do it because of our superior goal difference. That's very significant. And if we move 7 points clear of the bottom 3 after Villa, I can't see us being dragged into it. 7 points would be a huge gap at this stage, the bottom 3 teams just aren't winning games, and none of them look like putting two wins in a row together anytime soon. Even if Villa did go on a bit of a run, it wouldn't necessarily matter, as long as we do better than QPR, Hull and Burnley. I've looked at all of their remaining fixtures and it doesn't look good for any of them.
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The trouble is we aren't that hard to beat. Even QPR and Bradford managed it. Our whole approach is negative and defensive yet Hull should've been out of sight on Tuesday.

Hopefully we do stay up but all season it's been 'if we beat Hull', ' if we beat QPR', 'if we beat Villa'. We aren't even looking like winning these games. It would be ridiculous if we do stay up given how little we've actually tried to play football.
 
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