Lack of fight - unacceptable.


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If he knows this, why didn't he try to bring in a couple more in the summer? I'm sure Short would have backed him. Certainly a lot cheaper than the desperate scramble we now face in January.

Don't get me wrong - MoN is not totally at fault for this. He's been hoodwinked by three or four players who did it to Bruce as well. They have their fair share of blame to shoulder. Ultimately though, MoN is the man in charge and nobody would begrudge him a big boot up the arse of several of these gutless shirkers. I want him to fix this because I like him, more than I ever liked Bruce.

We aren't Man City and don't have all of that money. The plan is quality over quantity and he used his budget on getting two quality players. It is going to take time and a bit of patience as we will do it at a pace that we can afford financially.

I don't think they are shirkers (apart from Colback and Sess). They just aren't very good. Flogging a dead horse etc.
 
Funds were spent on Fletcher and Johnson, end of. Do you not think o'neill wanted to get more players in?

If you know you need six players to avoid being in a relegation scrap, why then blow the budget on two?

This is where the players have dropped him in the shit - he thought they'd play for him and so he had the luxiry of getting two 'keepers' in, and they've sacked it off again.
 
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If you know you need six players to avoid being in a relegation scrap, why then blow the budget on two?

This is where the players have dropped him in the shit - he thought they'd play for him and they've sacked it off again.

Because otherwise you just go round and round in circles and face the same problem again next season. Bruce brought 6 squad players in almost every transfer window in and it has left us with hardly and first teamers. It is pretty obvious.
 
If you know you need six players to avoid being in a relegation scrap, why then blow the budget on two?

My guess is, O'Neill probably thought that they could reproduce the form they showed when he first arrived. There was absolutely no point in buying a bunch of players for 3/4/5 million in the summer - Bruce tried it, and we're still struggling now due to the mediocrity that was brought to the club. Can you honestly imagine where we would be if we hadn't bought Fletcher and got someone like Danny Graham for 5 or 6 million?
 
I don't think they are shirkers (apart from Colback and Sess). They just aren't very good. Flogging a dead horse etc.

Sess is probably the one player in the squad we disagree on and while i can totally see the reasons some would not take to him (luxury player at times, etc) I don't think you can accuse him of shirking.

He's always looking for the ball, constantly trying to make something happen (rather than a simple five yard pass) and certainly doesn't mind a challenge as he spends most games being wrestled to the ground and either coming away with possession or a free kick.
 
I'm not going daft. I'm asking sensible questions.

Why do we only start to play with freedom when we're a couple of goals down?

We don't. You are looking at the Norwich, West Brom and Man Utd games in isolation and painting them as the status quo. They are 3 games from 17.

Why is the first instinct of every player to turn towards their own goal?

Because they are low on confidence and, in the majority of cases, lacking in ability. Turning backwards generally offers the safest and easiest way to offload the ball.

Why do we camp on our 18 yard line, regardless of the quality of the opposition?

Because (i) we look to draw a team as far onto us as possible and hit the space in behind them; and (ii) every centre half on our books would probably lose to the average SMB poster in a straight sprint over 50 yards.

Where's the high pressure game that worked so well gone?

That was a product of the honeymoon period - a confidence boom that MON created with the good feeling when he arrived. It was always going to be temporary and is not something that any team/manager can just choose to turn on and off like a tap.

Why do we give in so easily?

We don't, and to suggest we do is ridiculous. We've only been beaten by more than one goal three times in 17 games. We are clearly competitive.

I'm not saying MoN is trying to lose games on purpose or that he's trying to get us relegated (two pearlers from the special people on here about Bruce). I'm saying we have very real problems that we may not be able to solve with the budget we have, so alternative options have to be considered and all the signs suggest this is not happening.

And what we are saying is that we have a manager in place with a proven domestic and european pedigree over more than two decades. We clearly have problems at the moment; but to suggest that the solution is replacing one of the only people at the club is is proven to be very good at his job is incredibly short-sighted.
 
Sess is probably the one player in the squad we disagree on and while i can totally see the reasons some would not take to him (luxury player at times, etc) I don't think you can accuse him of shirking.

He's always looking for the ball, constantly trying to make something happen (rather than a simple five yard pass) and certainly doesn't mind a challenge as he spends most games being wrestled to the ground and either coming away with possession or a free kick.

Disagree. This season he's been going through the motions for large spells. I don't particularly like him or rate him that highly admittedly.
 
We don't. You are looking at the Norwich, West Brom and Man Utd games in isolation and painting them as the status quo. They are 3 games from 17.



Because they are low on confidence and, in the majority of cases, lacking in ability. Turning backwards generally offers the safest and easiest way to offload the ball.



Because (i) we look to draw a team as far onto us as possible and hit the space in behind them; and (ii) every centre half on our books would probably lose to the average SMB poster in a straight sprint over 50 yards.



That was a product of the honeymoon period - a confidence boom that MON created with the good feeling when he arrived. It was always going to be temporary and is not something that any team/manager can just choose to turn on and off like a tap.



We don't, and to suggest we do is ridiculous. We've only been beaten by more than one goal three times in 17 games. We are clearly competitive.



And what we are saying is that we have a manager in place with a proven domestic and european pedigree over more than two decades. We clearly have problems at the moment; but to suggest that the solution is replacing one of the only people at the club is is proven to be very good at his job is incredibly short-sighted.

That's not the suggestion we're making for fuck's sake, how many times til it sinks in? We're suggesting he changes tack, because whatever he's doing isn't working.
 
That's not the suggestion we're making for fuck's sake, how many times til it sinks in? We're suggesting he changes tack, because whatever he's doing isn't working.

Nobody has been able to come up with any new tack that would make a blind bit of difference.
 
I'm not going daft. I'm asking sensible questions.

Why do we only start to play with freedom when we're a couple of goals down?
Why is the first instinct of every player to turn towards their own goal?
Why do we camp on our 18 yard line, regardless of the quality of the opposition?
Where's the high pressure game that worked so well gone?
Why do we give in so easily?

I'm not saying MoN is trying to lose games on purpose or that he's trying to get us relegated (two pearlers from the special people on here about Bruce). I'm saying we have very real problems that we may not be able to solve with the budget we have, so alternative options have to be considered and all the signs suggest this is not happening.

Putting a 3-1 away defeat to the team six points clear art the top of the league is not being sensible. To me it was pretty clear that the defeat was down to Man Utd's squad of better players playing very well in the first half hour coupled with some individual errors from our players.

Your argument is all over the shop man. A couple of posts back you were saying we didn't have a gameplan but then in the post above you make a clear reference (if a little exaggerated) about the exact gameplan we employ. You keep referring to us giving teams a headstart when we've only really done that twice (West Brom and Norwich) due to us being slow out of the blocks.

And as for asking where the high intensity game has gone. Was it ever there? Even when we were in form last season, the gameplan wasn't about high intensity play, it was about sitting tight in our own half, being hard to break down and then hitting teams on the break. Not a lot different to the season, its just that the attacking part of the game hasn't been good enough.
 
Nobody has been able to come up with any new tack that would make a blind bit of difference.

It's MoN's job to keep trying. It's beginning to sound like we've thrown in the towel with a good percentage of the squad, which ironically now leaves us in desperate need of a more expensive rerun of a Bruce transfer window.

What do we then do if the worst happens and we get nobody in?
 
It's MoN's job to keep trying. It's beginning to sound like we've thrown in the towel with a good percentage of the squad, which ironically now leaves us in desperate need of a more expensive rerun of a Bruce transfer window.

What do we then do if the worst happens and we get nobody in?

He does keep trying. We have tried all kinds of things and continue to do so.

I've written off a chunk of our squad, yes. Because after playing to a decent standard for 3 months of the last 3 years I am happy there's enough evidence that they'll never be anything other than toss.

A Bruce window is not needed. Not at all. We have to add two or three QUALITY players wherever we can and carry the donkeys for a while.

You sound like a child demanding for instant results and satisfaction.
 
He does keep trying. We have tried all kinds of things and continue to do so.

I've written off a chunk of our squad, yes. Because after playing to a decent standard for 3 months of the last 3 years I am happy there's enough evidence that they'll never be anything other than toss.

A Bruce window is not needed. Not at all. We have to add two or three QUALITY players wherever we can and carry the donkeys for a while.

You sound like a child demanding for instant results and satisfaction.

What happens if we can't get anyone in January?
 
Disagree. This season he's been going through the motions for large spells. I don't particularly like him or rate him that highly admittedly.

my take on it is that he was out of fitness and out of form at the start of the season and our inability to create any sort of opening for him exacerbated that.

Since he's gotten his fitness back up to standard i've seen a player work hard to get some sort of form back and the goals have started to come. I was delighted for him against Reading because his performance deserved a goal. He is the sort of player who can create something when nothing is on.....the amount of times there's a hoof out of our defence which he controls and turns into a creak away suggest he will be integral to the system in the future.

Then again, I like him..... ;)
 
I think the first couple games when we never had any shots on target, he hardly touched the ball, then every time he'd get it he'd have to beat two people and put a good ball in.

I think there have been tactical changes since then - that Ricky Sbragia-vs-Man Utd-every game ultra defensive shit was embarrassing, and now we look like a football team - but it's still hard to find a place for him.

Since he doesn't fit in a rigid system - he has no position - his success is dependent on building a rapport with other players, and he doesn't have anything near what he had with Bendtner last year in terms of reading movement, etc.
 
Since he doesn't fit in a rigid system - he has no position - his success is dependent on building a rapport with other players, and he doesn't have anything near what he had with Bendtner last year in terms of reading movement, etc.

Would he be wasted on the wing or would he be more beneficial to the team even if less so as an individual?

I think a team that can find room for Sessegnon to play well in his current roll would be wonderful to watch and that's my hope. You're probably right about Bendtner......we've now got the opposite problem with Fletch.....he's in the right place for a striker to be but (Reading game aside) doesn't really offer much outside of the box.
 
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