• The forums will be unavailable for a few hours on Saturday 6th June, when they do return they will initially be in a degraded state with some features missing, but normal posting/reading will be possible. The main website will not be affected by these updates.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.

"Our squad isn't strong enough!"


Alfa said:
There’s also an emerging trend in which it seems some posters cannot accept any form of criticism of the side or a player.

This is a forum for the exchange of views.

Of course we all want SAFC to prosper and achieve the objective of staying up this season.

Last night was a chance for some of the players on the periphery of the first 11 to stake a claim for a starting spot. With the exception of a couple they didn’t take that chance.

For the side we put out last night to lose to what was effectively Huddersfield reserves was very poor and posters are well within their rights to point that out.
Click to expand...
I'd agree with this. There's loads to be positive about but people got upset when I said we should be getting something from Burnley away if you want to reach 40 points
offmenut said:
So Burnley won’t get another win this season ?
Click to expand...
They won't get many. Lets revisit this in 10 games when they're rooted to the bottom and we are trying to get wins away at chelsea instead.
 
Last edited:
Houghtoner said:
Mainly disappointing for me that the lads not getting starts or even coming off the bench in the league didn’t take their chance. Neil, Rigg and Roberts all poor for me and it should’ve been a great opportunity against a side two divisions below.
Click to expand...
I also take into consideration that these cup games are potentially lost before we even set foot on the field. The apathy by the club (and the supporters to an extent) to these games has to filter down to the players, it just has to. From putting out the assistant manager (or whoever he was) to do the pre match press conference, to the way they sold the tickets, even to the empty stand and the lack of atmosphere. It just felt like a non event, and that has to seep into the players' mindset you'd have thought. Last night felt no better than a glorified friendly.

As an aside, I also see saturday's loss at burnley as a worry aswell.
 
Super Colin Todd said:
If you want to stop up in this league, should have had at least a point on saturday, we didn't and brentford are no mugs...
Click to expand...
Things change so quickly in football, you can’t be complacent, from the highs of West Ham too possibly losing on Saturday going into break with 3 defeats in a row and 3/4 away games after things suddenly don’t look so great
 
Wakoro said:
Should have prioritised buying a striker, simple as that. Most of the good ones have now gone to other clubs, including to our competitors. Hopefully they have one up their sleeve, but I think they are risking going with Mayenda and Guiu, with Isidor occasionally playing there. But what do I know, I've only been successfully coaching for over 5 years...
Click to expand...
Oooooo are you a successful coach? Maybe you could team up with that poster who is a successful CEO?
 
Wakoro said:
Should have prioritised buying a striker, simple as that. Most of the good ones have now gone to other clubs, including to our competitors. Hopefully they have one up their sleeve, but I think they are risking going with Mayenda and Guiu, with Isidor occasionally playing there. But what do I know, I've only been successfully coaching for over 5 years...
Click to expand...
Which strikers have gone to our competitors that you'd have wanted here?

Genuine question, not being an arse, as when I look at striker signings this summer for bottom half clubs, I'm not sure many would either be better than what we have, guarantee goals, or just generally seem a decent value or low risk options.

For example I'm not unhappy we didn't sign one of the free transfer options like DCL or Wilson, or spend £40m-ish on that Bournemouth forward like Brentford did. Burnley signed Broja from Chelsea and not sure he's any better an option that Guiu is, Newcastle may be about to spend silly money on the guy from Wolves and that feels out of our reach in many ways. I've probably forgotten someone obvious, but none of the bottom half strikers made me go 'we should have been in for him'.

Edit: there's the successful unknowns that I'm probably discounting, or classing the same as an Isidor right now, like the low cost low risk relative unknowns like the guy who scored for Leeds last Monday. In hindsight we may wish we'd signed him, but for every one of them there's a Hemir.
 
Last edited:
I don’t understand why we have spent so much money but not bought a centre forward. Probably the most critical position on the pitch.
 
CheersMarra84 said:
Beat Brentford on Saturday and they’ll be back to being world beaters again. That’s the fickle nature of football fans.
Click to expand...

Fickle or just plain the nature?

It seems reasonable to expect a football supporter to be up high when their team wins and down low when they lose. I can't see myself being as happy and as positive going away from a game we have lost as one we have won.

Bailes said:
I don’t understand why we have spent so much money but not bought a centre forward. Probably the most critical position on the pitch.
Click to expand...

We've spent so much money but barely bought a team. They have in the main sadly underperformed. They have not impressed people and got the kind of results we were hoping. That is why so many are so upset.
 
DonaldDownTheWing said:
We’ve gone out and bought a new starting 11, which we needed, but we also need to buy a new bench. Signing 20 players in one window is some ask and very unlikely, but you can see why Forest did what they did.

Hopefully a few more come in before the end of the window, but once it’s shut we’ve got what we’ve got.
Click to expand...
Forest were in even more need than us as half their promotion team were loanees.
 
ShieldsBlackCat2015 said:
We've spent so much money but barely bought a team. They have in the main sadly underperformed. They have not impressed people and got the kind of results we were hoping. That is why so many are so upset.
Click to expand...
Surely it's a bit early to make a statement like that?

Most of our new signings have played 2 matches, and we won one of them convincingly!
 
Glaringly obvious his squad won't get 40 points,it's a case of hoping we can get 32-35 and hope two (possibly one) from wolves/brentford/WHU dont either.
 
Dodgy said:
:lol:

Haway man.
Click to expand...
Saturday might not be a 'must win' in a literal sense, but if we aren't beating sides like Brentford at home then who are we going to pick up points against? We need to drag them into the relegation mix early doors by beating them, it's one of our easiest home games.

I know it's mega early in the season but this is the least difficult run of games we have (on paper at least) so we really need to hit the ground running. If we fumble it with draws or losses it's fairly likely we'll go down. The league is brutal.

Hopefully we see a return to the intensity and approach we took against West Ham. Win and everyone will quickly forget we even played Burnley...
 
Whilst the final outcome may be that we aren't strong enough over the season how anybody cant see the endeavour from the hierarchy to try and build this club and establish it back in the top league is bewildering. Bear with them its gonna take some time patience and a few hefty knocks along the way. Last night will have no bearing on that.
 
ShieldsBlackCat2015 said:
Fickle or just plain the nature?

It seems reasonable to expect a football supporter to be up high when their team wins and down low when they lose. I can't see myself being as happy and as positive going away from a game we have lost as one we have won.



We've spent so much money but barely bought a team. They have in the main sadly underperformed. They have not impressed people and got the kind of results we were hoping. That is why so many are so upset.
Click to expand...
We’re in the Premier League now, the first time in 8 years with pretty much a brand new starting 11, so I think expectations should be managed. You can’t have it both ways though, bigging the lads up one week and then slating the next so I’d call that fickle personally. Like I said, if we win on Saturday and get 6 out of 9 points from the first 3 games, fans will soon change their tune.
 
The concern I have is the midfield are big strong and athletic, but I don’t think they are comfortable enough on the ball for me, Xhaka excepted
 
Dodgy said:
Of course they're not!

That's why our owner and his team have went out and spent millions on players that they've identified as being better.

One of the main positives from last night is that two of those new recruits, Mukiele and Masuaku looked the part and could hopefully slot straight in, if needed.

Hopefully, the majority of last year's squad will just be bit part players and some of the younger ones will learn from the better players we've brought in and thus, will improve.

Our owners and RLB need to be cut some slack, though. They've given us a chance to survive and hopefully even compete in this league.

We need to keep our kegs (in both senses of the word) dry and see what the season brings. RLB identified the problem and (almost) addressed it in the second half, last night.

There's a long way to go but all of the usual suspects are back out in force, it would seem.
Click to expand...
If we dont get a decent striker we will really struggle
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top