Now I’ve had a chance to calm down, wasn’t it a case that we were poor rather than Liverhampton were good - they weren’t.
We just seem second rate at the mo’ .
1 Like
Did we press well in the first 25-30 mins? Just curious.
Thought we had a game on in the first 20mins or so, then we just got shite*
*copyright Barry Sanchez 1883 to 2017
We are very poor at the moment. We really are in a rut. I’m not sure how we are going to get out of it.
Pull out all the stops and splash some cash to try and get Sean Dyche in
We have pretty much the same squad as last season, but we do not have a Manager with the high level of tactical ability. It seems Puel was getting much more out of this bunch, than we could imagine. Was he working with what he had, just a little better than the current boss?
Boufal was our best player and he was ineffective. Davis seemed like the only player who was bothered. Forster was getting stick from Van Dyke for acting like a dejected under-8 team goalie.
Looked to me like we are near breaking point with moral. The poor little darlings all looked what I can only desribe as depressed.
If I was Dyche I would not leave Burnley for Saints. I really do not have the answers, but people at the club are paid big money to try and make this right, but I am not seeming it. It is a little ironic that the summer we stand firm to keep one of our best players, rather than taking the cash and we are doing worse than past seasons.
Also worrying for me, we do not seem to have much substance coming through the ranks!
Do you genuinely see that happening? I don’t, if you do what makes you think they will, they the owners haven’t said anything to say otherwise they’re on an asset strip and sale.
I think you’re not giving Puel enough credit*, even though you’re the only one to mention him. Look at our fit squad now and think about a big chunk of last season. Puel being pushed out may well come back to haunt us.
I would happily take a slow 0-1 at analfield than the football on offer today. As @btripz mentioned during the game, our lefthand side looked like a bunch of 8 year olds all chasing the ball and falling over each other.
*I do blame him for going out of Europe and that hurt(only wanted to get out of the group). The end of season shit, not so much. Certain players gave up after the cup final and any allowance of that goes higher(no manager with a free rein would persist with players that refuse to play the system).
2 Likes
Tbf I quite enjoyed Championship games, league one for that matter - at least I could get a seat wherever I wanted to sit
2 Likes
On reflection I don’t think Liverhampton won because they were anything special, they won because we were poor…
What do we do about it? Other than rebuild and invest in a new squad I dunno.
I like the fact that the league table shows LDWDL - it’s symmetry 
4 Likes
According to the Mail the new owner is looking to offload Long, Gabbi and Austin along with VVD come January and is going to use the cash for a rebuild. Barry’s prayers have been answered!
1 Like
The problem i have with that, is there any evidence that the new owners know the first thing about football? I have no doubt that, to them, SFC is just a business. Lets face it if they flog VVD for 60 odd million thats a big chunk of their investment back in one hit. From a purely business point of view that is a no brainer. Sadly i tend to agree with Barry, these new Chinese owners didn’t buy in because of their love of football and SFC, do they even go to the games? They are hard nosed businessmen, and there is no doubt that the club is ripe for an asset strip.
You could well be right but I dont think Kat would have sold to them if that is what they intend to do. Maybe I am being naive, but time will tell.
Wakey wakey! It’s the Fail. 
1 Like
Yes you’re naive and what other than hope do you have? We have no communication which is never a good thing, they haven’t even said their intentions.
No idea what money we’ll get for Austin or Long. Gabby we should keep. Its Tadic and Redmond that need dropping.
3 Likes
Clearly that article is bollox (even though I’ve not read it).
What has Gabbiadini done to deserve being flogged? He’s our top goal scorer and gets absolutely fuck all service.
What has Austin done to deserve being flogged? He hasn’t started a single game or has more than 30 minutes. He is a player that will take chances if provided them. But guess what… he hasn’t had any. Here lies our problem.
We need to refresh that midfield and pronto. We need to find a couple of players whose first instinct is to look up and play the ball forward. Some intelligence to link up with the ever willing running of Gabbiadini.
Tadic and Redmond have been in the large part atrocious this season and for the latter part of last season. Tadic has gone stale and probably needed to leave in the summer. But aside from the silly rumours about Liverpool wanting him, and an Italian club, there clearly wasn’t any interest. I certainly don’t think we battled to keep him. Only gave him a new contract to protect our investment as it were.
I genuinely don’t understand the persistence with playing Redmond. He is either absolutely magical in training or dare I say it, Les is getting involved and is determined to improve him and sell him on. Like a project. I don’t really believe that but I really am struggling to see how he justifies a place in the side.
Steven Davis I rate but he is not getting any younger and doesn’t look forward enough. Instead he opts for the short pass more often than not.
Beyond that, Forster is devoid of any confidence and needs replacing. Whether that is temporarily or permanently I don’t really care right now.
Perhaps the VVD situation really has impacted morale. Perhaps there are another few that don’t want to be there either.
The manager seems to have done a good job of pissing Hoedt off already by dropping/rotating him when he came to us for first team football. He was whinging in the media a few weeks back about that. I also note he was not in the recent Dutch squad.
So we find ourselves with a seemingly demotivated squad operating for an overly cautious manager. Plus, with an immobile confidence devoid goalkeeper, the opposition only really needs one attempt on goal to take all 3 points.
If the manager is not the right one for this project or squad, then perhaps we need to get the chequebook out and go and get the right one. We only ever seem to appoint unemployed managers. Pochettino, Koeman, Puel, Pellegrino - all out of a job. I’m obviously not saying that some of those didn’t do brilliantly for us but have we arrived at a situation where we’ve picked the best candidate from what is available rather than aggressively going after the preferred candidate? There MUST be some decent managers out there in a job who would leave to come to the cash cow that is the Premier League. With a £70m + transfer kitty too it must be attractive.
For me the biggest disappointment is the lacklustre and pedestrian style of play. There is so little belief or intensity to our play. We no longer press aggressively up the field, force the opposition in to making errors and win the ball back early in more advanced areas. We start from scratch at the back almost every time. We also have no variation or plan B or C to our game. So from that point of view I do agree we’ve genuinely lost our ‘identity’.
4 Likes