Or the right agent. ... Jozy is a player in need of a lot right now. He's still young with a WC in 60 days time. ...
Yes, actually. Had 3, ended up with 1. Needed 3. If you can play City toe to toe, how can you not grab a point against Norwich or Hull? Sadly this is most likely too little too late. They will probably miss safety by a point or three. Not being able to chessmaster your way to one more tie is pretty clueless. S'land's best hope now is a complete N'wich collapse, which is possible, even likely, given N'wich's competition. This point today could have saved S'land if N'wich come up goose-eggs and S'land can get 6 out of their 3 winnable games - Swansea, Cardiff and WBrom. That's their best hope. If they can get 7 or even 9 out of those three plus the ManU and Chelsea game, they have a real chance.
Right now S'land have to pretty much count on a (very possible) N'wich collapse. They've held on to their GD edge (barely) and this point helps a lot as now they "only" need 6 pts from their final 5 (ManU, Chelsea, Swansea, Cardiff, WBrom.) and for Nwich to goose egg in 4 difficult final games. (pool, chelsea, arse, manu) Of course, Fulham could (and probably will) screw them both. They seem to not to want to die most of the 3 at the moment. With Spurs, Hull, Stoke and Palace on tap, they need one win more than Nwich down the home stretch, and with 4 points on S'land (and S'land with a game in hand) Fulham might need to win 2 of those 4 to secure it. Gonna be a nail biter, but S'land could still snatch it.
Altidore is a tactical striker. That is precisely the disconnect for him with Sunderland, who want him to be Emile Heskey. Until Gia came on last night, Sunderland have not shown much interest in any of their strikers nearly all season.
LOL, I love the implication that Altidore is a better "tactical" striker than Heskey, the Prem's 19th highest goalscorer of all time. I shouldn't be surprised coming from you though, you're most likely Jozy's agent. On an unrelated note, what's up with "N'wich" in this thread? Norwich really that hard to type?
Umm, is this news? All we read in this thread is how he is not suited for Sunderland and/or the EPL game because he supposedly cannot be a strong target forward on a route one team, preferring instead to take part in a team attack style. Altidore just spent two years in the Netherlands, which is like tactical Harvard. His biggest problem this season, which I have been saying over and over for months, is that he keeps waiting around for Sunderland to play like AZ and refrains from being proactive enough. He still thinks he can play a team game and get the ball back or counter or play combos, but Sunderland behave as if they have never heard of these things. The current Ajax team littered with children would probably take Sunderland apart for fun. Hell, the current AZ team might beat them. Besides, Heskey was also better than English teams took him for. They only ever asked him to batter and occupy defenders and take down long balls for others, then constantly harped on him because he did not score as much as the Michael Owens of the world, making him out to be a useful donkey until he was in the very late years of his career and gained some respect. For years, that guy was mercilessly battered by press and fans alike, simply for doing as he was asked.
Pulis? Plays to win? What's he win? Pulis plays to not lose. To Quote from the great movie Searching for Bobby Fischer "He didn't teach you how to win he taught you how not to lose. That's nothing to be proud of. You gotta risk losing. You've got to go to the edge of defeat. That's where you want to be" That's Tony Pulis: Nothing to be proud of in my mind.
He already is a "Drogba-type" player. He's big and hits a great shot and has strength and can be involved in holding the ball and bringing others into the attack. But being of an identifiable type doesn't mean he has the technique and intelligence to contribute in certain systems. Needless to say Drogba was a world away in terms of skill and movement. Combine that with his strength and you have one of the best 9s in the past decade of prem. A great coach doesn't magically make Jozy a great prem striker. And blame Mannone for the draw, not Poyet. One of the worst howlers of the season, easily. Anyone have an address for Wickham on the off chance? I need to send him some flowers.
Maybe you need to pay attention, at no point has anyone said that Altidore is better than Heskey, they were talking about the kind of role he has been asked to play.
The man is managing Crystal Palace in their first year up. WTF do you want him to be playing? He's made an historic turnaround with CP. Everton was on an historic winning streak. His team went in there and dominated that match. They didn't dominate possession, which is a really silly way to determine which team was better in a match in my opinion. His team played smart, hard and took the game to a team that had very recently dismantled Arsenal. His team has now won 4 in a row. He's taken a team that was being buried in October, to mid table security, without turning over a whole lot of the roster. He's a hell of a coach and has proven it in more than a couple places now. I'll bet Sunderland would like to have that decision over again. He's still getting slack for his style of play, but this CP team doesn't play the way Stoke did. He's kept enough of the passing game from Holloway to generate some offense, but he's brought his style of defense and counter attacking play. Hats off to him. He's a perfect coach for a small team in a league with way too many have-nots.
Is he though? Its hard to say and ranks of bias to suggest that. Some people would say Jozy is out of his depth with 2 goals in almost 40 appearances. But no not with this thread, its all the team mates fault, the coaches, the ball, the grass is to long, the women in the crowd looked at him funny etc. Certainly nothing to do with Jozy after all he is just as good as Bony
He has done a remarkable job this time round however his last year or two at stoke was going one way and it was down. He also wasted 100m and played out the battle of Britain every week. A team of giants, keep it out of play for as long as possible, when its in play, keep it in the air. If you think he plays to win you might want to check his stats. And tactically, he's an example of why English football on average is shocking apart from the bigger teams. How such a dinasour can make it to the top level into "the best league in the world" lol
This is exactly the problem. Last years AZ team was a well oiled machine compared to this Sunderland team. His runs last season opened large swaths of space for other players and he was rewarded. He's making the same runs this season and he is being ignored. This Sunderland team has nobody the quality of Maher in the midfield.
Yet again, no one is saying this. This is all strawman. The wild exaggerations are being made on the other side of the discussion.
There is a lot of truth in here. He pissed away a ton of money on strikers and midfielders. His teams never got prettier at Stoke. That is the downside of a Pulis type when he's been around too long. Last year it became obvious it was time to go. But again, I wonder if Norwich or Sunderland would like to go back in time and take a hard look at hiring him. I'll be curious to see how this CP team looks in a year or two. Does he go back to his roots, or can he adapt to a more modern style. Aesthetics aside, he's a heck of a coach. Winning at Stoke or CP isnt' easy. It's the draws that keep you in the 1st division.
On the topic of coaches in the Premier League, it just seems like the cultivation of younger coaches into the fold is horrible. Take the NFL for example, you're only gonna get so many chances to show what you can do, after that you're gone and a promising assistant coach from another team is brought in and most of the time these are younger guys. I absolutely despise when these coaches are given chance after chance and have been around for 20-some years. Are you really trying to tell me that there are no up and coming coaches in the ranks in the U.K, anywhere?!?!?!?
It's the same in a lot of countries. An old boys club. No other job would you get sacked for being incompetent yet get rewarded millions and then resign elsewhere again. They have essentially found a way to win on the lotto
No, they need to make up 6 points in 5 games AND pass 3 teams in the table, most likely including Fulham which has won 3 of 5, has talent and a manager who specializes in avoiding relegation, oh, and they close with Hull, Stoke and Palace. Sunderland are toast. They probably need to win 4 of their last 5.
I'm only speaking about Wickham. I've watched most of Sunderland's games this season. The prospect of what Wickham could bring is generally a lot more than he ever does show.
Didn't Freddy Adu use to tweet Jozy congratulations and encouraging words? Now would be the perfect time to tweet something along the lines of "don't worry mate, it could be much worse, you could be me." Sunderland is gone. Now the question is, if Jozy stays with them down, which is likely considering the money involved, will he lose points with JK right away? Jürgen doesn't seem to particularly care (or invest time) in the players in the Championship. Will Jozy get the same treatment? Or will his EPL aura carry over the summer? Several players got ending contracts with Sunderland. Of course they are the most likely to leave right after the drop. They'll be left with a small core of about 15 players with some league experience. Altidore is among those. For all their dislike of him, the fans don't see him leaving. Mainly because so many contracts are ending, the team will be almost forced to keep the ones who cannot leave on a free. And the pay cut helps.