Kenny made a telling point when talking about the importance of collecting results against promoted sides by pointing out Liverpool went 2 and 4 against promoted teams a year ago. If it had been reversed, we'd be in the Champions League. Dropping 2 points against the Swansea's in aggregate make it that much more excruciating at the end of the year when we're 3-4 points off CL football. Oh well...a point is better than none.
A season of results like this is going to unsettle Suarez. And when he wants to leave I won't say anything bad about him. He's a winner playing on a team of players who don't know who to win.
Maybe save a quote like this for when he wasn't mediocre at best... He's signed through, what, 2015? It's this attitude that has contributed to the current transfer climate.
He was the only one trying anything. I bet it's not easy playing with a Coca-Cola caliber player as your strike partner.
Well the guy at the pub told me the result so I don't have to watch While we can complain about te strikers the laws allow midfielders and defenders to score as well. Downing and Henderson have how many goals? Adam from the run of play? Any one in defense? I am with the team no matter but it seems clear that these players are either not good enough or not good enough right now. seems to me Dirk and Bellamy and Maxi should be given a try and the passengers should sit. I am officially depressed
Downing and Henderson were both terrible as wide midfielders. Time for Kuyt, Maxi and/or Bellamy to get some starts. Carroll was fine in my eyes, not great, but not the problem. How many times have we hit the bar this season? Full credit to Swansea though, I hope they stay up with their brand of football and a good looking keeper in Vorm
A predictable result that shows we still have a ways to go before being considered a threat to win anything. It seems when we stack up against lesser teams that we just don't have the right number of people who can score goals on the pitch. Their defensive players outnumber our players who can create/score goals, which gives them a distinct advantage. Defenders and midfielders need to chip in because Suarez/Carroll can't be expected to carry the load. Last season Berbatov (20) and Hernandez (13) were Man Utd's leading scorers in the PL. They scored 33/Man Utd's 78 goals. (42% of total goals), which is a high percentage of goals from only two players (Chelsea's top scorers combined for 35% of their goals). Man City, Arsenal, and Tottenham all had about 40% of their goals come from two players. We've scored 14 Prem goals so far (awful). Suarez (4) and Carroll (2) have scored 6 of those goals. (also 42% of total goals). For us to score between 65 and 75 goals this season Suarez and Carroll would have to score around 30 League goals between the two of them. Two questions: (1) Is it reasonable to expect those two to combine for 30 goals? (2) Where in this team would the remaining 40 goals come from if they did happen to combine for 30 goals?
Kuyt has to play over Henderson. I'd try Bellamy or Maxi over Downing in the home matches. Adam should sit if Gerrard can get fit.
Exactly. It's not that Henderson, Downing, or Adam are failures, it's just that they aren't scoring/creating goals. Play one of either Kuyt/Maxi/Bellamy with either Henderson/Downing AT MOST. But don't play Henderson/Downing and leave proven goal scorers on the bench.
This turnaround is going to take longer than I thought. I'm officially dug in for what is turning out to be another long season...
Now you're starting to realize what i've been saying all along. This team is just not improving, and that is down to KK. I agree that it's not our strikers fault, but the team as a colective unit. They are so predicatble and lost out there, that i dare say that it's even easy to defend. We have been relying on a Suarez masterpiece to get goals, and that has to stop. What we lack is movement off the ball and a clear way to attack and find space for others. We have the quality to do it, it's all down to KK to get it al to work.
Wow, last week there was a lot of bitching about how our defence, one of the best in the league, sucks and leaks. Now they don't score enough goals either...Sheeeesh!!! Joking aside, yeh, that was a bad joke. I keep coming back to how good our movement on the field was at the latter part of last season. Where in the hell did that all go to???????????????????????
3 draws in 3 home games earns the same points as one win and two losses. As to the rest of you, you are right we are not moving off the ball and making passing combinations. I put that down to the players. I don't think we are being trained to play that way. If we want to criticize Kenny it would be for buying these players and playing them. But there is still time to turn it around. And Ken, would it hurt the defenders to win the ball off a corner? Maybe head it on goal?
ROFL either. Half our clearances on defended corners were by Carroll. but the ones on goal should be from our attacking corners.
I think the big point here is that we are a very predictable team most of the time and very easy to defend, well relatively speaking anyways. The versatility and "adventure" needs to improve in attack. We do create tons of chances but we're also too direct sometimes and all plays resemble each other to the point where defenders just get behind the ball and predict the cross, pass, shot, etc.
Mate he's had 51 shots in the Prem resulting in 4 goals. He's just as culpable as the other attackers in our failure to beat teams. er kuyts played 9 league games this season no point scapegoating Henderson and Downing when he's been as poor. And Carroll is not here to look fine he's here to be a match winner. Ba and Best cost 10% of Carroll's fee and they've got 11 league goals between the 2 of them. He, like Suarez, is a big big talent but our form is mainly down to them and Downing. The defence is doing its job, only Newcastle has a meaner defence in the league, the CM's are doing their job as we are creating a lot of chances and Adam with 2 goals and 4 assists in the league has contributed as much as any of our attackers. Its the forwards that needs to improve Frustrating frustrating game, the only saving grace was that Carra was dropped/injured as I'm pretty sure his hoofing would of been blamed for the result. Hopefully Suarez, Carroll and Downing will make this post look a huge pansy overreaction by smashing Chelsea in 2 weeks time.
"We've got to understand, realise and accept that that level of performance isn't acceptable." At least the manager accepts that we were poor- Swansea played exactly the way he (and the team) expected them to but we didn't play the way the way he had set them out to. That's got to be the first thought. The second one is to ask why. Let's see what answers the two week hiatus brings. EDIT: Did anybody hear the booing? I didn't but that could be because I had have been switched off as soon as the last attack died.