v Newcastle (H) Ratings

[elDiablo]

And Sigurdsson can fuck off as well. Completed 10/11 passes in 69 minutes. 2 of them were in the final third.

he was constantly bounced off the ball. people say lamela is lightweight and not ready, but he couldnt do any worse than him.

 

[ethanedwards]

Aaahhh….football, you cruel mistress.



We have to accept a truth, and that is that the quality of opposition we now face week in week out has improved considerably. It's why Chelsea were a ludicrous ref's decision away from losing at home to West Brom, why ManC are getting beat at Sunderland and why ManU are currently part of the mid table melaise.
Have to disagree with this BC, when 72 pts don't get 4th place the gap isn't narrowing.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Can you elaborate, I'm not sure I understand ?

 

[Bus-Conductor]

And Sigurdsson can fuck off as well. Completed 10/11 passes in 69 minutes. 2 of them were in the final third.

To think, some were saying how great it was that Chelsea nicked Willian off us was.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

Friedel was rounded a little easily for the goal and flapped a couple of punches but was generally okay.

Walker was fine defensively bit offered little to no end product in attack.

Dawson was left for dead on their goal. He's trying to bring the ball out but doesn't know what to do once he finds himself up the pitch. Otherwise fine.

Chiriches played a soft pass out for their goal, seemed okay otherwise and is hopefully not badly injured.

Vertonghen provided good width and tried hard to support the attack. Fine defensively.

Paulinho was awful. Either he or Moussa could've been subbed. I'm just not sure what he does, and over the past month I've had a growing feeling that we've basically bought Jenas mkII after taking 7 years to farm out the original. Poor first touch, indecisive, dallies, I really pray he improved. Very weak in the build up to their goal. Unlucky not to score with a good shot though.

Dembele was atrocious, his worst game for us. Caught in possession deep in our half in the sequence of events leading to their goal epitomised his half game.

Townsends third completely ineffective game in a row. Put him on the left to teach him that he has team mates to pass to or bench him, but there's a better option for the right at this moment in time. I have faith in him but this was poor.

Eriksen was a big reason why our passing was as good as it has been in ages. Found himself in pockets of space constantly and always tried to push us forward. Horribly wasted a great chance though where he should've scored, and his set pieces are dreadful.

Sigurdsson was on the pitch I hear. Nobody told him though. Absolute passenger. Inexplicable that he was in the side.

Soldado linked very well, lots of nice interchanges, an amazing header which should've gone in bar an incredible save, but also two good chances wasted. Played fairly well all round.

Kaboul was immense. If he's fit he should start, he's imperious.

Like Kaboul, Sandro should always start. A poor half recently change that does not. He's my far our most dynamic midfielder, he's a fighter and a leader and with him on the pitch ahead of either of the other two, we don't concede that goal.

Defoe came on instead of Lamela. It confused me. The system wasn't failing, we were by far the better side, so bring on a man who never touches the ball was as uninspired as it gets. No impact.

I don't usually do numerical rating but avb deserves a 0 for having to correct his mistakes and thus wasting subs (not starting Sandro), for not including Lamela in our AM 3 when he played so well the other day, and then bringing on Defoe and changing a system which was bossing the game and in doing so, weakened us by reducing us to ten men.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Aaahhh….football, you cruel mistress.

I think one has to say that AVB is to some degree making a rod for his own back with some of his selection choices. No Capoue ? Not even on the bench ? So when you need to try and make something creative happen you have Sandro as the cm option ? Dembele was having one of those games, getting tagged by a busy tenacious pressing team too often, but just have a word, leave him on and don't waste a sub bringing on a defensive cm. Like taking a sledgehammer out of the toolbox when what you need is an alan key. And why is Lloris ok to play at Goodison and has served the mandatory 5 day layoff, only for AVb to bow to media pressure and leave him out today.

I understand why Lamela is on the bench, he put an inordinate amount of effort into thursday's game, but the decision to bring Defoe on was fucking lunacy and frankly, tactically, piss poor, of the pissest poorest order. Lamela might just have provided some quality and he certainly wouldn't have been the irritating footballing vacuum that Defoe is.

Today was one of those very frustrating days. The one thing you can't do in these circumstances is shoot yourself up the arse, and we generally don't, but today we had a really piss poor 10 minutes which started with Walker dribbling the ball away and Remi being put through and finished via Dembele fucking around, Paulinho being a bit gay, Friedel being fucking Friedel and Remi punishing our centrifugal clusterfuck into a goal that an obdurate (and not untalented) Newcastle team could dig in even deeper to protect.

Some usual stuff then abounded. Good effort, lots of ball, total command of the game, reasonable approach play, some actual decent chances, some wasteful decisions and execution in the final third, some lack of the rub, some predictable cm play, Townsend being direct and very occasionally created mischief but also making some really poor decisions to shoot, neither fb providing much quality attacking…have I missed anything ?

For me, there is no other way for us to play. Nothing else I've ever seen us attempt is any more fruitful or entertaining - I know some won't share that, and understand why - I just hope that time will bring more cohesion to our attacking play and that we improve as we/AVB gets the balance right and players get used to each other and become better integrated.

We have to accept a truth, and that is that the quality of opposition we now face week in week out has improved considerably. It's why Chelsea were a ludicrous ref's decision away from losing at home to West Brom, why ManC are getting beat at Sunderland and why ManU are currently part of the mid table melaise.

We think one summer's transfer window is going to miraculously inject what Arsenal, ManU and Chelsea have been constructing for a decade (and more) or what ManC have spent nearly four or five times as much assembling.

In the words of the great David Soul, Don't Give Up on us Baby.

Individual utterances:

Friedel - Was worried, like all of us I guess, as soon as I saw his name on the team sheet. It's not his fault they created two 1v1's but we all know Lloris would have been on that through ball much quicker. Could have maybe made all the difference ?

Walker - A fairly typical Walker performance and depending on what side of the Walker fence you sit that is either a brilliant thing or a not brilliant thing.

Dawson - A couple of moments but OK apart from that.

Kaboul - OK.

Vertonghen - I don't think he delivered anything of tangible quality in an attacking sense. Also had a couple of moments, but was also mainly just OK.

Paulinho - Has got to do better for the goal. Gets himself into the box well, which we need, and did a great dummy to set up Eriksen, but some of his general play is very rudimentary.

Dembele - We've seen this before from him. A really poor start, pressed out of his stride and caught dwelling. Stared the malaise that ultimately led to the goal. I would still rather we kept him on in this game than brought on Sandro.

Sigurdsson - one of those very annoying days when he seems to too much dazed and confused and not enough assertive stuff.

Eriksen - Tried hard, I haven't looked but he probably saw more ball then most, but was ultimately a bit disappointing, as were a couple of his decisions and actions. Worked the keeper but really should have scored.

Townsend - The instinct/intelligence bias is swinging way too much toward the instinct for me. There's no point being direct if you are just directly wasteful. And defensively he is fucking lax and lazy.

Soldado - He's trying hard but I wouldn't mind seeing Adebayor have a go next game. On days like today he also needs to work their defenders better when they have the ball.

Sandro - did ok, but not what we needed today really.

Kaboul - OK

Defoe - He's an amoeba and with him we suffer amoebic dysentery.


AVB - Getting the selection and subs right won't solve everything, but it will help. Needs to get Townsend and Soldado pressing better.

Very good.

Only thing that isn't right is the strength of teams, this is pissest poorest Premier League since it's inception, and we are contributing to it, with inept performances at the moment.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I enjoy your posts. Sometimes I agree.

But your opinion on Sandro here are just lunacy. I thought his introduction and tenacity was the springboard for our second half display. I thought he was absolutely immense.

I think youre right that Lloris would have made the difference with the balls over the top though. Dont understand the high line when Friedel is in goal, its basically sticking your head in the lions mouth

We didn't need more tenacity, we needed more guile. The springboard for our second half display was being 1 goal down at home and an opposition that displayed no ambition to string more than two passes together.

 

[Gedson100]

I enjoy your posts. Sometimes I agree.

But your opinion on Sandro here are just lunacy. I thought his introduction and tenacity was the springboard for our second half display. I thought he was absolutely immense.

I think youre right that Lloris would have made the difference with the balls over the top though. Dont understand the high line when Friedel is in goal, its basically sticking your head in the lions mouth

The problem is we train and play all year with a high line and tactics surrounding it then our back up keeper is as mobile as an aircraft carrier.
This is probably the most pressing concern I have going into the next transfer window, ship Gomes out on a loan push Brad down to no. 3/retirement and get either Archer as back-up or a new young mobile keeper.

 

[felmani26]

To think, some were saying how great it was that Chelsea nicked Willian off us was.

Judging how we are treating our £30million star, I would imagine Willian would be whispering sweet nothing's in Erik's ear on the sidelines!

 

[beats1]

And why is Lloris ok to play at Goodison and has served the mandatory 5 day layoff, only for AVb to bow to media pressure and leave him out today.

Nothing to do with media pressure, he made himself look a idiot by saying there was nothing wrong with him and then being forced not to play him

 

[markieboy]

And Sigurdsson can fuck off as well. Completed 10/11 passes in 69 minutes. 2 of them were in the final third.

Its beyond me how he starts a game,impact sub at best and someone I would be looking to sell in January.
Apparently Reading were going to pay £12m for him last year,the guy that turned that deal down needs shot.

 

[CowInAComa]

We didn't need more tenacity, we needed more guile. The springboard for our second half display was being 1 goal down at home and an opposition that displayed no ambition to string more than two passes together.

i beg to disagree. We were a gaping wound in the first half, and our players were being knocked around like skittles.

Dembele for Sandro was the right sub. He got that right. If you can call rectifying your initial mistake getting it right.

 

[jonathanhotspur]

"But this tackle here from Paulinho-I mean, Jesus..."

Only heard it now but this is what Jamie Carragher said when he was analysing Newcastle's goal at half time!

 

[only1waddle]

The problem is we train and play all year with a high line and tactics surrounding it then our back up keeper is as mobile as an aircraft carrier.
This is probably the most pressing concern I have going into the next transfer window, ship Gomes out on a loan push Brad down to no. 3/retirement and get either Archer as back-up or a new young mobile keeper.

How about we ship Defoe out so AVB never has the option to sub the dimwit on again..

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Very good.

Only thing that isn't right is the strength of teams, this is pissest poorest Premier League since it's inception, and we are contributing to it, with inept performances at the moment.

I think the very opposite. I think as a whole, taking in all 20 teams the EPL has never been tougher. The standard of players from top to bottom has never been better, the standard of coaching as a whole has never been better and tactically teams have generally never been smarter and better organised.

How an earth you can say it's poorer than the nineties I have no idea. Were you watching it then ? Genuine question ?

 

[Gedson100]

I gave Eriksen a good mark in my opening post and a lot of people have run him down a bit, even his greatest fan BC wasn't entirely complimentary. Sure his dead balls were weak but his general play was more than decent and it was the first time he looked like he could be capable of running a game.

It's easy to give everyone shit marks because we lost but the truth is we shouldn't have and only luck prevented us from winning. 31 shots is an inordinately high amount against any team & somehow the same players that people are relentlessly castigating created those 31 opportunities.

This was the first time that to any degree our attack clicked in the league and moving forward we might remember this as the game that we looked solid and dangerous and not just solid.

The result is just a sad postscript.

Weirdly, I bet Arsenal feel similar too. Utd were shit and created nothing. Man City had 24 shots today.

The whole weekend has been like Alex Ferguson's wet dream & made very little logical sense.

 

[elDiablo]

Paulinho was awful. Either he or Moussa could've been subbed. I'm just not sure what he does, and over the past month I've had a growing feeling that we've basically bought Jenas mkII after taking 7 years to farm out the original. Poor first touch, indecisive, dallies, I really pray he improved. Very weak in the build up to their goal. Unlucky not to score with a good shot though.

I thought he was poor today too, apart from the shot and the pass to townsend when countering. In his defence though, he can pass a ball forward a little more consistently than Jenas ever could. Maybe he's a bit fatigued.

Like many have said, it's either him or dembele alongside sandro/capoue please AVB.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

I think the very opposite. I think as a whole, taking in all 20 teams the EPL has never been tougher. The standard of players from top to bottom has never been better, the standard of coaching as a whole has never been better and tactically teams have generally never been smarter and better organised.

How an earth you can say it's poorer than the nineties I have no idea. Were you watching it then ? Genuine question ?

Yes. It's incredibly weak. You say it's not because it supports your argument about how hard AVB has it. But it's very far from the truth. We're not coming up against good teams, we're just giving them an easy way to play against us.

As a caveat, 'since its inception' is an exaggeration, but this is even worse than the first season we finished 5th when Jol was in charge.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

i beg to disagree. We were a gaping wound in the first half, and our players were being knocked around like skittles.

Dembele for Sandro was the right sub. He got that right. If you can call rectifying your initial mistake getting it right.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this one. I like Sandro but the better compromise for me would have been Capoue.

 

[only1waddle]

We didn't need more tenacity, we needed more guile. The springboard for our second half display was being 1 goal down at home and an opposition that displayed no ambition to string more than two passes together.

The problem for me was neither Paulinho or Dembele seemed to know who was doing what, Sandro played well when he came on, actually driving forward and doing a better job defensively than the other two together, our shape improved and we still attacked with intent, no coincidence Paulinho was better second half, he had a player with a defined role next to him.
The guile should have come from Lamela for Sigurdsson at half time with Townsend switching left.