The morning after the night before

[Heading South 24]

25 minutes ago, birchfest said:

Weirdly I still think we can fix this; here's why (and what we didn't see last night)

 

I honestly think we have players who are going to come good/go up a level. For me the prime candidates for that are Kabak, Normann, Cantwell and Pukki. With those players we have a spine of a side that we can build around and I think personally are capable of taking the game to almost all of the sides outside of the traditional top 6. I think if Farke is brave and is willing to be more ruthless with dropping certain players then we have a shot of make a really solid core group with some adaptable options around them depending on the week by week tactics needed for different opposition. 

Unfortunately Todd is far too lightweight for this division along with quite a few others, I think you will find Kabak is out of his depth in Prem , Pukki will always score some but not enough , Normann could be ok at this level , only time will tell IMHO

[ricardo 7,384]

28 minutes ago, Badger said:

Disappointed, worried but relieved that we have a couple of away games + an international break.

I promise I didn't  boo.

[Mello Yello 2,289]

1 minute ago, ricardo said:

I promise I didn't  boo.

Someone would now be badgering you if you had the sheer audacity to boo.....

[Badger 2,405]

1 minute ago, ricardo said:

I promise I didn't  boo.

Shame on you Ricardo - it shows that you don't care about it as much the others! Where's your passion man? 😃

I'm currently reading Max Hasting's "Finest Years" - we've been defeated in Norway and France, Greece has fallen and we have lost Crete + the Italians have invaded Egypt. But it all turned ok in the end! The Russians to the rescue again? (This time in the form on Normann!)

[birchfest 397]

12 minutes ago, Heading South said:

Unfortunately Todd is far too lightweight for this division along with quite a few others, I think you will find Kabak is out of his depth in Prem , Pukki will always score some but not enough , Normann could be ok at this level , only time will tell IMHO

Yeah, I think that’s exactly what Chelsea, Man City and Everton we thinking about him when he scored for us last time we were up….

[Uncle Fred 526]

I had my first boo of the season last night when the 3rd goal went in, very satisfying booooooo booooo 

[sgncfc 1,227]

34 minutes ago, birchfest said:

Weirdly I still think we can fix this; here's why (and what we didn't see last night)

 

I honestly think we have players who are going to come good/go up a level. For me the prime candidates for that are Kabak, Normann, Cantwell and Pukki. With those players we have a spine of a side that we can build around and I think personally are capable of taking the game to almost all of the sides outside of the traditional top 6. I think if Farke is brave and is willing to be more ruthless with dropping certain players then we have a shot of make a really solid core group with some adaptable options around them depending on the week by week tactics needed for different opposition. 

This. We still have 9 of the 11 players who were being heralded last season as the best Championship side ever. We have added players to the squad who could become better than the two we have lost (Normann and Tzolis) and have reinforced other areas of the squad.

This squad, in terms of it's depth of talent and potential, is unquestionably the best we have ever had. Can Farke and his coaches get them to gel quickly enough to get results? Can those players learn quickly enough? Those are really the only questions we should be asking.

There were good signs last night despite the errors. We made errors last season too but they were often not punished - this season in the PL they have been. That is really the only difference.

 

[TIL 1010 4,737]

This morning i feel that last night i watched the beginning of the end of Farke's reign.

Edited September 22, 2021 by TIL 1010

[ricardo 7,384]

35 minutes ago, Badger said:

Shame on you Ricardo - it shows that you don't care about it as much the others! Where's your passion man? 😃

 

Like a fine wine I have mellowed with age.

[ROBFLECK 132]

1 hour ago, Capt. Pants said:

Feeling that it's starting to slip away from Farke now.

Really not sure where we go from here. Still no clearer on our best defence, let alone first XI.

Bit of a shambles really and we need a huge slice of luck to kickstart our season.

Agreed , same here

[yellowrider120 762]

21 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

This morning i feel that last night i wiatched the beginning of the end of Farke's reign.

You and I have seen it all before Tilly (along with other 'more experienced' posters)! What's strange about this one is the downward spiral since Arsenal. In fact I would go so far as to say it didn't really start to gather steam until the second Watford goal went in. Since that moment our confidence just seems to have drained away individually and collectively. Our defence gets sunk quicker than the Belgrano and unless we can somehow keep a clean sheet somewhere it's difficult to see where points are to be obtained.

The obsession with 'playing out from the back' even when two or three opponents are swarming around you like flies is madness personified yet both the players and Farke seem unwilling to do anything different. Yes - 'playing it long' (not all the time I might add) may result in losing possession but far better to give the ball away 50 yards from your own goal (when you have pretty much everyone behind the ball anyway) than 15 yards. I remember a simple phrase from one Sam Allardyce (that 'dinosaur' chap) who said........'the best way to defend is to keep the ball as far away from your own goal as possible'.  Perhaps someone should point this out to Herr Farke?

 

 

[Badger 2,405]

21 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Like a fine wine I have mellowed with age.

Unfortunately,  I turned to vinegar😉

[AJ 1,218]

Disappointment, mainly because we lost because of our own ineptitude and not because Liverpools reserves blew us away. In fact, thinking back we had more chances to score than I think they did. Pukki missing his good chance at the end, Idah missing 2 well placed opportunities and then failing to connect with the ambition overhead, Tzolis pen and his overhit cross to Idah, Lees-Melou clearing the bar when well placed. On another night, we might have got something - but we absolutely didn't deserve it, we were dreadful for, and outplayed in, large periods of a home game against Liverpool's reserves

[MORDENCANARY 71]

It's all tactics with Farke, makes me wonder just how much Farke motivates . I remember City playing Liverpool in the early eighties and winning unexpectedly 1-0 at FCR . Apparently the manager just told each player to "go out and compete with your opposite number". 

Edited September 22, 2021 by MORDENCANARY
Punctuation

[Dean Coneys boots 1,400]

If it is, as others have suggested, the beginning of the end of the Farke era- then I hope the board do what they need to do quickly, too often in the past we waited too long to pull the trigger and caused more damage than was necessary 

[ricardo 7,384]

12 minutes ago, MORDENCANARY said:

It's all tactics with Farke, makes me wonder just how much Farke motivates . I remember City playing Liverpool in the early eighties and winning unexpectedly 1-0 at FCR . Apparently the manager just told each player to "go out and compete with your opposite number". 

Sounds simple enough, I could do that for a lot less than they are paying Farke. Perhaps I should give Delia a call.

[hogesar 9,657]

3 hours ago, Heading South said:

Unfortunately Todd is far too lightweight for this division along with quite a few others, I think you will find Kabak is out of his depth in Prem , Pukki will always score some but not enough , Normann could be ok at this level , only time will tell IMHO

That'll be the 7-league-goals-last-time-in-the-prem-todd-cantwell you're referring to, yeah?

[Kenny Foggo 1,116]

19 minutes ago, Dean Coneys boots said:

If it is, as others have suggested, the beginning of the end of the Farke era- then I hope the board do what they need to do quickly, too often in the past we waited too long to pull the trigger and caused more damage than was 

Sacking Farke still leaves a board and owners that struggle to cope in the top flight. 

[king canary 7,603]

I'm trying to believe we can turn things around but I'm honestly entirely baffled by what we've seen so far this season.

I believe (and maybe I'm wrong) that our defensive players are good enough to be better than the utter shambles we've been. Gibson was a key part of a tight Boro defence in the Premier League and made it to the England squad. Kabak was a regular for Schalke and played in the Champions League for Liverpool. Williams has European experience and a decent number of games for one of the biggest teams in the country. Aarons has attracted interest from some of Europe's biggest clubs. So how can players like this look so useless together? How can they consistently fail to stop crosses coming in, fail to get tight to players, fail to even get close to opposition strikers? 

I'm not suggesting we go this way but it is tough to believe that if you gave a Hodgson type manager these players that they'd be shipping 3 goals a game. So Farke needs to show he can get this side of the team organised, otherwise I just can't see a future for him.

[Kenny Foggo 1,116]

3 minutes ago, king canary said:

I'm trying to believe we can turn things around but I'm honestly entirely baffled by what we've seen so far this season.

I believe (and maybe I'm wrong) that our defensive players are good enough to be better than the utter shambles we've been. Gibson was a key part of a tight Boro defence in the Premier League and made it to the England squad. Kabak was a regular for Schalke and played in the Champions League for Liverpool. Williams has European experience and a decent number of games for one of the biggest teams in the country. Aarons has attracted interest from some of Europe's biggest clubs. So how can players like this look so useless together? How can they consistently fail to stop crosses coming in, fail to get tight to players, fail to even get close to opposition strikers? 

I'm not suggesting we go this way but it is tough to believe that if you gave a Hodgson type manager these players that they'd be shipping 3 goals a game. So Farke needs to show he can get this side of the team organised, otherwise I just can't see a future for him.

100%. It needs to improve quickly or we need a new coaching team asap.

[komakino 272]

2 minutes ago, Kenny Foggo said:

Sacking Farke still leaves a board and owners that struggle to cope in the top flight. 

So true. I'm waiting for Webber to come out and tell us how lucky we all are, without taking any personal responsibility. However, I still believe the right manager would get more out of this lot that Farke. For whatever the reason, they've given up on him. 

[Yellow Wal 314]

After last night it confirmed what I thought about one or two of our players.

Gunn is still a long way behind Krul,

Mumba is a long, long way away from being a Premiership player,

Giannoulis can still be a very valuable member of the side,

Omobamidele will be a very good player, especially if he is not rushed too much,

Hanley can, and must, play better than he has,

Gibson is a reasonably steady defender (is he the only naturally left sided central defender?),

Rupp is a bread and butter player who will rarely be appalling and rarely outstanding,

Gilmour is far better when his defensive duties are less,

Lees Melou is another bread and butter player

Tzolis is raw with promise, hopefully Farke can improve the ability so that he can constantly be a danger to opposition defences,

Idah should be loaned out as soon as possible, he will never be a Premiership player, if ever, if all he gets is an odd five minutes here and there. I think he proved last night that he is certainly not good enough at the moment to start another game.

[The Great Mass Debater 1,081]

5 hours ago, Google Bot said:

I was expecting a very passionate performance and resolute 'do or die' style defending - similar to how we defended vs Arsenal.  Expected that Liverpool would nick a few goals through pressure and walk home winners. 

But the game was nothing like that, we had control for decent periods, and plenty of chances and managed to self destruct.

Its amazing how often when you give the fringe players a run they put in a sub par performance. 

I'd always have thought that if you're not in the first team then you'd be busting a gut to make an impression and impress the boss. Yet it's rare that tends to happen, which I dont really understand

[The Great Mass Debater 1,081]

42 minutes ago, king canary said:

I'm trying to believe we can turn things around but I'm honestly entirely baffled by what we've seen so far this season.

I believe (and maybe I'm wrong) that our defensive players are good enough to be better than the utter shambles we've been. Gibson was a key part of a tight Boro defence in the Premier League and made it to the England squad. Kabak was a regular for Schalke and played in the Champions League for Liverpool. Williams has European experience and a decent number of games for one of the biggest teams in the country. Aarons has attracted interest from some of Europe's biggest clubs. So how can players like this look so useless together? How can they consistently fail to stop crosses coming in, fail to get tight to players, fail to even get close to opposition strikers? 

I'm not suggesting we go this way but it is tough to believe that if you gave a Hodgson type manager these players that they'd be shipping 3 goals a game. So Farke needs to show he can get this side of the team organised, otherwise I just can't see a future for him.

 

Could any of it be due to a disrupted pre-season? Fixtures called off for Covid. Late business in Normann, Kabak (neither of whom seem fit) and Tzolis

[The Great Mass Debater 1,081]

Our defence was ****e last time because we had boys and a CB crisis.

This cant be the argument this time around, and yet the failings are the same.

Im pinning my hopes on Normann

[Midlands Yellow 3,974]

6 hours ago, lake district canary said:

Looking forwards to the next match. 

We need a reaction and a backs to the wall performance at Everton and see if we can fight to get at least a point there.

Are you going to it? 

[king canary 7,603]

14 minutes ago, The Great Mass Debater said:

 

Could any of it be due to a disrupted pre-season? Fixtures called off for Covid. Late business in Normann, Kabak (neither of whom seem fit) and Tzolis

Not for it to be this bad imo. It's genuinely baffling how we look so out of our depth defensively. I guess though that we have to pin our hopes on more time allowing the players to settle. 

[lake district canary 4,531]

15 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

Are you going to it? 

No, I can't get away this weekend, or most weekends at the moment.

[Jim Smith 2,317]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

I'm trying to believe we can turn things around but I'm honestly entirely baffled by what we've seen so far this season.

I believe (and maybe I'm wrong) that our defensive players are good enough to be better than the utter shambles we've been. Gibson was a key part of a tight Boro defence in the Premier League and made it to the England squad. Kabak was a regular for Schalke and played in the Champions League for Liverpool. Williams has European experience and a decent number of games for one of the biggest teams in the country. Aarons has attracted interest from some of Europe's biggest clubs. So how can players like this look so useless together? How can they consistently fail to stop crosses coming in, fail to get tight to players, fail to even get close to opposition strikers? 

I'm not suggesting we go this way but it is tough to believe that if you gave a Hodgson type manager these players that they'd be shipping 3 goals a game. So Farke needs to show he can get this side of the team organised, otherwise I just can't see a future for him.

Since he's a mate of Delia's I wonder if we could get Roy in for 3 days a week as a "defence consultant". His Palace side certainly didn;t concede that many. 

[Google Bot 3,272]

1 hour ago, The Great Mass Debater said:

I'd always have thought that if you're not in the first team then you'd be busting a gut to make an impression and impress the boss. Yet it's rare that tends to happen, which I dont really understand

I think there's a very strong "Don't Panic" mindset that Farke drills into his players.  So perhaps fringe players feel that above all else they need to show composure when being called upon?  

Don't know. It is an odd one really.  I'd imagine for any player coming in to this team right now there's a very real fear of being caught out of position.