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Were we good enough to stay up?

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At times, yes. At other times, no way. We have looked utterly dreadful at times this season. It''s been one step forward, two or three steps back for the best part of 2013/2014

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A good enough squad let down by a manager who got lucky last season and a naive Board who tolerated severe under performance for over 12 months.

RVW, Hooper, Redmond, Fer, Snodgrass, Pilkington even Becchio would have sparkled under Pulis'' nous and organisation.

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[quote user="Cantiaci Canary"]A good enough squad let down by a manager who got lucky last season and a naive Board who tolerated severe under performance for over 12 months.

RVW, Hooper, Redmond, Fer, Snodgrass, Pilkington even Becchio would have sparkled under Pulis'' nous and organisation.[/quote]This.

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Well, apparently our squad were good enough and it was the awful tactics Houghton used that ruined us.  But then we sacked Houghton and the new bloke couldn''t get the "good enough" squad to win any games.  So I reckon we were never good enough to stay up and Houghton did his best to mask our deficiencies.  Though, either way, we squandered a record shedload of money in the summer for a record minimal reward.

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Yes, but then I think almost everyone was good enough to stay up if they got momentum. Look at Palace. If that squad can survive, any of the bottom ten could in theory if managed well.

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If wishes were horses, beggars might ride. Very old but very true saying. We could have been could enough if the players had belief.

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We are a nailed on bottom six side so this was always gonna happen at some point.

Players are not good enough. Failure to get In a game maker number ten biggest problem.

Manager makes not a lot of difference .

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If the manager makes so little difference, how do you explain palace suddenly sitting mid table? A manager makes all the difference. An entire season (Minus 5 games) of negativity and defending won''t be undone by a novice manager against 4 of the biggest clubs in Europe. Our board missed the boat. Refused to acknowledge their mistake, and hoped for the best, clinging onto a 10 game run that got further and further away. Whilst the dissenters were barracked by fellow fans for trying to rock the boat. A shambles all round really. Still, one bad season in 5 isn''t all bad. We''ll all still be following our boys next year, hopefully with a bit more to cheer.

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Taken literally the answer would have to be no- Hughton seemed to buy round pegs for square holes, we had little pace, players didn''t look fit enough to me, rigid tactics and formation, no real playmaker other than Wes, no onfield leader and no ability to change the direction of a game for the better. All in all, not ideal.

If the question is were we capable of staying up, the answer might have been different but a lot would have to have changed. take fitness for example. I was struck at times (neatly illustrated last Saturday) how when we got the ball after an opposition attack we seemed unable to get forward in numbers from midfield in particular. Then we didn''t seem to be able to get back very quickly to respond after losing the ball. We seemed languid and ambling, many players seemingly jogging lightly to get breath back. Other teams seemed to me to have more energy and verve.

We''ll need to fix all this over the summer. We can''t go into an even more gruelling league with what we have at the moment. RVW will be eaten alive and unless we play long ball to a new lumphead we''ll need strengthening in the centre as I don''t see us being any more threatening than we were this time round.

Finally, I agree with Buzz, a good manager can make a lot of difference but poor Neil Adams was given an impossible job with a demoralised squad looking bruised and confused after 20 months or so of Hughton.

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Probably not. We clearly overestimated our quality at the beginning of the season, with no Prem quality right back and question marks about the two main centre backs, especially after operations.Most of all, I think, we expected too much from our two new strikers.

We have lacked even one outstanding player, able to win a match by passing or shooting. I had hoped that Fer would have done this, but apart from brief flashes it did not happen.

The team have flattered to deceive, playing well in some aspects, but always likely to concede goals by defensive failure, and never really threatening to make a big win through scoring goals.

Clear evidence of what quality other teams and managers see in our squad will come after relegation in the degree of interest in signing any of our players. How many might interest Premiership clubs? Perhaps Ruddy, Fer, Howson? Most of the rest will be of interest only to other Championship clubs, I suspect.

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With the strikers we have, no.

It is becoming apparent to me that defenders get away with absolute bloody murder in the PL (& English football generally). The number of times a quick striker will get body checked or forced off the ball isn''t tolerated in other countries. It''s frequently described as ''out-muscled'', but in fact it''s pure fouling - the defender does not have the ball under control, & is simply obstructing the attacker. Plus the ludicrous scenes at corners & free kicks - shoving, shirt pulling & general mayhem by all & sundry. Ridiculous. And on top of this, PL defenders are damn good defenders anyway without all the extra help they are being given.

So, to succeed in the PL as a striker you have to be strong enough, wily enough & nimble enough to overcome all these obstacles (N B strength isn''t about sheer muscularity, more about balance & co-ordination). Players like Suarez have all three qualities. Ours have none

I reckon we needed about 3 extra goals to have been in reasonable safety now. I reckon (& I know not many will agree) that even a player like KK would have done the business; we have no striker who could have scored a goal like his against Everton, & I would have backed him to get at least another couple like that this season.

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Ron, I tend to agree. Our biggest mistake was not getting a Holty replacement. Buying strikers that can not be effective in the lone striker role was a fatal mistake. Particularly as it was quickly apparent that we would need to play 5 in midfield so as not to get over run. We needed to buy a striker who could play the target man role.

Should we have kept KK. Possibly. He would have got in defenders faces, caused a few problems at set pieces and possibly notched a few vital goals. Plus he was a player that lifted the crowd when he came on because he gave it a go. At the time my recollection is that he was deemed not good enough because his touch was not up to it. Ironic?

Salopian - I think that the expectation of our strikers was that they got a few goals. Not unreasonable for a striker! But given the points I have made above maybe it was for the ones we bought.

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The squad was never deep enough interms of quality to hope for a top half finish,   but it was comfortably good enough to stay up.

 

Our current position and relegation is a definite under performance from managers and players who have simply failed to deliver  

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[quote user="ZippersLeftFoot"]

The squad was never deep enough interms of quality to hope for a top half finish,   but it was comfortably good enough to stay up.

 

Our current position and relegation is a definite under performance from managers and players who have simply failed to deliver  

[/quote]

Well apart from not having the depth of quality for a top half finish it was also a worry from the start of the season that we didn''t have the depth to cope with injuries.

 

Injuries lay offs to Howson, Tettey, Fer and Turner have hurt us. And of course both Hooper and RVW had injuries in the first half of the season.

 

And yeah, overall it hasn''t been good enough from the managers and pretty much all of the players.

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No. Unfortunately the table doesn''t lie. We are where we are because we haven''t been good enough. We''ve conceded too many sloppy goals and haven''t scored anywhere near enough.

There have been occasions when we have showed what we are capable of and if we had played like that in 90% of the games, we''d have been safe. Instead we have performed well for a whole match on only about 4 occasions.

We have lacked a good leader/captain who would be a definite starter every week, like Holt was. We lacked a striker who could score regularly and at least 10 goals in the league. A winger who could cross accurately and early. A midfielder who can break forward and weigh in with some goals and assists. I thought that would be Howson, Fer or Hoolahan but none of them have managed to....yet.

The board and management team have paid the price for being too cautious and not spending in the January transfer window. When we were last in the Premiership we bought Ashton albeit too late to save us from the drop. This time we brought Elmander in on loan when we were crying out for a striker who could score, ie Remy, Long, Bony, or even Kevin Phillips type of player. Surely there has got to be some prolific goalscorers out there who we could have afforded. Yes in January it costs more but then if we stay up and there would have been a good chance of that, it would have been paid for.

You have to speculate to accumulate. Will we learn from this, I hope so.

It angers me to think we could have had a good spell up in the Premiership and built on what we have, but instead we have blown it away....unless we can muster something from the last 2 games.

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.........".Surely there has got to be some prolific goalscorers out there who we could have afforded "........

I think that is the fundamentally incorrect assumption made by many people here. Such players are gold dust.

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[quote user="ron obvious"].........".Surely there has got to be some prolific goalscorers out there who we could have afforded "........

I think that is the fundamentally incorrect assumption made by many people here. Such players are gold dust.[/quote]

Hull managed to sign 2 goal scorers in January .

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Hull have been consistently better than us this season. What wages do they pay? How rich is their owner? How attractive a proposition - & how much more likely to survive - were Hull than us? Do you think the board didn''t realise our strikers were ineffective? Did they still hope RvW would come good, after his injury kept him out for months? So many questions. So few answers. Except around here, of course.

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I''m just saying, not answering. I''ve got to admit feeling a little envious back in January when hull signed jelavic and Long. I can understand the way we play not attracting players, but whys that? I don''t pretend to know, but to say that decent strikers are gold dust is BS, Hull signed 2. We signed 2 in the summer, according to most. Completely ineffective for us though.

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[quote user="Cantiaci Canary"]A good enough squad let down by a manager who got lucky last season and a naive Board who tolerated severe under performance for over 12 months.

RVW, Hooper, Redmond, Fer, Snodgrass, Pilkington even Becchio would have sparkled under Pulis'' nous and organisation.[/quote]Most people on here seem to be focusing on Hughton as the problem. It wasn''t. The difference between this season and last is Grant Holt being replaced by Ricky. He was the Captain and a club legend, scored 8 goals in the league and generally made more of an impact on the squad and club as a whole as any player in our history. Ricky in comparison has played like a new born foal scoring 1 league goal in 25. That''s why we''re going down.

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[quote user="GJP"][quote user="ZippersLeftFoot"]

The squad was never deep enough interms of quality to hope for a top half finish,   but it was comfortably good enough to stay up.

 

Our current position and relegation is a definite under performance from managers and players who have simply failed to deliver  

[/quote]

Well apart from not having the depth of quality for a top half finish it was also a worry from the start of the season that we didn''t have the depth to cope with injuries.

 

Injuries lay offs to Howson, Tettey, Fer and Turner have hurt us. And of course both Hooper and RVW had injuries in the first half of the season.

 

And yeah, overall it hasn''t been good enough from the managers and pretty much all of the players.

[/quote]

 

Completely agree the injuries at the wrong times hit us hard,   Hooper missing the start, ricky just as he was looking to play a part but most importantly the consecutive injuries to Tettey, howson then fer have hit us hardest,   only 5 starts together (and some of our best performances in them) and the covering players have not worked half as well as a unit making us weak in the middle of the park.

 

The fact that we dropped very gettable points between tettey being injured and Fers return shows the squad should still have had enough to have had us out of this bun fight already.   

 

 

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Buzz, you talked about "prolific" goalscorers being affordable, not decent ones - & even those are very expensive & come with no guarantees.

ZLF I concur about the injuries & their timings. Just about everything that could have gone wrong this season did just that (Karma for the Lambert years?).

Nevertheless I will forever maintain that our strikers had enough chances at the critical times in critical matches to have saved us. They are, for whatever reason, simply not PL strikers.

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[quote user="Jonzey"][quote user="Cantiaci Canary"]A good enough squad let down by a manager who got lucky last season and a naive Board who tolerated severe under performance for over 12 months.

RVW, Hooper, Redmond, Fer, Snodgrass, Pilkington even Becchio would have sparkled under Pulis'' nous and organisation.[/quote]Most people on here seem to be focusing on Hughton as the problem. It wasn''t. The difference between this season and last is Grant Holt being replaced by Ricky. He was the Captain and a club legend, scored 8 goals in the league and generally made more of an impact on the squad and club as a whole as any player in our history. Ricky in comparison has played like a new born foal scoring 1 league goal in 25. That''s why we''re going down.[/quote]

But why did Holt leave? Because of Hughton.

I agree, we''ve missed Holt, or someone like him, big time.

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[quote user="Buzz Killington"]I''m just saying, not answering. I''ve got to admit feeling a little envious back in January when hull signed jelavic and Long. I can understand the way we play not attracting players, but whys that? I don''t pretend to know, but to say that decent strikers are gold dust is BS, Hull signed 2. We signed 2 in the summer, according to most. Completely ineffective for us though.[/quote]

They signed 1 decent one (long) and one horrific one (Jelavic) Jelavic was my vote for worst PL striker untill Hooper and RvW arrived.

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we could have and should have pushed the boat out to sign Long or someone similar in January. To say we couldn''t afford it is BS. How many tens of millions is it going to cost us if we go down?

I''d have changed the manager in December and bought a striker and attacking midfielder.

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