players rating

[ZLF 271]

Fans simply superb yesterday , showed the players what real passion is, not this faux version we see from players and also the manu library. Ignore the words below - this is cathartic for me.

Ruddy - 7 our only player with any quality; without him could have been 8 -0 or even a pl record. The protection he got was minimal.

Olsson - 5 got forward but positionally so poor defensively, no effort to regain possession for 3rd goal, yet still our 3rd best player.

Martin - 3 he dismissal of ruddy post 3rd/4th goal was disrespectful, his positioning (2-3 yards behind the line) constantly mishaped the back 4. Sorry russ, you are not a cb, and your passion costing us goals and points and we have at least 2 fit better players there. You need to be back at rb - we concede more goals with you at cb and less at rb; simples.

Turner - 6 composed and the only player we had on the pitch who can defend.

Whittaker 3 as against liverpool positionally weak defending and petuous pull at wellbeck for the penalty was as a result of the defenders alertness and changed the game. Was slow and on back foot all game - and weak with the ball too. Continues season average of more than 2 goals conceded per game average.

Redmond - 4 so frustrating - the one player offering a threat but was typical of those moaning he lack of end product today. Defended well. Lack of movement from team mates hindered him but needs better decision making.

Howson - 4 just so disappointing; disappeared and or marginalised after the second goal; needs to be more central and influence the game more; at least kept the ball and one of only two who had any composure on it - needs to see it more

BJ - 3 unlike most never hid, but his passion and committment is hindering the team, shocking distribution (tried to pass the ball through fer ffs) not as bad as his woeful defending; as with last week stood off a striker in a dangerous area and admired a good goal; as with last week meant any chance of points lost. His positioning impacts how much fer and howson can get in the game both of whom do impact a game positively. We simply dont win games with him in the team.

Fer - 4 Along with howson the only player to try and play football and take care of the ball. yes he lost mata, but bj was the man who had him in line of vision and sat watching him. Our best moments came through him, but painfully not reday for 90 mins yet. More effective than johnson or snodgrass without the show of faux passion but still v poor.

Snodgrass - 3. Chronic passing, shooting and crossing - slowed the ball down every time we had a chance to break forward. whats worse was his attitude, a snarling negative ball of faux "passion". He responded to criticism from snakepit earlier this season, yet its ok for him to do the same to olsson. whittaker, ricky, fer all game yesterday - does that help them, it was certainly not done in an encouragement way. Yet he made more choices and errors than any of them As my friend pointed out yest he simply refused to pass to rvw - or refuses to play with him. You can take your "passion" and stick it where the sun dont shine.

Rvw - 3 totally dominated by MOTM nemanja vidic (best player on the pitch by a mile) did offer movement but no one to pass it to him with quality; held the ball up but support to slow in coming with ludicrous diagonals offered when it did arrive. Was never going to be suited to long ball isolated game. Sick to the back team of fans who blamed the days defeat on him - yes he was poor, but so was hooper and we lost it again due to woeful defending and ineffective attacking & defending from our midfield.

Elmander - 6 Offered a balance of passion and quality but as with hooper and rvw given no service even after manu had switched off.

Hooper 2 - no movement, effort passion or willingness to even get involved. Simply even worse than RvW.

Tettey - not on long enough to rate; but a midfield of johnson and tettey is always going to be a failing one. Hope he will start next week

Adams - stuck with his now losing team which played without talent or commitment, then introduced subs that neither changed the shape or affected the game. All too hughton-esque. He has to pick quality over graft, effectiveness ahead of effort

Team for chelsea

Ruddy

Martin Bassong Turner Olsson

Tettey

Redmond Fer Howson Bennett/Jonas

RvW

[Ray 111]

Zipper,

I think you have been a bit harsh on some of our players and in some cases not particularly factual about some of what happened but it is all subjective of course.

To add to your posts on Player Ratings, I wonder if you could include a rating of the Manager and of overall team performance, perhaps a separate one for the first half and the second half and an overall one? And if you want to go even further how about one for the defence as a unit, one for the midfield as a unit and one for the attackers as a unit,

Actually thinking about what I have just written, perhaps we should rate our defensive performance and our creative performance, bearing in mind it is a team game and that at some stage all 11 are involved in defending and all 11 are involved in our crerative perfromance, even the keeper distributes the ball.

I think too often we ''blame'' the back four or the attackers for our defensive and creative displays, when in fact they all play a part, expecially of course the midfield, which imo is where a lot of our problems lay, insomuch they don''t break forward quickly enough and don''t track back enough, leaving the back four to deal with runners. This was apparent yesterday especially when compared with Mun Utd, who often broke with pace leaving their ''trackers'' in their wake.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

I agree with the ratings there. RVW needs dripping though. I would rather we just gave becchio and Hooper a go against Chelsea, loza on the bench

[FCC 76]

RVW playing on the shoulder of defenders but a ball is never played early for him to run into space and get on to. Always we go wide, and slowly and have to cross into a crowded area. No early balls.

Agree Hooper is no better than RVW and wasn''t even competing when the ball was in the air.

Can''t see Adams lasting longer than 2 more games. Could understand we needed to chase the game, but we just lost our shape completely, and the midfield had run themselves into the ground and needed changing.

[GJP 79]

Don''t think ZLF is too far away with anything he has said there.

Too many players have talked the talk but have failed to walk the walk.

[Dubai Mark 0]

Bizaar markings in a couple of instances, but to be honest I really cant be bothered......

[Drazen Muzinic 1,444]

Very few of the team yesterday came out with any kudos.

I thought Turner was superb particularly in the first half and Ruddy kept the score down and added a few quid onto his price tag.

The Leeds trio, Olssen and Martin were full of running and effort but ultimately showed themselves to be simply not good enough. Redmond was also shown to be a ''work in progress'' with his erratic shooting and lack of end product.

RVW is a waste of a shirt and, with him in the team, it''s like having 10 men on the park. Watching him off the ball yesterday (and at Fulham) he just seems to have given up and is devoid of any spark or awareness whatsoever.

Similarly with Fer. He seemed so languid as United''s midfield ghosted past him or took the ball off him. Not sure what happened to him this season. He was one of the best midfielders I have ever seen in a City shirt with his peak that fantastic pass through for Hooper at Albion in December. He got injured, missed a few games and doesn''t seem to have had the right attitude or passion since - even getting sent off at Palace at New Year.

Whittaker has been a total liability since returning to the team. He gave away a cheap foul for the Fulham free kick from which they scored and the game changed yesterday because he tugged the shirt of a player known to have his centre of gravity in his neck.

[nutty nigel 7,509]

And to think getting rid of old hapless and taking off the shackles was all we needed...

 

 

[jaemae2 0]

If people actually think Michael Turner was in any way, shape or form acceptable outside of the first 20 minutes you may be blind or watching some imaginary game... He was pathetically awful in every aspect of his performance past the initial 20 minutes. He was responsible for 3 of the 4 goals.

His only way of defending is throwing his slow lanky body at a ball/player in the most desperate manner when whoever he is marking has gotten behind him. I commend him for his commitment to blocking, but it''s the ONLY thing he can do and he''s awful at doing that as well. He needs to go, possibly the worst CB to ever play in the PL in the past 10 years.

[Duncan Edwards 2,218]

I can''t understand how these players, the same ones that should be at least midtable prior to exit Hughton are now so bad.

What on earth has Adams done to them?

"It''s like playing with the handbrake on.."

[jaemae2 0]

It''s a shame that Scott Dann chose to go to Crystal Palace. He isn''t a world beater but he''s 125x the player Turner is and had he come we''d never have to see Turner on the field again. I was bummed, and it says something when the thought of having Scott Dann as a PL CB over Michael Turner is exciting...

[GJP 79]

Turner is the centreback we should to be least worried about.

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

[quote user="nutty nigel"]

And to think getting rid of old hapless and taking off the shackles was all we needed...

[/quote]How about "Not putting the youth team manager in charge""Doing something before the remaining games are Liverpool, ManU, Chelsea and Arsenal."  And of course our ''bogey'' team Fulham, or so the excuse peddled as they stuffed us earlier in the season when they were really awful."Not dumping Hughton just as we play some sides he was pretty good at pulling the odd result out of the bag against""Not playing both right backs", when most commentators would argue neither is good enough for this league, let alone one out of position""Not playing BJ when a better player sits on the bench""Not starting your 1 goal in 24 hours striker, when your more prolific option scored the previous weekend.""Leaving the defender who started 10 of 11 clean sheets this season out of the squad"  (having said that, this will be Bassong''s third relegation...  Not without good reason.)

[Duncan Edwards 2,218]

So...CJF

Do something earlier or don''t do anything.

Get rid of the manager but don''t replace him with this guy (I thought the previous manager was the problem?)

Then this guy picks new players, you now want the ones that the last guy who wasn''t good enough was picking, including the captain that isn''t fit to be captain. Apart from the striker, because the last bloke picked him sometimes but we''d rather he picked the guy who he also picked sometimes.

So to summarise.

The reason for our predicament was Chris Hughton. We sack him and appoint Adams who has tried to shake things up a bit. Now that he has played 3 and lost 3, we''ve now decided that CH was picking the right players all along - Tettey, Bassong etc

God this is confusing. So who''s to blame again?

DELIA I reckon.

[andyc24_uk 58]

We have GOT to get away from this idea of picking on ''attitude'' and start picking on talent. If your sole criteria for choosing a team is passion for the cause, then choose 11 posters from this board and send them out there! Cannot for the life of me understand the thinking behind repeatedly picking Martin in central defence. He filled in there in an injury crisis and did a decent job, but he is a million miles away from being a quality CB. He is a decent enough RB, but instead of playing him there where he''s actually an effective performer for us, we use the entirely useless liability Whittaker.

Completely agree with Zipper about Snodgrass as well - the guy has genuine talent, but his attitude absolutely stinks. He comes across as a really unpleasant, arrogant, disruptive individual and frankly has done all season. Regardless of what happens, I hope he goes in the summer - We would miss his skills without a doubt, but there are several other players who I think would flourish without his negativity, selfishness and aggression.

My team for Chelski :

Rudd

Martin Yobo Turner Bassong Olsson

Tettey Howson Fer

Loza

Subs : Bunn, R.Bennett, Redmond, E.Bennett, Jonas, RVW, Hooper

(5 at the back with Martin and Olsson pushing forward from deep as wingbacks, which they do anyhow, but 3 in the middle to cover for them when they get caught forward. Loza to start because (a) given none of the other ''strikers'' we have can hit a barn door at 3 paces we have literally nothing to lose in doing that, and (b) the fact that Chelsea won''t know anything much about him mean he''s the one possible wildcard we have.)

[Ray 111]

andyc24,

I quite like the 5 at the back with two wing backs pushing on idea, but I would put Elliott Bennett at Right Back and keep RM on the right side of the back three, so one of Yobo (who may not be fit anyway), Turner or Bassong to miss out. This gives us extra cover at RB when Benno bombs on with Turner covering the LB. We could play Garrido at LB and put Olsson in the midfield. Re Loza, agree, what have we got to lose, he is quick and he does know where the goal is. It is often in situations like this that a youngster bursts on to the scene, could this be his chance?

[Ray 111]

andyc24,

Forgot to mention the talent v attitude point you raised.

Personally I would far rather pick a player with a great attitide and less ability than one with more ability but a poor attitude, I think you would get far more our of the first. Obvioulsy the ability levels need to be reasonably close, I might have a great attitude but at 58 most of my ability has sort of disappeared, or let''s say, has become latent!

That said, it''s about kicking a ball about and whilst I accept there are differing abilities, surely the vast majority of Prem Players have a similar ability, it''s the attitude that makes the difference. Ronaldo has superb ability because his attitude is such that even now he spends more time on the training pitch honing his skills than almost any other player, now that''s attitude. Without that drive he wouldn''t be half the player he is now.