Don Diaz
Zero tolerance of Numpty's
Founding Member
That is some story, hats off, proper committed support, especially when the team only give you 60% effort back!!
Chavhater01
Well-Known Member
I keep reading these pundits saying we need to learn how to grind out a result when we’re not playing well, almost as if we’ve never won a game of football where we haven’t been at our best. Well quite frankly, that’s total bollocks, we were poor against Newcastle, weren’t great for a large part of the Fulham game but yet we still won both of those and I can think of a fair few games last season where we weren’t at our best and yet still got a positive result.
I’m not totally sure but we’ve probably accrued the most points in the pl over the past 3 years and you can’t do that without at least grinding out a fair few results. Yesterday’s result for me, came down to having too many players off form and a system that I thought was quite confusing, I just can’t really understand going to Watford, who’s strength is their power and athleticism and only playing Moussa as a DM/CM, especially after that 2nd half performance at OT, why the need to change it?! Oh well, Poch is a God, so he clearly felt he needed more cover in the heart of the defence but it was just surprising when we started to get overrun in the 2nd half that he didn’t at least bring on Eric or Vic.
Be nice if our boys got a bit of a break over the next few weeks.
I’m not totally sure but we’ve probably accrued the most points in the pl over the past 3 years and you can’t do that without at least grinding out a fair few results. Yesterday’s result for me, came down to having too many players off form and a system that I thought was quite confusing, I just can’t really understand going to Watford, who’s strength is their power and athleticism and only playing Moussa as a DM/CM, especially after that 2nd half performance at OT, why the need to change it?! Oh well, Poch is a God, so he clearly felt he needed more cover in the heart of the defence but it was just surprising when we started to get overrun in the 2nd half that he didn’t at least bring on Eric or Vic.
Be nice if our boys got a bit of a break over the next few weeks.
J.spurs
Well-Known Member
Founding Member
Agreed, the bit about "grinding out wins" is exactly right. Even PL winners only put together a handful of whistle-to-whistle performances over the course of a season. Watford presented a selection headache IMO- Poch probably thought three in the back was best against Gray and Deeney, but it did sometimes leave Mousa having to do a lot in midfield, and he visibly tired midway through the second half. And even then, they physically bossed Sanchez in particular, and Toby wasn't at his best. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Sissoko might have been somewhat useful yesterday.
It's going to be a difficult season across the board I think--while there's a lot of dross in the league, there are also a lot of teams that will be very difficult to beat. Watford, Palace, Leicester, Wolves, Bournemouth, Brighton, Fulham and one or two others are not teams that we or anyone else can go to and expect a given three points. They have good managers and owners that have spent a lot of money to strengthen over the last couple seasons. That's not even mentioning the clubs from Everton up in the way the table usually plays out. The good news is that I think we're set up better than ever before to win games like that, but still. My ten-year old was comparing Watford's style of play to Leicester's PL winning team--they don't quite have the same pace on the counter, but his point was about right, IMO--the physicality and discipline combined with one or two quality players makes them very difficult to deal with.