Season 2011 - 2012

[Juan]

Tell it to your team mates, Daniel, not the national media.

Apparently Steve Nicol has come out and reiterated your comments Tes. Probably just frustration out of Agger but he definitely needs to keep stuff like that in house and confront/converse with the players in question themselves. He risks putting a strain on the dressing room the way hes gone about it.

[Juan]

Suarez got 4 tonight. We need to compliment his quality with more players of his level. At the moment we have some good potential and some fine players but Suarez is the only outfield player we have whose form is consistently top drawer. Surround him with similar quality and we will go places. Dont and he will be off to Spain within 3 seasons. To think we were 48 hours from having Suarez and Torres as our front pairing, that potentially could have been devastating .

[Ed]

Gee, looking at the squad lists ahead of Sunday:



Chelsea have a really attacking formation & with Meireles pulling strings?
It's been said elsewhere that they complement this with a high defensive
line (makes sense, given that none of their 6 midfielder/forwards strikes
me as being particularly defensive, though, tbh i don't know much about
Ramires, except that he's no Essien! )

Imo, away from home, our 4-4-2 looks prehistoric. I think we need Lucas sitting
in the hole in front of 2 mobile central defenders. The problem is further up the
pitch there's no Gerrard to disrupt their playmakers. I'm expecting a tactical
decision to address this...Surely it has to be 1 up front?? Should we play Jayo?
There's been talk about Bellamy starting on the wing and using his pace to get
in behind the high line?

[barticus]

Well hopefully we'll see a bit more of Downing after his confidence boosting performance for England on tuesday, i also think the pace of bellamy and suarez can provide a great attack against the likes of alex and terry....
kuyt has to play..
so i don't see much in the way of space for henderson or carroll...apart from subs...and only bring them on when we're like 3-0 up or something...
If we play suarez, caroll, downing adam lucas henderson then it doesn't bear thinking about...
Meireles vs lucas should be an interesting tussle...

[Tes]

Agreed, Barticus, Downing needs to start showing more than he has done so far.

I'd leave Carroll on the bench and bring in Spearing alongside Lucas to make up for Adam's lack of mobility and and defensive capability.
Dirk needs to start as he's our lucky charm against the bigger teams.

Despite all that money spent in the Summer, our squad still looks short on quality and goals. Granted, things weren't going to be sorted in one Summer window but just how much stronger, in reality, is our squad.

[Ed]

Agreed, Barticus, Downing needs to start showing more than he has done so far.

I'd leave Carroll on the bench and bring in Spearing alongside Lucas to make up for Adam's lack of mobility and and defensive capability.
Dirk needs to start as he's our lucky charm against the bigger teams.

Despite all that money spent in the Summer, our squad still looks short on quality and goals. Granted, things weren't going to be sorted in one Summer window but just how much stronger, in reality, is our squad.

That's what I was thinking Tes! Bring Jay in alongside Lucas to break up that attacking
fluidity Chelsea have. Adam will just end up getting sent off and we don't really need
the luxury of a passer at the expense of not having the ball 

Further forward though I don't mind so long as there is pace in the final third e.g.

                                                         Reina
                              Kelly      Skrtel               Agger   Enrique
                                                 Lucas - Spearing
                                      Downing - Suarez - Bellamy
                                                      Carroll

With overlapping full backs gives us a nice balance, away from home, between pace
and power up front!

I don't like the idea of Dropping Carroll because we lose out on a bit of height upfront
(Suarez, Bellamy & Kuyt aren't the tallest).

I also think we'll see Kuyt at some point & maybe Henderson late on...

[barticus]

There you go! Play the same way as we did in the 2nd half of last season and look at the result....adam swapped for meireles who was pretty good today...and maxi and kuyt restored..

caroll, downing and henderson on the bench....though thought henderson played well though when the others tired...and played intelligently...

watched this down in the spanish local....lights went out just after sturridge scored...had to ring my sis in england at 7 to get the result...before finally the lights come on at 8.30....the joys of being in spain...

[Tes]

What's worrying is that with Dirk and Maxi restored at the expense of players who seems as though they were brought in to replace them, we improved. So have we improved on Dirk and Maxi with our Summer recruitment or not?
Bellamy's another. We look better with him than without him, but all 3 players that seemingly make us look better are all at the wrong end of their careers.

Credit to Glenn Johnson who took his goal with the coolness any striker would be proud of.

As good as the win is, it seems to be raising more questions than it's answering.

[Juan]

What's worrying is that with Dirk and Maxi restored at the expense of players who seems as though they were brought in to replace them, we improved. So have we improved on Dirk and Maxi with our Summer recruitment or not?
Bellamy's another. We look better with him than without him, but all 3 players that seemingly make us look better are all at the wrong end of their careers.

Credit to Glenn Johnson who took his goal with the coolness any striker would be proud of.

As good as the win is, it seems to be raising more questions than it's answering.

I agree and disagree Tes. I think it probably proves something we have been saying of late that maybe Kenny was too quick to integrate the new signings into the team without them proving any form and also that he was probably too quick to dispense of the likes of Maxi.

The good thing is he has now realised the error of his ways and we looked the better for it. Im still not sure Kuyt should be a starter. By 60 he looked flat out on his feet and i dont know how he was left on the pitch. And as good as Johnsons goal was I think his performance confirmed two things 1) he cant defend and 2) he should be tried wide right because hes quality going forward.

Todays performance also confirms that Suarez and Bellamy are our form strike partnership. What this means for some of our new arrivals is that if they want to force their way into the team they are going to need to up their game. Surely this can only be good for competition in the squad.

Lets hope we can carry through the first half display from today to next weeks game against City.

[Ed]

Dunno, take the points but...

Chelsea were a shambles in the first half, tactical blunder by Villas Boas.
Credit to our lads, we bit into them where they were weak and got the
goal. I'd argue that it was commitment and experience (Kuyt and Maxi
tended, imo, to retain what possession they got in the first half & Bellamy
put the pressure on the Chelsea backs) rather than quality that did it for us.
Lucas had a few big tackles as well, which away from home always helps!
(thought he was unlucky with the card).

Second half was a different story, Chelsea battered us down the left, Johnson
at fault imo. Reina made a fabulous save to keep us in it!! Captain's save!
Adam dawdling for their goal (not good enough!), still he made up for it with
the pass for the winner as did Johnson.

I was happy to see some changes made to the side but am under no illusions
that we have sorted out the problems we've been having. Hopefully, we'll get
through the next two games with what we had today (disciplined all round
team performance with moments of individual brilliance) and sort things out in
the games that follow?

[Ageing Stick Insect]

Adam dawdling for their goal (not good enough!), still he made up for it with
the pass for the winner as did Johnson.

I'm confused Ed. Does that mean he is now good enough? Everyone makes mistakes. It's how you react after making one that determines how good a player you are. I'm more than pleased with Adam and everyone else in the team yesterday.

I'm delighted with the result. SB used to be one of our bogey grounds but in the last 4 years we've won there 3 times. We've played Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs all away and taken 6 out of 9 points. You've got to be pleased with that.

[Ed]

Hey ASI, I was watching the game yesterday and dreading if we lost,
would have meant we were 3 points above Villa and QPR, 5 above
West Brom (Hodgson) with Newcastle above us.

About Adam, I thought that he was at fault for their goal and it's something
I hate to see, a slow player not reacting to danger. If he's to feature in a
two man midfield, it's stuff like that that needs to be right, imo. I think he's
doing his best, but the standard of playing midfield for us is very very high. He
flighted a beauty for the winner but his corners all day were brutal. In fact
it's stuff like that that I would much rather have seen against Chelsea
yesterday, a proper threat from corners and set pieces. Away from home we
should know that if we go to the trouble of winning a corner there's a
reasonable chance of a goal scoring opportunity.

So yeah, maybe it's confusing I swing both ways when it comes to Adam but
remain yet to be convinced.

I think Kenny made two changes, kept Johnson in the side and got a result
against a poor Chelsea side. The team showed character which I'm very pleased about.

Imo, we either start playing Carroll again (before he turns into Babel, seriously the
way that ball gets stuck under his feet reminds me of Babel) because the whole
team is built around him or go back to what was working last season i.e. fluidity in
the final third and a strong defensive midfield.

If we can get over the next two games by keeping our wits about us, I think our
season is back on, but they're gonna be really really tough games!

[Ageing Stick Insect]

Hi Ed,

Yes he lost the ball for their goal but a lot more work was required before they scored. In comparison he tackled their lad and got the ball for our first goal and as you said, flighted a cracking pass for the second.

Garth Crooks included him in his team of the week. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9643797.stm  Some interesting stats I didn't know.

I'd love to see Johnson at RW with Kelly at RB and each covering the other when one ventured forward.

Carroll is turning into an enigma. He clearly has self discipline issues. Needs to find himself a good woman and settle down! In the meantime we have to stay with the same team for Sunday and then use all 3 subs to help keep key players fresh for Tuesday at SB. Carroll will feature a part in both games.

The top 7 now have a 7 point gap from the rest. 7 into 4 doesn't go so we need to keep the pressure on. Newcastle will falter but I'm hoping that so will Chelsea and Arsenal who rely so heavily on RvP.

[Tes]

Johnson actually played right midfield/wide right for Pompey under 'Arry the season before he joined us and was successful there. 'Arry, as with Bale also, isn't afraid of looking at a player's strengths and weaknesses and then trying them in a different position that would appear to deal with their qualities/flaws more effectively.

I don't see we have anything to lose and plenty to gain. He of course would be attacking from a more advanced position, but it's normally the final third where you can do the most damage.

I think the form of Bellers and the type of player that he is has shown how well two 'small uns' can combine as a forward partnership and it's technique that will undermine the Premier League's yard dog centre halves and not brute strength of a target man. Again it shows the questionable nature of signing a target man and a young inexperienced one at that.

[Martinmarx]

Adam was involved in all three goals so if it means he helps us create twice as many as the opponents score I'm fine with that. Seriously tho I thought it was maybe our best performance of the season. We didn't panic when Chelsea came out for second half. Yet this terrible inconsistency has to stop.