20 Nov 2016 09:15:56
Morning all. Don't post much these days because the site has become so negative that it's almost depressing.
I just read a post down the page where someone said that Ed002 was correct in his view that the club is going nowhere.
Well, I have to say that I am starting to think that ED 002 is also correct is his view that the club has too many 'toxic' fans. Sorry is that offends anyone - because it is certainly not aimed at everyone.
But the reaction to a draw against Arsenal yesterday is incredible. Some of you keyboard warriors seem to revel in the teams failure to win any game.
There was a thread on here recently where loads of you were waxing lyrical about Arsenal being the most attractive team, up there with City etc etc. Have great players, play attractive football, score for fun etc.
Then we play well against them, and completely dominate them.
So how do respond to that? By yet again slagging off just about everyone, and justifying the abuse by saying how poor Arsenal were - pathetic.
The truth is, we dominated Arsenal in every area yesterday and did not allow them to play. I agree is was disappointing to let the 3 points stop, as it was a game that we should clearly a have won. But the performance was very good, and the commitment was also good from everyone ( perhaps apart from Martial ), not just the Spanish contingent as some one suggested down the page.
Oh, and the reason we let the lead slip? Of course, it was all Mourinho' s fault for bringing on Schneiderian. Again - pathetic response. Morgan Schneiderian, despite not playing particularly well at the moment, was one of, if not the best CM is the league at Southampton. An international for a French team with a lot of top class midfielder competing for places. So why exactly is bringing him on for the last few minutes, replacing a player who has taken a knock, such a poor managerial decision?
The team are not where we want them, or where they should be, fair enough. But for those who say we have not improved since Moyes or LvG are talking complete Horlicks.
I am not trying to justify poor results, or accepting mediocrity as some of you call it. I want us to win every game and every title. I did not want Mourinho' to be out manager, I did not want us to sign Pogba for such a ridiculous fee, and I thought we should have signed a younger, quicker striker than Zlatan.
But I am not the manager, and all the above did happen, so let's get on with it and support them. I have openly criticised the players commitment on here, and the effort ( or lack of) that has been put in by them at times.
But yesterday was a decent enough performance for us to be satisfied. We played well, and Arsenal were very lucky to get a goal, let alone a point.
Criticism is fine when it's justified, but moaning and bitching for the sake of it helps no-one. All it does is try to justify the views of those with a very clear agenda.
20 Nov 2016 09:24:33
Good post Betty, let's just support the team and manager, performances are clearly better in the main and results we deserved will surely arrive soon.
20 Nov 2016 09:40:18
Spot on Betty.
20 Nov 2016 09:55:18
great post.
20 Nov 2016 10:05:36
Great post Betty completely agree.
There are does seem to be an element of some posters wallowing in any negatives they can find or they can manifest themselves.
The way we are playing at the moment reminds me of how we played just prior to Cantona joining. Then we were dominating games but struggling to score or finish off games.
I believe the biggest effect Cantona had on the team was belief/ confidence or even arrogance.
Last season we were dominating games with something like 70 percent possession but only a couple of attempts at goal, if that many. This season we are creating a lot more
chances but in doing so give a little of the possession away but still we are trying to play on the front foot.
A little more belief a little more commitment and I think we will start to turn things around.
20 Nov 2016 12:33:17
Couldn't have put it my self Betty. If I'm honest with everyone I actually enjoyed yesterday's game. Apart from the result which was a real sickener I thought the desire and passion the lads showed was brilliant. I would be interested to see the running distance as I would suspect that's the most we have run in a game this season. Players (which I won't name) haven't hit there stride yet but it will come. The footballs better just not getting the results. At the end of the day it's a results driven business like any other. And I am a mourinho fan and I think he is the man to lead us through what looks like a MASSIVE reform of the club from top to bottom. You need to be ruthless and ruffle a few feathers. And so be it. It's going to be horrible because quite frankly the last 4 years have been painful. He just needs time. If 2 years down the line it's the same then we have cause for concern. I really liked his post match interview I thought for the first time he looked like he wanted to be here, praising the players and the fans who were brilliant yesterday. All we can do is support the team whoever is on the pitch and hope the players are working there socks off in training. Jose knows what needs to be done so let's just put the agendas aside and support the team where let's hope we can gain some momentum.
20 Nov 2016 12:50:59
Betty great post.
We played well yesterday and Arsenal did pretty ok. To say they played badly is not the right way as I am sure they were just cautious knowing that Jose is starting to put things in orders given that he is lacking players in certain department. I am sure he will come away fine and lead us to winning ways but he needs to be given time and we need to support him.
More importantly we do not need whining and people saying negative things about our manager and the team now. We have that from our competitors and their fans. We can comment but do not condemn! Constructive criticisms are fine but condemning should not come from our fans. If the manager is not up to mark i am sure the board will ensure he will be history soon. So will highly paid player who lack passion and not proud to play for us.
20 Nov 2016 13:58:37
Stop betty your talking too much sense mate.
I fully agree with everything you said, good post.
20 Nov 2016 14:55:56
Performance was ok against a poor Arsenal. But how you can not see that taking off an attacking player and replacing him with a defensive player did not help Arsenal is astonishing. We had 3 very similar players on the bench to Mata, all more suited to RW in my opinion.
I haven't read many people (if any) criticizing the performance, a couple of players rightfully got a beasting as well, there are a few of us who think Jose went too negative at the end - which is a FACT! The status quo was working, they had no threat, a tactical change effected the game for the negative (yes I know Mata had a knock, but I would argue Young would be ideally placed as he is even more defensive minded than Mata if that's the way Jose wanted to go) .
Jose got it wrong, if we had held on then he would have gotten it right. So creating some illusion that fans are slagging off our overall performance, or mass negativity to shoe horn in positivity doesn't cut it with me.
Who has slagged off the performance or has been overly critical?
Manager made a mistake, we drew when we should have won. However pre game most of us would have taken a draw considering how dire we have been, so all in all a bit of a nothing. That said, we are here to talk about the club and matches, on both fronts everything isn't looking too rosy, so why are a lot of you expecting nothing but positivity? Haven't we been through this over the past 4 years, we tried your silk necklace/ sow's ear strategy. I think some of the moaners deserve a little bit more credit, because they actually want us to change for the good, not dress up a bad situation to make us feel better!
We are doing worse than under Moyes and LVG, look at the league table, look at the Europa League table. Look at outlay, look at chances created and overall performance levels. Just saying stuff because you want it to be true doesn't make it so.
Which players are playing well, Herrera, Valencia, Mata sometimes, the rest pretty much all under performing? Martial has gone backwards, youth aren't getting a look in, stars from last season are being slagged off by the manager, new signings either looking lost or are lost (miki), only Bailley looked worth it. It's just as big a mess as before he came along if not worse.
20 Nov 2016 15:20:33
Beast, you think Arsenal turned up poor and it had nothing to do with us making them look poor?
They could have played Watford yesterday with the same lineup and beaten them 3-0 or so.
20 Nov 2016 16:23:18
Beast do you not think that Arsenal playing badly has to some degree a bit to do with how we played? Credit where credit is due we made Arsenal struggle yesterday and unfortunately did not get the result. We go again and hope results pick up.
20 Nov 2016 16:31:52
Beast, you just cannot help but find fault can you? If Mourinho' had brought on another attacking player and Arsenal scored, you would be slagging him off saying we should have brought on a more defensive player to protect the lead. He can't win either way.
I am not Mourinho' fan, in just the same way as I wasn't a fan of LvG or Moyes. The difference is I don't try to pin the fault on the manager for every mistake that happens on the pitch.
Arsenal's equaliser yesterday was nothing to do with the substitutions. Oxelade Chamberlain went down our left hand side with virtually no challenge, put in a decent cross and Giroud headed in virtually unopposed and the back stick. Where would Mata, or a direct replacement for Mata, have come into that equation?
Mourinho' has made mistakes, and several of them. Agreed.
Most most of our problems this season so far, at least from a defensive point of view, have come from individual errors.
The manager is the manager, end of. He is responsible for tactics, team selections and motivating the players. He cannot, and should not be held responsible for every individual error and lapse in concentration that happens on the pitch.
And that goes for any manager, whether it is Mourinho, LvG or any other manager out there.
20 Nov 2016 16:51:16
Arsenal didn't play well, we contributed to that of course, which is why our performance was ok. If we had won the game then whatever decision Jose made would have seen him get praise by most people, so the decision he made backfired he deserves to be criticised - it's what he is paid to do! He got the big decision wrong, ask 10 people and they may have all done something different, but Jose is the one that counts and he got it wrong - shouldn't be taboo to point this out.
Teams can have off days and I think Arsenal had one, we didn't capitalise. We still didn't attack in numbers or at pace, it reminded me of a Moyes-esque performance, it's just our standards have gone down since then and some people have short memories.
At home, LVG beat Arsenal, Moyes beat Arsenal - Jose drew. There's a nice comparison for you all that think we are on the right track. Our performances were better in those games as well.
20 Nov 2016 17:38:46
instead of saying jose was wrong is there a chance OX was right .
skinned his man and put in a great cross which giroud finished very well.
in a 90 minute game a team like arsenal are going to manage some bit of quality.
20 Nov 2016 17:48:46
Great post, Betty.
I for one was proud of the lads yesterday.
20 Nov 2016 18:31:59
Jred - You could say the same about anything that goes right or wrong mate, the manager isn't on the field so his "mistakes/ successes" are through third parties. Managers take the glory from the exploits of the players they choose, tactics etc, they should take the flak for the players they choose and how they perform. Granted the blame has to go on players as well, or praise, but the manager should either get it in equal measure of not at all.
A lot of our fans are very quick to offer the praise for something not directly in the managers control, yet seem hesitant when he something goes wrong. That said - maybe Ox and Co would have been less inclined to attack if we had replaced Mata with a like-like, sliding doors effect!
20 Nov 2016 19:07:08
beast
is it not a bit of both .
a manager can only do so much not everything is under his control.
also the other team gets a say, you can't get everything right
is wegner a genius for putting ox and giroud on?
20 Nov 2016 21:09:41
The truth is that we played OK yesterday but we only scored one goal. Mourinho changed the system and he invited them to attack us and they did and they scored.
We're one point ahead of Watford. Is this where we want to be? Of course not.
Is it all mourinho's fault? Of course not. The players have to take responsibility and at the moment, some have shown they're not up to the task.
As beast rightly points out, how many players are performing well this year? Hererra Mata valencia. And Bailly from the newcomers. The rest are all underperorming. Even the most die hard fan can see that. So something has to change unless we're happy with mediocrity.