I think Kelso makes a good point re progression and perhaps next season starting with a 5. I also think we should look for progression in another area. Since the Pozzo takeover we are a one season manager club. Despite my not being a great fan of Mazzarri I do not think a club can sustain itself by changing manager, coaching staff and many players every year. There will come a year when the Pozzo choice will be less good and then we could go down. We need to build as a club. When all is said and done there are 7 clubs in the Premiership that are massive and when these finish above us we cannot be surprised. That means we are just one win behind being "top of the rest". That ain't so shabby. That despite Mazz being new,not having grasped English yet and having a bad run of injuries. I now feel that holding on to Mazz and seeing if he can take us a bit further forward is the right thing to do.
In terms of points, yes 7 points. But if just two results had gone differently, one each for us and Swansea, then we may have been only one point ahead. Two shots at goal, 6"'s either way, or two refereeing decsions, etc, could have made a big difference. How would we have coped with being only 1 point above relegation? Of course, it is if's and but's, but the difference between winning by the odd goal and losing by the odd goal can be very small. Watching Walter celebrate with his coaching team at the final whistle yesterday shows how close they felt we had been.
But it's not just win or lose there's also a draw available in these games which would still be better for us than them.
Fine lines indeed and is the point I've been making for a long time, but it's often misunderstood. We HAD to win those home games, if we had not or slipped up in just one of them, our situation would have been perilous. Sure we might win at Hull or get a good result in one of the other remaining games, but the luxury now is we don't have to. Going to Chelsea needing a win or City at home needing to win, or Everton away, or Leicester away or Liverpool at home needing to win one or more of those games would have been a very tall order. One I would have no confidence in us achieving. So we've survived and if the results pan out the way I think they will, we wont be very far off the final relegation position by the end of the season. I think the final table will show that we were close to messing it all up this season.
Football quality and excitement 5 out of ten. Would like this to be more like 7/8 out of ten. Results 8/10. Would I risk improving the first at cost of lowering the 2nd? Not if I were Mazzari. Next season with a player or two added in the right areas, we might be able to get more excitement and goals without risking results.
10 goals from Deeney is not a bad return IMO. A quick look at the top scorers and you've got Vardy on 11, Benteke on 12 and Mane on 13 for the season. Are we really expecting us to have a goal scorer on 15/16/17 goals like Sanchez, Costa and Ibrahimovic? Because if we did we'd be a top four club, but we aren't are we?
Well our two main forwards scored 30 between them last season, our top two this season are 10 for Deeney and 3 for Okaka, with Capoue scoring 6 from midfield. I think that is poor in comparison.
We're not the worst team for conceding from set pieces nor at losing the ball zz. And you claim the mantle of being positive?
You want to be taken seriously, yet to post this. My tag line is a tribute to the great man we lost this year. If you want to mock that, it's up to you, but I find that pathetic and in very poor taste.
Yes - but the argument cuts both ways - maybe we got a win or two that was unlikely - but we also got a loss or two that we did not expect. We will end up several points above relegation and will never have been closer than half a dozen points from the bottom three. That is not bad at all. Two years ago we would have been quite happy to have two season where we were never relegation favourites once the season got underway. We would all have liked this season to be a bit better - and perhaps we thought that was why we got Mazzarri. However there a half a dozen Premiership clubs at least that would have swapped seasons with us.
Well we were a few weeks ago, at least for the set pieces. But, you seem so sure, maybe you can point me to the stats, please. Yes, I believe that we can do better. That is far more positive than thinking we can't.
I'm not sure how to link directly as they're basically custom tables but if you go to whoscored.com you'll find it under team statistics. We're joint 6th for set piece goals conceded along with Liverpool, Burnley, Everton and Bournemouth. We've conceded 11 compared to the 17 Crystal Palace have let in. You're certainly right that we were top at one point so Mazzarri deserves credit for addressing that issue. Losing the ball is a bit broader - does it mean failed passes or times incepted in possession? Either way we're not the worst.
Some of these rationales are so futile...we would have been in trouble if we lost more/we could be better off if we won more. No sh@t Sherlock For me this season has been mainly tiresome watching games with limited excitement BUT I'm hugely proud that we remain in the league for another season without really flirting too much with relegation I will now enjoy the remaining games, look forward to the fixture list being released, enjoy reading how we are being linked with people I've never heard of and hope that next season brings more excitement
You were simply asked what would the great man's response have been to your negativity. Seems fair and a perfectly reasonable question to me.
No, we aren't the worst, you are right, but then I said I was only guessing. What is clear though, is that from the website you quoted, it shows that we are 17th overall for various measures of play under the Premier League team stats, with only Sunderland, Hull and Swansea below us. Those stats include passing success, times dispossessed, through balls, etc, etc. 4th from bottom. It doesn't prove anything, of course, but it sort of backs up what I have been saying, as I don't think we have the 4th worse squad.
Quite. We've defended set pieces well since West Brom away, Troy's faux pas at Palarse aside. Whatever Walter's done, it's clearly made a difference.
...and I answered it.....but you felt it necessary to chip in and mock the tag line....for a reason only known to yourself.
Yes. You did answer the question. But then you felt the need to claim it was an inappropriate question in some way. It wasn't.
Of course it was inappropriate. He linked the two things which were totally unrelated and you backed this, in fact claiming it was I that did this. A tag line is a personal thing which should not be used against someone, just to win a cheap argument. It's a low tactic from BRLT, which I expect from someone like him, but for you to back him up makes you even worse.
Last season we scored 40 goals. This season we've scored 37 so far. So it looks to me like we're currently on target to slightly better last year in the goals scored department then. Last season's criticism was 'midfielders not contributing enough goals' and this season it's 'strikers not scoring enough goals'. I don't really care who scores the goals as long as there are more of them.
Oh shut the **** up you total dullard. I've had more fun with toothache than reading your mind-numbing tedious pedantic *******s
Quite. Don't give him the attention he desperately craves in each match thread and he may revert to a somewhat normal poster.
Today showed the good and the bad of Walter? Good: the opposition didn't have a sniff Bad: we didn't show up Wow, even accounting for it not being a match day, it still rings true.
The view of this season and Walter seems dependent on 2 things: Do we think our squad is top 10? Has our season been disrupted by injuries? Apparently thinking injuries make no difference and our squad should be challenging for a European place is positive. ZZ and HB1, can we now officially call you happy clappers?
Sorry, I dont know what your post is on about. I just believe we can do better if our current squad. Is that a crime, or something?
