Troy Deeney

What with sleeping with woman and posting on the interweb it is a mystery to me how
some men find the time to do anything else

 

That guy has always been a twunt.

Early KO against Liverpool with a bunch of players he's had one or zero days to work with thanks to internationals. "Oh it's a nightmare!".

Better than having no preparation time for one of our more winnable games. Take the loss, learn from it.

Meanwhile he's probably off bonking himself to Brentford who also got zero points at home.

 

This is the first time that the media seem to have cottoned onto the reality that many of us started to see against Brighton.

All the stuff from pundits when Xisco was sacked was surface deep. 7 points, decent start, 15th in the table. Now people can see the truth. We are appalling and wallowing in trouble. Newcastle and Villa must be furious that they dropped points to us.

 

Well we were in our first season in the Premier League under QSF. For small clubs it’s how you maintain that. Your best players get cherry picked by bigger clubs, their agents fill their heads with the riches that can be achieved elsewhere. Your best managerial appointments also get poached. It’s incredibly difficult for a Spratt in a league full giant predators.

If our owners strategies had resulted in us today being where Sunderland are, then their managerial choices could indeed be contrasted with a team say like Stoke that finished above Chelsea in our first season back in the Premier League.

 

I remember the late Mike Keen's days as Watford manager: He had been a good player and he had a load of sophisticated ideas as to how the game should be played.
Unfortunately, the players in his charge were not as good as he had been and they didn't understand him or weren't good enough to enact his ideas. We were relegated to Division 4. (Then along came Elton John).
I hope the same sort of thing isn't going to happen this season. Several of our players are not good enough for the Prem and several others borderline. They'll need astute handling.
Of course, Ranieri was on a hiding against Liverpool for a whole host of reasons, and he should not be blamed for the inadequacies of players he has hardly seen, let alone worked with.

 

Shows how much thought goes into the deeply held opinions by most of them about us then.

The Brighton game was a huge warning, but here we are, nearly 2 months later, having made zero progress and with a full on crisis evolving.

 

Absolutely right. Brentford are having their day in the sun and I don’t begrudge them that. It might last one or two seasons or, if they do really well, five or six, but they’re not suddenly going to be transformed into a Man United.

 

It'll be far more difficult to bounce back next season. No Sarr. Covid being less prevalent will mean other teams are stronger.

 

I don't think the squad Keen had was too bad:

Rankin, Williams, How, Garner, Joslyn, Bond, Scullion, Jenkins, Mayes, Downes all played regularly & could in no way be viewed as poor players, especially not in Div3.
All but 3 of them played important roles in GT's 1st season. Keen just could not organise the team adequately.

 

Well, that was more or less my point.
Indeed, I remember the oft-repeated refrain: 'We're too good to down.'

 

I thought you meant he expected too much 'intelligent' play from players who weren't up to it. I'm more of the opinion he was incapable of deciding upon what he wanted as a firm base from which to build the clever play those players were capable of delivering.
I saw all but 4 games of that season and it was so dispiriting to see a team full of clearly quality players undone by more limited squads who simply implemented the mucky basics better.
Mind you, nothing can compare to the George Kirby Relegation Season. Yesterday's embarrassment happened every other week against behemoths such as Orient, Carlisle, Oxford.... continue ad nauseam. We got 19 points from 42 games; with the 3 points for a win system we'd have got 24; the next closest to us would have got 45. Our GD would have been -51 That was the season from hell.

 

Well, OK. You've probably pin-pointed it better than I. I don't really think we disagree: The players couldn't enact his coaching, and yet my recollection was that, somewhere along the line, he'd championed elaborate stuff, but the players couldn't/didn't do it. As you would probably be about to point out, Taylor showed how it should be done next season.
(I have some memory, too, that Taylor remarked, early on, that the squad were worth about 12th in the fourth division when he'd had a look at them. Possibly my memory playing tricks).
What I'm currently slightly worried about is Ranieri over-doing the 'tinkering' - having just watched yesterday's debacle.
Luckily I was not near Watford for the Kirby years and saw very little of it.

 

Both, just not the same time!

 

I personally will not accept another tepid performance like Saturdays. Absolutely embarrassing display which lacked any kind of passion or desire to win or even compete. Yes Ranieri has to take responsibility but the majority of the players need to take a real hard look at themselves.

 

If we play like that again the next game or two, my suggestion would be to write this season off and concentrate on something else on Saturday's.

At least the 99/00 relegation team showed some commitment and passion, even though they went down with the then lowest EPL points total.

 

I would agree in principle but the nagging addiction brings me back. Impossible to kick that habit.

 

We had a League One level playing squad in 1999 so it wasn’t a surprise. That couldn’t be helped due to our fast rise.

We have a league one squad now by design.

 

We also started that season with a long injury list, which got worse iirc with Mooney, then Smart getting injured amongst others. At least it prompted the signing of H in January

 

The sad thing is that performance was an improvement on what they dished up at Leeds.
Still no where near good enough but it was an improvement.

 

It wasn't like that every game by all means - remember Wimbledon away, Birmingham in the FA Cup, Derby away, first half against West Ham at home, Southampton away? And those were against far lesser opponents than Liverpool, against which our performance as FromDiv4 says wasn't even the worst this season.

If Saturday's game turns out to be a one-off and we pick up enough points against the lesser teams to survive, then it will easily be forgiven if not forgotten.

 

If Saturday isn't a kick up the arse for Ranieri, the squad and the club in general then we deserve everything we get this season. I can take losing games because our players aren't very good, however I can't accept the spineless performances I saw from some players who are paid a lot of money to do the bare minimum of running around a bit.

 

You missed off the Merson inspired Aston Villa 4-0 romp at Villa Park too...yeah I know there was a lot of dross in that season, but as had been said we were League One (Division 2 back then!) standard really. A one season adventure, but there were some good games in there as well, and some narrow loses which were slightly harsh on us. More often than not you couldn't fault the effort really.

 

Saturday wasn’t a one-off based upon the fact it was the 2nd-3rd time we have been that bad in recent weeks.

 

I meant one-off in terms of performance and result combined. That's the only time I recall that we've got hammered that badly at home by a team that isn't called Manchester City!

 

Which of the players would you say were spineless on Saturday?

 

Kiko, Cathcart, WTE, Masina, Kucka. All lacking fight, bottle and generally not looking bothered at all. Watch the build up for Liverpool's second, all of the players mentioned are at fault. You can throw Sissoko in for that goal as well actually even though he was good otherwise.

 

Masina doing a brainless side foot volley right back into the centre of the pitch from the wing was the highlight of that particular shambles, absolutely idiotic.