Diego Rico

I would agree with that if Rico was the sole reason we didn't win that game; but he wasn't. And I'm not convinced that playing Daniels would have made a difference; he might even have been worse.


Agreed - we need to move on from Charlie - he has been a great player for the club, but Rico and Kelly have to be used now.
 
Tough call for Eddie on Saturday. Select Rico and further errors at LB/WB will surely cost us - and cost him what remaining confidence he's got. Drop him and play Smith or Daniels at left LB/WB and it's a vote of no confidence in Rico.

Sorry to say I'd play Smithy or Charlie at LB in a back four (Stacey at RB?). We need some solidity and CBs who can be confident the wings are holding.
 
Difficult environment to try people out in the premier league... drop points against teams you should win and then go into a sequence of games against the top six and all of a sudden your season is defined. Our start last year ended up saving us. Had we not had a clearly defined way of playing early on we would have gone down on the points we got after November.

We can’t be feeling anyone in at the start of this season. Villa up next then anyone feeling lots of points coming from City, Leicester and Everton?? If Daniels was fit he should have started in my opinion. Not because he is the future but because he understands his role and he is good enough for Sheff U.
We struggled after the end of October last season for 2 very simple reasons
1. The crazy long term injury situation that started with Smith at Newcastle, and
2. The fact that we only played 1 game against a top 6 side in the first 10 games, leaving 11 games in the next 28.
It isn't rocket science.
 
Tough call for Eddie on Saturday. Select Rico and further errors at LB/WB will surely cost us - and cost him what remaining confidence he's got. Drop him and play Smith or Daniels at left LB/WB and it's a vote of no confidence in Rico.

Sorry to say I'd play Smithy or Charlie at LB in a back four (Stacey at RB?). We need some solidity and CBs who can be confident the wings are holding.

If you want solidity then you should be going for Rico; Daniels is the furthest thing from adding "solidity". Rico outperformed Smith last week in Defensive stats; the problem was his attacking, which was poor.
 
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We struggled after the end of October last season for 2 very simple reasons
1. The crazy long term injury situation that started with Smith at Newcastle, and
2. The fact that we only played 1 game against a top 6 side in the first 10 games, leaving 11 games in the next 28.
It isn't rocket science.

Convenient to use injuries but it was more than that. Think back to games like when we gave Fulham their first away win of a miserable season. We had a much better squad than them injuries or not but couldn’t muster effort or a shot worth talking about.

We did have an easy start last year. All the more reason to have started with the team that smashed Lyon and a well drilled system considering the first two games were against relegation rivals.

Last year we smashed Marseille and went into the first game with the same team and system. This year we could have done the same and swapped Lerma in for Ofmborh chap.
 
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Or ... had we not suffered a shed load of injuries from Christmas onwards we would have carried on as we were.

Fascinating. When I was saying our training created injuries you were one of the people triumphantly producing stats showing that our injuries were mid table at best. Loads of teams with worse than us.

Now it’s ‘our shed load of injuries ruined our season’

Zero consistency from the apparatchiks.
 
Convenient to use injuries but it was more than that. Think back to games like when we gave Fulham their first away win of a miserable season. We had a much better squad than them injuries or not but couldn’t muster effort or a shot worth talking about.

Convenient for what? Not all of us are trying to blame everything on one very specific theory.
 
Fascinating. When I was saying our training created injuries you were one of the people triumphantly producing stats showing that our injuries were mid table at best. Loads of teams with worse than us.

Now it’s ‘our shed load of injuries ruined our season’

Zero consistency from the apparatchiks.

Was I? Sounds like someone else to me.

I've said, as I said at the time, that our injuries hit us hard. I don't know what the stats say about other teams and don't really care but our injuries were in key positions and led to all sorts of problems.

What I criticised you for was your weird insistence that all our problems were down to our coaching staff not having top level experience, as if they rather than the medical staff were responsible for advising on fitness issues. I think at one point you even said the sports science and medical team had no input into our training methods. Bizarre how you just make stuff up to try and prove such an odd point.
 
It's "solidity" NWCherries98, rather than "solidarity". I'm sure Rico offers solidarity - there seems to be a good squad spirit and he seems a wholehearted player. The problem is his ability, at present, to lock down the LB spot.
 
Convenient to use injuries but it was more than that. Think back to games like when we gave Fulham their first away win of a miserable season. We had a much better squad than them injuries or not but couldn’t muster effort or a shot worth talking about.
I remember the game well, we played like a team with the foot off the gas because we were safe, remember it was just 7 days after we thumped Brighton 5-0 and everyone seemed to have gone off on holiday.
Fulham were down but with their new manager giving them a bit of a temporary bounce, they had just beaten Everton the week before.
Of course we had a better team than them although they vastly underperformed as they actually had a few decent players - Sessegnon, Mitrovic, Chambers, Schurlle.
Bottom line is injuries (lack of at the start) and a very lop sided fixture list combined to put us in a false position at the end of October. Of course other factors influence it but those are the main 2 imo. I remember saying at the start of last season that if we didn't have 18 - 20 points by the end of October we could be in trouble and that was before we lost a number of our most important players for long periods of time.
 
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It's "solidity" NWCherries98, rather than "solidarity". I'm sure Rico offers solidarity - there seems to be a good squad spirit and he seems a wholehearted player. The problem is his ability, at present, to lock down the LB spot.

Got my words mixed up; Rico offers much more solidity than Daniels IMO, based on recent performances.
 
Convenient for what? Not all of us are trying to blame everything on one very specific theory.

I think using injuries hides us from dealing with the truths. We haven’t got variation in our play and / because our coaching isn’t up to it. We had excellent players to pick from and we underperformed continually week after week. Just harking on to the fact we didn’t have Franno, Daniels, Stanislas and Cook... four players 75% of the people on here don’t like playing anyway is whitewashing over the facts.

Our key top players Cook, Fraser, Lerma Ake and Wilson were around as much as other teams key players.
 
I remember the game well, we played like a team with the foot off the gas because we were safe, remember it was just 7 days after we thumped Brighton 5-0 and everyone seemed to have gone off on holiday.
Fulham were down but with their new manager giving them a bit of a temporary bounce, they had just beaten Everton the week before.
Of course we had a better team than them although they vastly underperformed as they actually had a few decent players - Sessegnon, Mitrovic, Chambers, Schurlle.
Bottom line is injuries (lack of at the start) and a very lop sided fixture list combined to put us in a false position at the end of October. Of course other factors influence it but those are the main 2 imo. I remember saying at the start of last season that if we didn't have 18 - 20 points by the end of October we could be in trouble and that was before we lost a number of our most important players for long periods of time.

It’s all about opinions.

I think we lacked rhythm and a system and injuries didn’t help. This season we opened up with more poor rhythm and no clue on the system we were playing after a summer of getting ready and having played a different system really well in pre season. We didn’t even make subs.

Those are the things we should be worried about rather than thinking it might have been better if we had Franno and Gosser available.
 
I think using injuries hides us from dealing with the truths. We haven’t got variation in our play and / because our coaching isn’t up to it. We had excellent players to pick from and we underperformed continually week after week. Just harking on to the fact we didn’t have Franno, Daniels, Stanislas and Cook... four players 75% of the people on here don’t like playing anyway is whitewashing over the facts.

Our key top players Cook, Fraser, Lerma Ake and Wilson were around as much as other teams key players.
Wilson missed 9 games post xmas, Steve Cook 7 games, Adam Smith 13 games, David Brooks 9 games. I can also recall Ake clearly not match fit playing and struggling because we had no one else to play at centre back on occasions. Those are key players.
You also seem to suggest that Franno and Daniels are not key players - well when you also have Adam Smith and Steve Cook out I would suggest they are pretty important.
 
I think using injuries hides us from dealing with the truths. We haven’t got variation in our play and / because our coaching isn’t up to it. We had excellent players to pick from and we underperformed continually week after week. Just harking on to the fact we didn’t have Franno, Daniels, Stanislas and Cook... four players 75% of the people on here don’t like playing anyway is whitewashing over the facts.

Our key top players Cook, Fraser, Lerma Ake and Wilson were around as much as other teams key players.

Your truths are not my truths.

We're just a mid table side Neil, we did well early doors because we had kind fixtures. We did badly in the difficult fixtures then struggled with injuries.

We've always struggled breaking down defensive sides and suffer periods in every game when the opposition control the ball. This happened on Saturday, at the start of last season despite our good run, in fact it's happened in every season we've had in the top flight. This is, unfortunately, what life is like in the top flight for the also-ran clubs. The promised land apparently.
 
It’s all about opinions.

I think we lacked rhythm and a system and injuries didn’t help. This season we opened up with more poor rhythm and no clue on the system we were playing after a summer of getting ready and having played a different system really well in pre season. We didn’t even make subs.

Those are the things we should be worried about rather than thinking it might have been better if we had Franno and Gosser available.
I agree the system on saturday was bewildering, bit like the first half hour at scummers last season before he changed it. Not sure Franno and Gosling would have changed it much but Brooks and Lewis Cook might.
 
I think Neil is wrong in the messages above. The main problem was our weakness in midfield. With L. Cook out we were left with players who surrendered the ball far too easily, putting pressure on the back four (occasionally three) as the ball constantly came back into our defensive third. Lerma couldn't do it all himself ... hopefully Billings will make the difference. Too early to say it's down to the coaching ... what a subversive thought!
 
How many games has he actually played for us ?...Seeing as there are posters who still think Ibe needs more opportunities let’s not make Rico the new scapegoat quite yet ,particularly as the crowd can have a lot of effect on the confidence of any player positioned out wide .

We shouldn't have any scapegoats.
 
Difficult environment to try people out in the premier league... drop points against teams you should win and then go into a sequence of games against the top six and all of a sudden your season is defined. Our start last year ended up saving us. Had we not had a clearly defined way of playing early on we would have gone down on the points we got after November.

We can’t be feeling anyone in at the start of this season. Villa up next then anyone feeling lots of points coming from City, Leicester and Everton?? If Daniels was fit he should have started in my opinion. Not because he is the future but because he understands his role and he is good enough for Sheff U.

Come on Neil, there's no such thing as a game 'you should win' following AFCB over the years tells you that.
 
Convenient to use injuries but it was more than that. Think back to games like when we gave Fulham their first away win of a miserable season. We had a much better squad than them injuries or not but couldn’t muster effort or a shot worth talking about.
.

I think in previous years injuries have been a big part of it Neil. In the Fulham game you mention, we played most of the game with zero width (as we had four centre halves playing across the back) against a team that had 11 men behind the ball. Little wonder we created zilch.

The injuries have sometimes forced Eddie's hand in terms of tactics/formations too. Look at the defensive horror show away at Man U just after Christmas - I don't think we would've played 3-5-2 except we had nobody fit who could even do a job at right back.

There are no excuses this year - as everyone has said, we bought well in the transfer market and have finally added some actual squad depth. That's why Saturday was so frustrating - strongest bench & squad we've ever had and we choose that shape/team and refuse to change it. EH's tactics to blame there, not injuries.
 

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