"This level .."

purbeck67

purbeck67

First Team
"I feel sorry for the players because we are ill-equipped at this level." Scott Parker.

Can we accept this comment?

The starting XI.

Travers. 3 caps ROI

Lerma. 30 International caps.

Senesi. 1 cap with Argentina.

Mepham 32 caps including tournament football

Smith Veteran PL player 5 seasons

Cook Capped by England. World cup winner u17

Christie 26 caps Scotland.

Zemura. 6 caps Zimbabwe

Anthony

Tavernier 15 caps England u20

Moore 26 caps for Wales.

Is this really a team not at a level that can compete in the PL?
 
purbeck67 said:
"I feel sorry for the players because we are ill-equipped at this level." Scott Parker.

Can we accept this comment?

The starting XI.

Travers. 3 caps ROI

Lerma. 30 International caps.

Senesi. 1 cap with Argentina.

Mepham 32 caps including tournament football

Smith Veteran PL player 5 seasons

Cook Capped by England. World cup winner u17

Christie 26 caps Scotland.

Zemura. 6 caps Zimbabwe

Anthony

Tavernier 15 caps England u20

Moore 26 caps for Wales.

Is this really a team not at a level that can compete in the PL?
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Need to put it into perspective.

Mepham plays for Wales. Not shy of regularly playing championship players
Smith is a veteran . Plays like one .
Cook won a England youth tournament 5 years ago
Lerma runs but can’t pass.



squad is not good enough . The core experienced pros are not good enough .

Can we stay up , of course . Need to Fight like no tomorrow .
 
bpl234 said:
Need to put it into perspective.

Mepham plays for Wales. Not shy of regularly playing championship players
Smith is a veteran . Plays like one .
Cook won a England youth tournament 5 years ago
Lerma runs but can’t pass.



squad is not good enough . The core experienced pros are not good enough .

Can we stay up , of course . Need to Fight like no tomorrow .
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I'm trying to put it into perspective. We put out a team that the manager claimed isn't at this level. We are not a team 9 goals worse than Liverpool.
You can pick out individual players, but we had a team that should have competed more. Where's the blame for that?
 
Shrewsbury Town lost 4-1 at Anfield last season. Cardiff lost 3-1.

Plymouth got a 0-0 draw a few years back at Anfield.

There's 'this level' in terms of making them get out of first gear and then there's 'this level' in terms of beating a team like Liverpool. Parker seems to have just conflated the 2.
 
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I think we're clearly short of premier League quality when looking at the entire squad. We've got a good number of players who are capable at the level, and probably have a starting XI that could stay up. Once we scratch beneath the surface, we struggle. Even ignoring Parker, we'd need more faces in. With the team under Howe, we had a squad that knew each other and had absolutely zero pressure on them. We also had Howe which, Newcastle fans are appreciating, was the major contributing factor.
 
blandford_cherry said:
Said at the start on paper we are more equipped than we were in 15/16 in terms of experience and quality.

Elphick, Pugh, Steve Cook, Francis, Wilson etc didn’t have a PL appearance between them.
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Agree, better squad, more natural ability, talent... makes mockery of Parkers, comments. Wonder if he's aware of that?
 
Ken Baileys Ghost said:
The truth is that he's right.
Especially Against City Arsenal and Liverpool.

You match any one of our players against his corresponding position and I can't name a single one that is better than his counterpart.

Not their fault.


Against the top 6 it's men against boys.
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Agree, it is true, but then when you look back at the Howe Championship squad, many teams below us had better players throughout the team on paper and certainly most PL teams did too.

Obviously the 'elites' are another level, but 9 nil not excusable on that imo.

My concern is if Parker is a bit like Gerrard, Lampard... needs a lot of money, talented players to make up for their own managerial deficiencies. As said before, I'll reserve judgement until we play a few of the mid table/lower sides.
 
However you look at it this was a freak result. Even given the difference in class it shouldn't have happened. It’s how we stop it happening again that counts. I’d like to see a knee jerk from Parker and change the lot of them. Put out the side that battled against Norwich. Shake up the entitled prats like Smith, Billing, Lerma and let them know they’re not indispensable. Everybody involved yesterday is responsible in a way for what happened including the kit person if they have one. It’s a culture thing.
I’ve got to go to work on Tuesday and face up to Spurs, Arsenal, West Ham, even a couple of Manure plastics. Thank you team.
 
Ivyhouse said:
However you look at it this was a freak result. Even given the difference in class it shouldn't have happened. It’s how we stop it happening again that counts. I’d like to see a knee jerk from Parker and change the lot of them. Put out the side that battled against Norwich. Shake up the entitled prats like Smith, Billing, Lerma and let them know they’re not indispensable. Everybody involved yesterday is responsible in a way for what happened including the kit person if they have one. It’s a culture thing.
I’ve got to go to work on Tuesday and face up to Spurs, Arsenal, West Ham, even a couple of Manure plastics. Thank you team.
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"Even the kit person" just sums up the level of crassness being written on here right no.

As for the work comment: Suck it up. If you can't take the rough with the not-so-rough then, well I don't know.

I'm sure this board is no different to others. Players are great, loyal servants one minute and **************** who wouldn't get in any other Prem team the next. Parker gets adoration for taking us up, then he's a dickhead according to @SlowDownDerek .
 
RobTrent said:
I'm sure this board is no different to others. Players are great, loyal servants one minute and **************** who wouldn't get in any other Prem team the next. Parker gets adoration for taking us up, then he's a dickhead according to @SlowDownDerek .
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The same @SlowDownDerek who hit the roof if anyone criticised him last year. Some People are so fickle in the modern social media/phone in show age.
 
Neil Dawson said:
The same @SlowDownDerek who hit the roof if anyone criticised him last year. Some People are so fickle in the modern social media/phone in show age.
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Fickle? I reckon I'll always criticise any manager who publicly bangs on about how sh*t his team is then throws them under a bus and blames everyone else when they put in arguably the worst performance in the club's history.

That didn't happen last year if my memory serves me correctly.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
Fickle? I reckon I'll always criticise any manager who publicly bangs on about how sh*t his team is then throws them under a bus and blames everyone else when they put in arguably the worst performance in the club's history.

That didn't happen last year if my memory serves me correctly.
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'arguably' doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
 
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