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Draws

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efcfanwirral said:
This is exactly what Liverpool were like 2-3 years ago- lots of draws, but once he'd had the chance to really build a team (and obviously Suarez) they're now putting some of the smaller teams to the sword. I see a similar situation here - once he has chance to build his team properly, and not have to play people like osman when we get one injury, perhaps a bit of luck in finding a match winning shrewd signing then I think we'll be fine

The great things is, in his first season we are sometimes playing badly but still rarely losing - we could have easily lost Monday night and against stoke. While draws may cost us, we could sneak Europe by 1-2 points, in which case those games we may have lost under moyes but kept plugging away and earning a point this year could make a positive difference.
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Good realistic post.
 
Bobby will work on turning draws into wins, don't worry. We should have beat most of them teams with the exception of Spurs Arsenal. I think we really need to start finishing teams off..
 
Just think...

Out of those 9 draws, if we won 4 of them and lost the other 5 we'd still be 3 points better off now. Mad when you think about it..
 
billycopper said:
Norwich 2-2 We had 67% possession and 7 shots on target to their 2.
West Brom 0-0 We had 8 shots on target and 62.3% possession.
Cardiff 0-0 We had 63% possession but only 3 shots on target to their 1.
Spurs 0-0 We edged the possession (52%) but they had 6 shots on target to our 1.
Palace 0-0 We had a 72.8% share of the ball but each team only had 2 shots on target.
Liverpool 3-3 We had slightly more possession (50.7%) but 12 shots on target versus 5 for them.
Arsenal 1-1 We had 55.9% of the ball but they had 5 shots on target compared to our 4.
Stoke 1-1 We had 60.5% of possession. Shots on target was 4 each.
West Brom 1-1 They had 50.1% of the ball and 6 shots on target to our 4.

We did enough to beat Norwich but they were fortunate with ricochets and a misdirected cross.
We had enough opportunities to beat West Brom too.
Surprisingly Cardiff parked the bus at their place and we couldn't create much.
Spurs were excellent in the first half and possibly deserved a win.
Two shots on target at Selhurst Park tells it's own story.
We should have held on against Liverpool.
Arsenal was probably a fair result.
We were unlucky to hit the woodwork twice at the Britannia but ultimately fortunate to rescue the game.
According to the stats we didn't deserve a win at the Hawthorns.

Looking at it there's only really the Arsenal and Stoke games where we've salvaged a point and we didn't deserve to be in a losing position in either of those matches. On the one hand it's positive that we haven't given much of a headstart to other teams but then on the other hand we're not using our possession well enough to control the game and we're not creating enough chances to finish teams off.

Hopefully, McGeady will help and both Barkley and Deulofeu will grow more into their roles when they return. If Baines does sign a new contract and the uncertainty about his future is removed, fingers crossed his form will show an improvement.

As we get to the business end of the season and teams with something to play for realise that a draw is no longer good enough, we should see more open matches too.

Drawing too many games was always a problem under Moyes. It was usually because we lacked ambition or ideas. We have been much more positive this year but maybe our young and precocious forward line has been a bit impetuous and has taken on shots when a pass was the better option? It looks like we're heading in the right direction anyway.
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Good post, mate.

We need a much better final ball, and more killer in our attitude in finishing teams off. As you, I see McGeady and delboy as the final-ball candidates. But not sure where we get the killers from. We've always been a little too nice for our own good.
 
Anyone else think, at this stage of the season, the players/manager need to start adopting the mentality that a draw is not much better than a loss?

If we want to consolidate a CL or even Europa place we need to be going more gung-ho for the wins imo.
 

Toffe3m4n said:
Anyone else think, at this stage of the season, the players/manager need to start adopting the mentality that a draw is not much better than a loss?

If we want to consolidate a CL or even Europa place we need to be going more gung-ho for the wins imo.
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We were doing that in the autumn, not sure what's happened to that "win or lose, we're gonna go for it" mentality.
 

Martinez has said that he thinks 22 points from the last 11 games will get us CL. In an odd sort of way, Martinez knew what to do with Wigan when it got to the business end of the season. Monday's draw was disappointing, considering we should have put the game to bed first half. We have Deuelofeu to come back and MGeady to get match fit, both potential game changers, draws changed into 3 points.
 
dholliday said:
Good post, mate.

We need a much better final ball, and more killer in our attitude in finishing teams off. As you, I see McGeady and delboy as the final-ball candidates. But not sure where we get the killers from. We've always been a little too nice for our own good.
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If you take the West Brom game as an example Mirallas and McCarthy both had really good half-chances but fired straight at the 'keeper. Kev did this a lot last season. He had far more shots on target than anyone else in the side but he wasn't finding the corners of the goal.

Compare that to Liverpool, who had one shot on target away to Villa and won the game 1-0.

Lukaku says that he's having to play with his back to goal and I can understand his frustration. I don't think it's a deliberate tactic but players like Barkley and Mirallas would rather shoot from distance than play him in with a sliderule pass. And if he plays a one two with them he's unlikely to see the ball back again.

Our passing football this season is much better than the percentage game that we saw under Moyes but, unless we mix it up a bit, even that becomes predictable. Lukaku very often has his arm in the air asking for the early ball out of defence. He scored against City that way and knocked on Distin's 'long pass' for Mirallas to score at the Hawthorns. Romelu has scored with headers against West Ham and Liverpool and we have possibly the best crosser in Europe in our side (Baines) but we don't make enough use of it.

Traore will be the tallest player in Premier League history but Martinez has already said that he's not very good in the air and we're unlikely to take advantage of his stature. We don't need to become a long ball team but why not get him training with Big Dunc to improve on his heading, so that we have another tactic to call upon if we're trying to get our noses in front in a tight game?
 
billycopper said:
Traore will be the tallest player in Premier League history but Martinez has already said that he's not very good in the air and we're unlikely to take advantage of his stature. We don't need to become a long ball team but why not get him training with Big Dunc to improve on his heading, so that we have another tactic to call upon if we're trying to get our noses in front in a tight game?
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I hope that's what Dunc's there for. Or is he just looking after the kids?
 

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