Relegation

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Just don’t need to panic and get something from Leeds to stop the rot.

Lampard needs to switch things around until he can find a formation that gives us enough to get a result or two, then the confidence might come back.

The players are a disgrace though, to go from the levels against Brentford to last night is exactly what they’re all about, midfield and defence are just a complete shambles.
 
If a team come out and decide they want it, we turn to jelly. The thought of thinking "we want it more" goes out of the window with these players.

This has to change, the looks in the players eyes last night was simple fear and bewilderment, they wanted the 90 minutes over with and to get back to comfort.

I'd not trust this lot against Borehamwood now, because if Borehamwood want it they'll get it, a fast start and a few crunching tackles and this lot will be on the back foot, it'll not be a Brentford game again, they did not want the cup, just survival in the league hence the lack of desire.

Put an U23 team out against them, a team where the lads will "out want" Borehamwood as these guys can't do it.

No blame on Frank here by the way, or for that matter Benitez, they've had to inherit crap and pay the price for doing so.

Will we go down? No, it's Everton. We'll string a run of games together before long that'll have us sitting on top of the form table for 6 or 7 games and have us asking "Where TF did that come from", then they'll return to the usual underachieving rabble we've come to know.
 
Street end man said:
If a team come out and decide they want it, we turn to jelly. The thought of thinking "we want it more" goes out of the window with these players.

This has to change, the looks in the players eyes last night was simple fear and bewilderment, they wanted the 90 minutes over with and to get back to comfort.

I'd not trust this lot against Borehamwood now, because if Borehamwood want it they'll get it, a fast start and a few crunching tackles and this lot will be on the back foot, it'll not be a Brentford game again, they did not want the cup, just survival in the league hence the lack of desire.

Put an U23 team out against them, a team where the lads will "out want" Borehamwood as these guys can't do it.

No blame on Frank here by the way, or for that matter Benitez, they've had to inherit crap and pay the price for doing so.

Will we go down? No, it's Everton. We'll string a run of games together before long that'll have us sitting on top of the form table for 6 or 7 games and have us asking "Where TF did that come from", then they'll return to the usual underachieving rabble we've come to know.
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oh god, not that again again again again
 
Im surprised people are putting so much stock into the Newcastle result to be honest. They’ve just had a two week break, coming on a high after signing a number of players and with a boisterous crowd behind them was never going to be an easy game.

The match against Leeds will be more of a barometer of where we’re at because it’s the home games that are crucial when you’re in poor form. The result against Brentford gives me hope that at Goodison we will pick up wins and draws.

Based on the form of Watford and Norwich I’ll be very surprised if four wins and a few draws isn’t enough to be clear of 18th. They’ve both won four games from 22, they would then have to win at least five from 16 games which is extremely unlikely.
 

Street end man said:
If a team come out and decide they want it, we turn to jelly. The thought of thinking "we want it more" goes out of the window with these players.

This has to change, the looks in the players eyes last night was simple fear and bewilderment, they wanted the 90 minutes over with and to get back to comfort.

I'd not trust this lot against Borehamwood now, because if Borehamwood want it they'll get it, a fast start and a few crunching tackles and this lot will be on the back foot, it'll not be a Brentford game again, they did not want the cup, just survival in the league hence the lack of desire.

Put an U23 team out against them, a team where the lads will "out want" Borehamwood as these guys can't do it.

No blame on Frank here by the way, or for that matter Benitez, they've had to inherit crap and pay the price for doing so.

Will we go down? No, it's Everton. We'll string a run of games together before long that'll have us sitting on top of the form table for 6 or 7 games and have us asking "Where TF did that come from", then they'll return to the usual underachieving rabble we've come to know.
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I subscribed to all of the above with the exception of the last sentence.
There simply is no fight amongst the squad, nobody willing to see the situation were in. Another game less in which to nick even a point.
I see calls for us to turn GP into a bear pit on Saturday. The only team benefitting from that will be our opponents.
 
Brennan said:
Im surprised people are putting so much stock into the Newcastle result to be honest. They’ve just had a two week break, coming on a high after signing a number of players and with a boisterous crowd behind them was never going to be an easy game.

The match against Leeds will be more of a barometer of where we’re at because it’s the home games that are crucial when you’re in poor form. The result against Brentford gives me hope that at Goodison will pick up wins and draws.

Based on the form of Watford and Norwich I’ll be very surprised if four wins and a few draws isn’t enough to be clear of 18th. They’ve both won four games from 22, they would then have to win at least five from 16 games which is extremely unlikely.
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They’ve been underperforming all season. They’ve got some decent players especially in attack and the new signings have shored things up under defence. Willock Shelvey and Joelinton will battle in midfield which are players either won’t or don’t have the mobility to. Both teams have terrible defences.
 
Saint Domingo said:
They’ve been underperforming all season. They’ve got some decent players especially in attack and the new signings have shored things up under defence. Willock Shelvey and Joelinton will battle in midfield which are players either won’t or don’t have the mobility to. Both teams have terrible defences.
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We need Dom starting on the weekend because none of the other striker options are suited to playing alone in a 433 for me.
 
Brennan said:
Im surprised people are putting so much stock into the Newcastle result to be honest. They’ve just had a two week break, coming on a high after signing a number of players and with a boisterous crowd behind them was never going to be an easy game.

The match against Leeds will be more of a barometer of where we’re at because it’s the home games that are crucial when you’re in poor form. The result against Brentford gives me hope that at Goodison we will pick up wins and draws.

Based on the form of Watford and Norwich I’ll be very surprised if four wins and a few draws isn’t enough to be clear of 18th. They’ve both won four games from 22, they would then have to win at least five from 16 games which is extremely unlikely.
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100% this. Not denying it was a sobering result and there were some really poor performances, but we had a 2 day turnaround, a number of key players missing and were completely screwed over by losing another 2 key players within about half an hour. It would have been a hell of an effort to get something out of the game in the circumstances.
 

One of the things I've been pondering is the injury situation.

We have had a huge number of strains and tears this year. I remember reading about how Benitez (because he knows better than everyone) believes that you should only ever have your squad operating at 70-80% fitness and that his medical team push this theory - incidentally I know some people who work in sports science and they either raised their eyebrows or laughed at this statement, so go figure.

If we then factor in that for Ferguson and Lampard's 3 combined matches, we have expected the players to run more and close down, is the fact that we have had 3 major muscle injuries and a reoccurrence of Gray's hip injury, that much of a shock? We already have an injury prone side and appear to have been dangerously undercooked this year.

I believe it is more than coincidence or bad luck that these injuries have hit.
 
Brennan said:
We need Dom starting on the weekend because none of the other striker options are suited to playing alone in a 433 for me.
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I don’t think the back 3 suits us, it puts a lot of onus on the team to move the ball between the lines which we can’t and to close down space which we can’t. I’ve not liked it under any manager.

Each one of the last 5 has gone to it though because they see the weakness in our CBs and full backs and expect a back 5 will provide some defensive steel. I’m hoping that the game last night might have convinced Lampard that we might be better blasting our way out of this than trying to control games and win them 1 or 2 nil.

I’d just go 433 with DCL Richarlison and Gordon upfront and try and scrap our way to a few home wins.
 
Wat Tyler said:
We need to go on a little run, not even a run, just like a “2 defeats in 8” sort of upturn, but you just can’t see it at the minute. We need clean sheets, three all season is pitiful.

Looking at the fixtures, there’s a host of games you can see us getting nothing from, Liverpool, City, Spurs, Chelsea, Man U, probably West Ham and Leicester away too. And when you look at that, that gives us about ten games to get about 18 points from. Terrifying
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the thing is, we'll prob end up getting 4 points from that and then just scrape through with a bad point total against the weaker teams
 
Brennan said:
Im surprised people are putting so much stock into the Newcastle result to be honest. They’ve just had a two week break, coming on a high after signing a number of players and with a boisterous crowd behind them was never going to be an easy game.

The match against Leeds will be more of a barometer of where we’re at because it’s the home games that are crucial when you’re in poor form. The result against Brentford gives me hope that at Goodison we will pick up wins and draws.

Based on the form of Watford and Norwich I’ll be very surprised if four wins and a few draws isn’t enough to be clear of 18th. They’ve both won four games from 22, they would then have to win at least five from 16 games which is extremely unlikely.
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I don't think it's that I think we are definitely going down. I'm still fairly optimistic we can scrape our way to 16th or 17th. It's more the fact that last night was a big chance to relieve the pressure and we blew it. Now the realisation is setting in that we are going to be in a scrap for the rest of the season and are going to be feeling very uncomfortable.

Home games will decide our future because I'd be surprised we win more than 1 more away game. If we can win 4 out of 9 at home and pick up another point or 2 at Goodison, we will probably be ok.

Crucial games are going to be....

Leeds H
Southampton A
Wolves H
Watford A
Burnley A
Newcastle H
Leicester H
Palace H
Brentford H

Even home games against United or Chelsea we need to target for points. We need to find 5 more wins and its achievable. Losing on Saturday makes it an awful lot harder. We really need a result, ideally a win.
 
Saint Domingo said:
I don’t think the back 3 suits us, it puts a lot of onus on the team to move the ball between the lines which we can’t and to close down space which we can’t. I’ve not liked it under any manager.

Each one of the last 5 has gone to it though because they see the weakness in our CBs and full backs and expect a back 5 will provide some defensive steel. I’m hoping that the game last night might have convinced Lampard that we might be better blasting our way out of this than trying to control games and win them 1 or 2 nil.

I’d just go 433 with DCL Richarlison and Gordon upfront and try and scrap our way to a few home wins.
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Injuries will force the manager's hand away from the back 3 anyway. He doesn't have the numbers available.
 

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