Sam Allardyce

[Neiler]

lol mate let’s just go backwards about now 20 years and be the nxt stoke. That’s what we will be mark my words

Haha we are worse then the Stoke team of 20 years ago, but i dont think that Allardyce making.

I honestly believe he has a great chance with us.

 

[Kaiser Soysauce]

Well, here's the thing.

If we had beaten those two relegation haunted teams we would indeed have been quite "near" the top six....whether you think we are "good enough" or not.

As it is, we never even tried to beat them and now face a third consecutive defeat when we go to Spurs.

You just cemented my opinion. We failed to beat them because we're crap. If we can't beat those teams, we have no right to have ambitions for the top 6. That's like saying if we beat Liverpool, Man Utd, Draw against city and beat Arsenal we could've won the league.

 

[Khalekan]

I still think that setting us up defensively is probably the sensible thing to do, but it's diabolical to watch, so I'll leave it to the masochists to enjoy. If he can't get some way to get Everton to offer up some attacking threat in the very near future, I'd even be tempted to bin him off before the end of the season if the club's long term target became available to give him a look at the players already here.

That's all well and good when it is effective....like it was in his first four games.

But the fact is those tactics have yielded just one point in the last three games.

So currently it is neither effective nor entertaining.

So one has to ask what the blooming point of it all is

 

[MickA]

I don't find it bizarre. He doesn't trust our players to not get them out of a defensive set up. That's fine, but it makes for some horrible watching and a couple of gambles and we could have had 3 points instead of 1 and have shown some attacking potential that could be exploited over the rest of the season. It has in my mind put his (very slim) chances at staying in the job back by about 2 weeks, and he probably couldn't even afford that level of slippage to keep him employed (if he actually wants to stay that is). As it is, we've all got faces like slapped backsides and I for one, am rapidly losing interest in this season.

I still think that setting us up defensively is probably the sensible thing to do, but it's diabolical to watch, so I'll leave it to the masochists to enjoy. If he can't get some way to get Everton to offer up some attacking threat in the very near future, I'd even be tempted to bin him off before the end of the season if the club's long term target became available to give him a look at the players already here.

I think the truth is probably somewhere inbetween.

On the flip side, despite playing defensively in all 4 away games we could quite easily have lost the lot. If we continue to drop deep and offer a minimal threat going forward we'll lose the next 5 aways comfortably (splitters, Tottanham, Arsenal, Watford, Burnley).

There has to be a better balance to our play, maybe that will come from signings in January maybe not. But parking the bus (badly) won't cut it for long at all.

 

[Khalekan]

You just cemented my opinion. We failed to beat them because we're crap. If we can't beat those teams, we have no right to have ambitions for the top 6. That's like saying if we beat Liverpool, Man Utd, Draw against city and beat Arsenal we could've won the league.

Irrespective of whether or not we have any "right to have ambitions" the mathematical fact is that if we had tried to beat, and actually succeeded in beating, two relegation candidates we would have been sitting pretty close to the top six right now.

Five points behind Spurs.

And that is undeniable, my friend

 

[Yarrgh]

That's all well and good when it is effective....like it was in his first four games.

But the fact is those tactics have yielded just one point in the last three games.

So currently it is neither effective nor entertaining.

So one has to ask what the blooming point of it all is

It's a pretty good question. You live by the results if those are your tactics though. I was happy when we got the run together when he first joined, but knew it was fairly limited stuff. Now he needs to go up a level - it probably does take time, but just watching it is torture.

To me it seem that all we are doing at the moment is existing as a club until something better comes along.

Nil Satis et al.

 

[Khalekan]

I think the truth is probably somewhere inbetween.

On the flip side, despite playing defensively in all 4 away games we could quite easily have lost the lot. If we continue to drop deep and offer a minimal threat going forward we'll lose the next 5 aways comfortably (splitters, Tottanham, Arsenal, Watford, Burnley).

There has to be a better balance to our play, maybe that will come from signings in January maybe not. But parking the bus (badly) won't cut it for long at all.

Indeed, Mick.

It is a flawed tactic, which as we all know now yielded points at Anfield, Newcastle, Baggies and home to Chelsea despite its negativity, not because of it.

Now that the luck has ran out we are sitting back and witnessing what happens when practically no attempt is made to go out and win a football match.

 

[Kaiser Soysauce]

Irrespective of whether or not we have any "right to have ambitions" the mathematical fact is that if we had tried to beat, and actually succeeded in beating, two relegation candidates we would have been sitting pretty close to the top six right now.

Five points behind Spurs.

And that is undeniable, my friend

As is beating everyone to mathematically win the league.

We'll have good results and bad results. It's fine. The season is over. Personally, finishing in Europe would be a pain. Another new manager, more new players, another season of trying to gel players whilst playing a gazillion games etc. My mum always says "if it's meant to be, it won't pass you by". Let's face it, it's just not meant to be . Further to this, Spurs have a far better squad. Their blip won't last forever so even if we did win those games, we'd have struggled with them as our pace setter....

 

[davek]

I think he deserves to be here beyond the summer mate, he knows what hes at, id agree he has questions to answer in terms of developing this team into a PL team, but i think he deserves a chance to that certainly more and beyond the second day of the transfer window.One of the things i like about him is that what ever quality we have and that is limited he seems to be getting the best of certain players who were abysmal before he took over.

He cant stay beyond May.

Moshiri would be seriously pushing the envelope with a stalling stadium plan and a summer of selling ahead to allow Allardyce to stray beyond this season.

I think he's a bit of a gormless fool, but he's not that stupid.

 

[davek]

That’s the worry. Look at our last search for a manager, completely schizophrenic: Dyche, Silva, Fonseca, Allardyce. Then we’d picked a DOF who had no experience in the role and Koeman who’s track record was very patchy. If we get a good manager it’ll be through luck more than anything. The club, as you said, needs an overhaul from the top down.

If you look at both the Koeman and Silva situations though (and indeed the Sigurdsson transfer) what was lacking was someone with gravitas in the industry at our end of things to sit down and assess what needed to be done (and more importantly what could be done before a good idea became a terrible one).

We employ a David Gill figure and we'll get things right in terms of recruitment.

That should be the way forward: get shut of the ineffective DoF role and get shut of Elstone whilst were at it and recruit a man who can get things done.

 

[davek]

I believe that's the level of football from a squad of inconsistent, average, and mentally weak players.

I stick by the fact that whoever is in charge next season, you're still looking at another rebuild job in 2018/19. Hopefully progress in 2019/20.

So sit patiently

We can do more with this lot than Sam is getting from them. The West Ham performance was very decent. It can be done differently and as, or more, effectively than SA is doing this.

 

[Big_nev]

My lad just sent me this - Meff.

 

[willo30]

We can do more with this lot than Sam is getting from them. The West Ham performance was very decent. It can be done differently and as, or more, effectively than SA is doing this.

The only difference I can see is we are now getting beat by 1 or 2 instead of 3 or 4. Nothing has changed much all season.
We have been riding our luck for a while now and that was always going to run out at some point.
To me West Ham was a decent result but performance wise we were a missed penalty and Hart doing a Hart in gifting Rooney a worldie from a much tighter result.
As I said not much has changed all season under 3 different managers. They can't all be blamed for getting similar results with the same squad.

 

[Toffeelover]

We can do more with this lot than Sam is getting from them. The West Ham performance was very decent. It can be done differently and as, or more, effectively than SA is doing this.

That is what I have repeatedly stated about the 2 games before Man U, we could and should have beaten them, but chucked them away with wrong team selection and subbing allied to poor tactics.

 

[davek]

The only difference I can see is we are now getting beat by 1 or 2 instead of 3 or 4. Nothing has changed much all season.
We have been riding our luck for a while now and that was always going to run out at some point.
To me West Ham was a decent result but performance wise we were a missed penalty and Hart doing a Hart in gifting Rooney a worldie from a much tighter result.
As I said not much has changed all season under 3 different managers. They can't all be blamed for getting similar results with the same squad.

Unsworth was a different situation: unlike the other two he had no backing from the club to be the manager FT. That has to have had an effect on effort at least.