Am I the only one who thinks we actually looked like a sorta not-awful team at the beginning of the season? :avbshock:
Maybe I'm imagining things (this season does have a rather surreal quality to it O_O), but I could've sworn there was something in the way we cruised through Cardiff and Swansea and Norwich - like a young prizefighter warming up and very tentatively starting to believe in themselves, but without yet the swagger of a proven champion. On the Cardiff and Norwich forums, they were saying that we were the best team they'd seen roll up at theirs in ages, *including* City and Chelsea, and that's high fucking praise considering how universally disliked we are (not ridiculously rich enough to be totally out of reach like the oil barons, not poor enough to be plucky underdogs like Everton). Yeah we weren't smashing five or six past them with ludicrous ease, but our performances reminded me a lot of Liverpool's earlier games under Rodgers - the ideas were there, the chances were there, it was just that they/we were hilariously unclinical in front of goal and they/we could do with being more flexible about the constant high press (which was compressing our own space half the time).
Then Rose got injured, and everything started unraveling from there like a bad nightmare. Not terribly surprising imo when your system is so reliant on dynamic FBs who provide both the attacking width *and* the cover for your high line.
I don't think a system that relies so much on a few key players can be called resilient, and resiliency is absolutely key if you want to achieve anything over the course of a season, but that doesn't mean all the ideas - and players - were bad either. I think we actually showed plenty of promise and that means we have something to work with here, and it would be a damn shame to give that up just because we have a gaping hole in a few positions and a massive crisis of confidence. This isn't like our "2 points, 8 games" run, where we couldn't even glimpse any semblance of hope in that entire period after the Carling Cup win and everyone was calling Modric a floptastic pool of overhyped, under-sized mediocrity - rather, our current Dark Ages is more like we'd been doing plenty of good things, we just got stopped in our tracks because any system trying to weave together seven strangers from distant lands plus two youngsters (Rose and Townsend) is a fragile one that is terribly easy to grind to halt if you remove one gear. We're not Swansea much less Arse, we don't have an ethos instilled throughout the entire club for years and years such that anyone could come in and slide in perfectly like interchangeable, removable clockwork. What we did have was the beginnings of chemistry that *could've* settled into something greater over time, but it was a very delicate ecosystem that collapsed like Jenga because it never had time to sink in or acquire/develop actual back-up who could maintain that very careful configuration of chemistry.
What I mean to say is that we're not shit at all, and we didn't have a rubbish summer - in fact, our early performances show that we signed some damn fine players this summer and they were in fact signed along a real vision, but right now our *entire team* is out of form and low on confidence and those things are destroying our composure both at the back (increasing defensive errors) and front (letting the cold wind of self-doubt creep in, the bane of any striker). We're moaning about our luck atm but really, isn't that what confidence is? That extra bit of "luck" that means sharpness. At least part of our current rubbishness is coming from our heads, not our innate quality, or management, or fans.
So it's up to whoever our manager is to get into all our heads and turn the entire ship around, and that's not an easy task. But in the meantime, I think we have some not-utterly-awful things blowing our way
. For one, we have the opportunity to plug some of our glaring gaps because it's nearly January, so soon we might not have to replace an aggressive attacking FB with a slow-ish conservative one (or a CB who just gets very annoyed at having to play LB), and we might unearth a CB who is both fast enough for the high line and dominant in the air (I love Vlad rather shamelessly, but that weakness is too easy to exploit without an ideal partner beside him). This is probably wishful thinking since it's so hard to get good players in Jan, but we did make a small profit over the summer so I'm hoping we can put that + the new TV money to some use. Or at least look more towards our youth now that the merry trio are in charge.
Secondly, Adebayor's performance suggests he can be brought back into the fold without canned laughter playing in the background. He really flourished linking up with VdV and Bale in attack, so I think/hope/pray it's not out of the thinking he can find some chemistry with Eriksen, Townsend, and Lamela, all AMs who get involved in build-up and can pick out a clever pass (don't laugh, I *swear* I've seen Townsend do this!). I think at least part of Ade's poor form last season came from the fact you rarely build any kind of partnership with Defoe and Dempsey - they're finishers, they're not about to show for the ball consistently or build a move with you. Soldado is a poacher too, but he's used to a very fluid, on-the-ground style of play at Valencia so at least he knows how to move to take advantage of it. And if we, say, play at least one inverted winger now that Rose is back and Townsend is injured, Ade could be very useful since he loves peeling out wide so much and has done pretty well creating for whoever's driving through the center (VdV and Bale then, and now Soldado, Eriksen, and occasionally Paulinho, along with Lamela's darting runs from the right).
Moreover, for all our doom and gloom a number of our players have actually *improved* from last season, whether that's because they've acclimated to the league or just matured a little more. Personally I think that Walker, Holtby, and Rose have progressed at least, which I'm hoping we file under that "Let's not judge players too quickly" category. Within that category btw is our RECORD signing OF ALL TIME, who has barely seen the pitch so far. I'm not saying that Lamela's transfer fee guarantees he'll make a massive difference to our play, but Christ, he needs time, support, and the room to make some mistakes without being torn to pieces for it. It's not like he can be any less productive than our wide players so far - damning praise, but the very fact he's not into potshots from thirty yards out would force a change in style and drag us into the box more.
I do believe Lamela has a lot of other issues to work on, among them being more aggressive and being less sloppy with his passing under pressure, but I think Sherwood/whomever should just tell him to get out there and rip into this lot like an utter bastard because we really have nothing to lose. That might be our biggest "benefit" of parting ways with AVB - most of us don't actually expect Sherwood to make top four or win anything, so why not play without fear? It's an opportunity to try new things, give the youth and newbies more of a chance - and by that I don't mean "farkin' run around a bit", but rather that our fans may be better able to accept the inevitable bumps on the road towards whatever long-term system we choose if we don't expect to see the fruits of our labors this season. Right now we're perhaps focused too much on results and that pressure is ironically *hurting* our results, when we could do better in the long haul by going the Brendon Rodgers route and stubbornly focusing on implementing our ideas first even if we get stuffed by a Hull from time to time.
Anyways, that's just me, Miss Positivity rambling
. I do think we have some hardcore issues to work on or buy our way out of, but reports of the death of this club have been greatly exaggerated. Mainly I just can't honestly say I think we've sucked as much as a sleepwalking tax form all season like others have been arguing, because I was really pleased with some things I was seeing early on and I'm pretty devastated it didn't work out. I don't think managers are ultimately irreplaceable though unless you miraculously luck into an SAF or Wenger, so AVB's departure isn't the end of the world to me either (though I'll certainly be VERY interested in seeing Levy's next decision now, and over-analyzing it as usual ).
Maybe I'm imagining things (this season does have a rather surreal quality to it O_O), but I could've sworn there was something in the way we cruised through Cardiff and Swansea and Norwich - like a young prizefighter warming up and very tentatively starting to believe in themselves, but without yet the swagger of a proven champion. On the Cardiff and Norwich forums, they were saying that we were the best team they'd seen roll up at theirs in ages, *including* City and Chelsea, and that's high fucking praise considering how universally disliked we are (not ridiculously rich enough to be totally out of reach like the oil barons, not poor enough to be plucky underdogs like Everton). Yeah we weren't smashing five or six past them with ludicrous ease, but our performances reminded me a lot of Liverpool's earlier games under Rodgers - the ideas were there, the chances were there, it was just that they/we were hilariously unclinical in front of goal and they/we could do with being more flexible about the constant high press (which was compressing our own space half the time).
Then Rose got injured, and everything started unraveling from there like a bad nightmare. Not terribly surprising imo when your system is so reliant on dynamic FBs who provide both the attacking width *and* the cover for your high line.
I don't think a system that relies so much on a few key players can be called resilient, and resiliency is absolutely key if you want to achieve anything over the course of a season, but that doesn't mean all the ideas - and players - were bad either. I think we actually showed plenty of promise and that means we have something to work with here, and it would be a damn shame to give that up just because we have a gaping hole in a few positions and a massive crisis of confidence. This isn't like our "2 points, 8 games" run, where we couldn't even glimpse any semblance of hope in that entire period after the Carling Cup win and everyone was calling Modric a floptastic pool of overhyped, under-sized mediocrity - rather, our current Dark Ages is more like we'd been doing plenty of good things, we just got stopped in our tracks because any system trying to weave together seven strangers from distant lands plus two youngsters (Rose and Townsend) is a fragile one that is terribly easy to grind to halt if you remove one gear. We're not Swansea much less Arse, we don't have an ethos instilled throughout the entire club for years and years such that anyone could come in and slide in perfectly like interchangeable, removable clockwork. What we did have was the beginnings of chemistry that *could've* settled into something greater over time, but it was a very delicate ecosystem that collapsed like Jenga because it never had time to sink in or acquire/develop actual back-up who could maintain that very careful configuration of chemistry.
What I mean to say is that we're not shit at all, and we didn't have a rubbish summer - in fact, our early performances show that we signed some damn fine players this summer and they were in fact signed along a real vision, but right now our *entire team* is out of form and low on confidence and those things are destroying our composure both at the back (increasing defensive errors) and front (letting the cold wind of self-doubt creep in, the bane of any striker). We're moaning about our luck atm but really, isn't that what confidence is? That extra bit of "luck" that means sharpness. At least part of our current rubbishness is coming from our heads, not our innate quality, or management, or fans.
So it's up to whoever our manager is to get into all our heads and turn the entire ship around, and that's not an easy task. But in the meantime, I think we have some not-utterly-awful things blowing our way
. For one, we have the opportunity to plug some of our glaring gaps because it's nearly January, so soon we might not have to replace an aggressive attacking FB with a slow-ish conservative one (or a CB who just gets very annoyed at having to play LB), and we might unearth a CB who is both fast enough for the high line and dominant in the air (I love Vlad rather shamelessly, but that weakness is too easy to exploit without an ideal partner beside him). This is probably wishful thinking since it's so hard to get good players in Jan, but we did make a small profit over the summer so I'm hoping we can put that + the new TV money to some use. Or at least look more towards our youth now that the merry trio are in charge. Secondly, Adebayor's performance suggests he can be brought back into the fold without canned laughter playing in the background. He really flourished linking up with VdV and Bale in attack, so I think/hope/pray it's not out of the thinking he can find some chemistry with Eriksen, Townsend, and Lamela, all AMs who get involved in build-up and can pick out a clever pass (don't laugh, I *swear* I've seen Townsend do this!). I think at least part of Ade's poor form last season came from the fact you rarely build any kind of partnership with Defoe and Dempsey - they're finishers, they're not about to show for the ball consistently or build a move with you. Soldado is a poacher too, but he's used to a very fluid, on-the-ground style of play at Valencia so at least he knows how to move to take advantage of it. And if we, say, play at least one inverted winger now that Rose is back and Townsend is injured, Ade could be very useful since he loves peeling out wide so much and has done pretty well creating for whoever's driving through the center (VdV and Bale then, and now Soldado, Eriksen, and occasionally Paulinho, along with Lamela's darting runs from the right).
Moreover, for all our doom and gloom a number of our players have actually *improved* from last season, whether that's because they've acclimated to the league or just matured a little more. Personally I think that Walker, Holtby, and Rose have progressed at least, which I'm hoping we file under that "Let's not judge players too quickly" category. Within that category btw is our RECORD signing OF ALL TIME, who has barely seen the pitch so far. I'm not saying that Lamela's transfer fee guarantees he'll make a massive difference to our play, but Christ, he needs time, support, and the room to make some mistakes without being torn to pieces for it. It's not like he can be any less productive than our wide players so far - damning praise, but the very fact he's not into potshots from thirty yards out would force a change in style and drag us into the box more.
I do believe Lamela has a lot of other issues to work on, among them being more aggressive and being less sloppy with his passing under pressure, but I think Sherwood/whomever should just tell him to get out there and rip into this lot like an utter bastard because we really have nothing to lose. That might be our biggest "benefit" of parting ways with AVB - most of us don't actually expect Sherwood to make top four or win anything, so why not play without fear? It's an opportunity to try new things, give the youth and newbies more of a chance - and by that I don't mean "farkin' run around a bit", but rather that our fans may be better able to accept the inevitable bumps on the road towards whatever long-term system we choose if we don't expect to see the fruits of our labors this season. Right now we're perhaps focused too much on results and that pressure is ironically *hurting* our results, when we could do better in the long haul by going the Brendon Rodgers route and stubbornly focusing on implementing our ideas first even if we get stuffed by a Hull from time to time.
Anyways, that's just me, Miss Positivity rambling
. I do think we have some hardcore issues to work on or buy our way out of, but reports of the death of this club have been greatly exaggerated. Mainly I just can't honestly say I think we've sucked as much as a sleepwalking tax form all season like others have been arguing, because I was really pleased with some things I was seeing early on and I'm pretty devastated it didn't work out. I don't think managers are ultimately irreplaceable though unless you miraculously luck into an SAF or Wenger, so AVB's departure isn't the end of the world to me either (though I'll certainly be VERY interested in seeing Levy's next decision now, and over-analyzing it as usual ).
