LET’S MASH THE SPUDS! (A match thread)

Strategic?

I can completely see why SSC dropped all the supposed technicians. They had been shite. Sangare in particular. I would have Yates every single day.

Yesterday’s match was much improved for us. We played for each other, had chances and had a game plan. We were undone by a piece of amazing quality for their first goal, and a calamity of a mistake for their second. Neither of which I would lay at SSC door.

People keep saying we have bought better players since last season and hence should be doing better. I just don’t see that. We lost Jonno, Lodi and Navas. We have replaced them with players who are clearly far worse. I don’t think it’s SSC not being able to work out how to play them. I think he has worked out that they are not good enough.

We would be mad to change manager.

My side is Nottingham Forest.

Marinakis has been excellent for us after the Fawaz era and i know it’s a bit taboo to say it, the Doughty era of L1.

Cooper was excellent in getting us up and keeping us up but it just isn’t working.

Both can be criticised for a number of things but the obsessive hysterical nature of our fanbase can’t see beyond it all being the owners fault with our current position being being nothing to do with Cooper.

The reason for changing manager would be if the new man could get something from the technically superior players on the bench.

Just listened to Forest Focus and Matt Davies misses this point when he says the players are still fighting for Cooper. Some of the better ones aren't. What does that say?

There was an interview with MGW a few months back (posted on here) in which he said Sangare was the toughest player he’d played against.

I’m not massively convinced he’s just ‘shit’.

It’s reasonable to wonder whether he’s being played correctly etc.

I guess we will find out soon.

Who are these technically superior players on the bench?

Sangare (who's looked patchy whenever he has played, needs time to settle in I'm sure).

But that's it isn't it?

Edit: and he wasn't on bench, injured someone said

To me that says those players are unprofessional in terms of playing only for themselves and their individual reputations, rather than playing for a system. Your logic taken to its conclusion would argue ‘why have a manager at all’, just buy 11 players with big reputations and say ‘go and play’.

If you put me in charge of Man City, it would be a disaster because the players wouldn’t respect me and, if they paid any attention to me, my instructions wouldn’t get anything close to the best out of them.

Domingez and Danilo are clearly more talented than Yates and Kouyate. CHO is more talented than most of that starting line up. Vlachodimos isn’t great but he’s better than Turner. Montiel and Aina are more talented than the starting wing backs.

None of them are performing but collective underperformance has to be the responsibility of the manager. Doesn’t it?

Apparently we consider temperament when recruiting, I think Paul Taylor has mentioned this a lot in his articles. If the recruitment team / club hierarchy are confident they've got that side of it right, then it's another mark against SSC if he can't get more out of them.

On team selection, it seems to me that Williams and Toffolo get more balls into the box than some of the other wing backs, in which case Wood might be more of an option.

And although I was ok with it at Wolves, as some people were saying even then, I don't think playing both Yates and Kouyate is sustainable long-term. Danilo is the one with quality and genuine threat, who has a bit more PL experience than the summer signings, so I'd like to see him back in if fit.

[/quote]

Domingez and Danilo are clearly more talented than Yates and Kouyate. CHO is more talented than most of that starting line up. Vlachodimos isn’t great but he’s better than Turner. Montiel and Aina are more talented than the starting wing backs.

None of them are performing but collective underperformance has to be the responsibility of the manager. Doesn’t it?
[/quote]

I disagree with pretty much all of what you say here. Danilo has been injured and Coops brought him on, so that’s not a ‘bad Cooper thing’. Yates is clearly talented, every team needs his drive. It’s a blend of talents. We lose more points when Yates doesn’t play.

This version of CHO is not more talented than the rest of the players. He is not the player he once was (at least not consistently). To me he is this seasons Lingard experiment which is heading for same result.

Both keepers are poor, but I don’t think Cooper had a hand in their recruitment. He is stuck between a rock and a hard place on that one.

Montiel? Are you crazy? He has looked awful every time I have seen him play.

I don’t think this is collective underperformance. Toffolo has raised game, Murillo has been awesome, Yates continues to excel at what he does, Williams has raised game as well, Boly is performing.

I think this is injuries, poor recruitment, expensive players not yet settling (maybe never will), loss of key players and rising expectations based upon the only metric of continuous improvement based upon financial outlay. Again, we would be mad to get rid of cooper

Marinakis has spent a lot of money. He still has lots more money to spend. That is his USP. Otherwise he's been properly shit.

Still, I am getting a lot of joy watching Murillo. What a player.

I’m not a fanboy of Marinakis but there is no doubt that he has given Cooper longer than he feels comfortable doing so (and in fact longer than most owners would). He might get the Bournemouth game but, in reality, it would be better to end everyone’s misery now. If we get beaten by Bournemouth, it will further underline where we are vs. where we could be.

Cooper has the support of the fans (largely), some of team, a lot of the media and about 70% of talkback (the most important metric, of course). There are plenty of excuses for our performances (injury, player turnover, dodgy VAR etc) but the fact is we have 1 point from 18 (or 6 from 30….don’t those squandered points vs Luton, Palace, West Ham etc look desperately valuable now?) I’m not sure putting out an industrious but limited side is going to turn this around.

You lost me at Yates.

He’s done very well to be a pro footballer as talent isn’t he forte. He’s an absolute grafter and has made the most of what he has but he’s not a PL footballer. Championship at best. Another example of us over rating our own. He was far worse than Sangare against Fulham but was deemed as the answer to our problems.

You want the non industrious nut limited side we saw at Fulham?