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Herclueless said:
There you go, mitigating...

How many months until it is acceptable to be critical then? Before we are allowed to moan about labouring to a 2-1 at home to a depleted Luton without having "3 points! 3 Points! It's all about the points at this stage of the season!*" thrown back at you?

Why does time in the job matter at all in this respect? If I look at the two squads I don't think there is much difference talent wise now, with my Spurs tinted specs I'd probably claim us better in many departments. So why should we accept grinding out points against sides that they are sweeping aside with ease? Because Arteta's been there longer? So? Football isn't some linear trajectory where if you just wait long enough everything just improves consistently, Arteta having 3 years behind him whilst Ange has not had a full one yet has no impact on the comparable squad strength as it stands today.

The "only 8 months in" mantra only really works as a defence whilst things can be seen to be improving, but right now we seem to be regressing. I'm starting to wonder whether things at the beginning of the season were actually only exciting because the players didn't know exactly what they were doing in the new system, leading to some exciting chaos ball at times.

What we are seeing now is just as boring as the boring football under Conte/Mourinho, it just seems a bit more palatable because we have the ball, so we can just whinge and moan that it's the other side's fault for being defensive.

You want to know why it's been a slog? Go and look back over the season's results, how many of those matches have you enjoyed watching? I'm not talking about being happy with the result at the final whistle, I mean actually enjoyed the 90 minutes?

It's subjective I guess, but I'll go back a little way from the present with my views:

West Ham - did not enjoy
Luton - did not enjoy
Fulham - did not enjoy
Villa - enjoyed
Palace - Could only follow on the BBC website, did not enjoy following the predictable 0-0 for ages and going a goal down though tbh...
Wolves - did not enjoy
Brighton - did not enjoy
Everton - did not enjoy
Brentford - did not enjoy
City (FA Cup) - did not enjoy
Man Utd - meh, seeing their results either side of this fixture it's difficult to come away from this without feeling disappointed. If we are where we think we are then we should have been schooling them and ultimately we didn't.
Burnley (FA Cup) - did not enjoy
Bournemouth - Another meh, there was more to enjoy than not iirc but at the end we gave up a goal, and then another which was chalked off for a dubious offside. About 2/3s of this game I would say it was really good but the end was more nervy than it should have been. I'll say enjoyed but there's a big asterisk, it probably wouldn't bother me if not for the fact that this winning by the skin of our teeth habit has been so prevalent throughout the rest of the season.
Brighton - did not enjoy
Everton - Similar to the Bournemouth one above, we were looking decent for a bit but then instead of keeping at them we just lost the initiative, but for a much bigger portion of the game in this case. Outside of a pretty fast start this was not an enjoyable watch.
Forest - Enjoyed, not exactly free flowing but a good solid away win.
Newcastle - Enjoyed, actually had forgotten about this one tbf, minor gripe is that I wish we'd kept going and smashed them by more because I can't stand them...
West Ham - did not enjoy.
City - Enjoyed, perhaps swayed by lack of expectation and last minute scenes...
Villa - Enjoyed, despite the result we played really well and should have been out of sight
Chelsea - Can't really grade it, came away feeling positive in a way, but also we lost 4-1 and a bunch of players from a position of being 1-0 up and in total control, feel like we lost this more than they won it.

I'll stop there because I think I've illustrated my point, the losses have been as annoying as a loss is ever going to be obviously, but the wins have been irritatingly tight for the most part. There have been things to enjoy throughout obviously, but not consistently enough, and mostly I've come away feeling relieved rather than pleased.



*It's amazing how this is apparently valid at every stage of the season btw...
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You arrogant bastard
Why the fuck did you feel the need to share that sack of crap?
If that's what you think, you whining, joyless bastard, then take up competitive backgammon and bugger off.

What an absolute pile of sewage
 
Herclueless said:
There you go, mitigating...

How many months until it is acceptable to be critical then? Before we are allowed to moan about labouring to a 2-1 at home to a depleted Luton without having "3 points! 3 Points! It's all about the points at this stage of the season!*" thrown back at you?

Why does time in the job matter at all in this respect? If I look at the two squads I don't think there is much difference talent wise now, with my Spurs tinted specs I'd probably claim us better in many departments. So why should we accept grinding out points against sides that they are sweeping aside with ease? Because Arteta's been there longer? So? Football isn't some linear trajectory where if you just wait long enough everything just improves consistently, Arteta having 3 years behind him whilst Ange has not had a full one yet has no impact on the comparable squad strength as it stands today.

The "only 8 months in" mantra only really works as a defence whilst things can be seen to be improving, but right now we seem to be regressing. I'm starting to wonder whether things at the beginning of the season were actually only exciting because the players didn't know exactly what they were doing in the new system, leading to some exciting chaos ball at times.

What we are seeing now is just as boring as the boring football under Conte/Mourinho, it just seems a bit more palatable because we have the ball, so we can just whinge and moan that it's the other side's fault for being defensive.

You want to know why it's been a slog? Go and look back over the season's results, how many of those matches have you enjoyed watching? I'm not talking about being happy with the result at the final whistle, I mean actually enjoyed the 90 minutes?

It's subjective I guess, but I'll go back a little way from the present with my views:

West Ham - did not enjoy
Luton - did not enjoy
Fulham - did not enjoy
Villa - enjoyed
Palace - Could only follow on the BBC website, did not enjoy following the predictable 0-0 for ages and going a goal down though tbh...
Wolves - did not enjoy
Brighton - did not enjoy
Everton - did not enjoy
Brentford - did not enjoy
City (FA Cup) - did not enjoy
Man Utd - meh, seeing their results either side of this fixture it's difficult to come away from this without feeling disappointed. If we are where we think we are then we should have been schooling them and ultimately we didn't.
Burnley (FA Cup) - did not enjoy
Bournemouth - Another meh, there was more to enjoy than not iirc but at the end we gave up a goal, and then another which was chalked off for a dubious offside. About 2/3s of this game I would say it was really good but the end was more nervy than it should have been. I'll say enjoyed but there's a big asterisk, it probably wouldn't bother me if not for the fact that this winning by the skin of our teeth habit has been so prevalent throughout the rest of the season.
Brighton - did not enjoy
Everton - Similar to the Bournemouth one above, we were looking decent for a bit but then instead of keeping at them we just lost the initiative, but for a much bigger portion of the game in this case. Outside of a pretty fast start this was not an enjoyable watch.
Forest - Enjoyed, not exactly free flowing but a good solid away win.
Newcastle - Enjoyed, actually had forgotten about this one tbf, minor gripe is that I wish we'd kept going and smashed them by more because I can't stand them...
West Ham - did not enjoy.
City - Enjoyed, perhaps swayed by lack of expectation and last minute scenes...
Villa - Enjoyed, despite the result we played really well and should have been out of sight
Chelsea - Can't really grade it, came away feeling positive in a way, but also we lost 4-1 and a bunch of players from a position of being 1-0 up and in total control, feel like we lost this more than they won it.

I'll stop there because I think I've illustrated my point, the losses have been as annoying as a loss is ever going to be obviously, but the wins have been irritatingly tight for the most part. There have been things to enjoy throughout obviously, but not consistently enough, and mostly I've come away feeling relieved rather than pleased.



*It's amazing how this is apparently valid at every stage of the season btw...
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Fantastic post.
 
simon j said:
It’s hard to understand our fans sometimes…
We are 3/4’s of a season in to a rebuild form top to bottom,
Lost our record goal scorer.. scored more league goals than any season he was at the club…
Are set to finish higher than last season with more points….
We aren’t the finished article yet so we cannot expect them to go out and win every game.
Wham aren’t the worse team out there, two places below us and in a qf of a European competition.
Only negative last night was the timing of the subs sometimes a point is a point.
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And we had a lot of injuries. 10 players at the same time
 
Jaynola said:
Playing vs low blocks has gotta stop being an excuse. Good teams find a way. Period.
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Anyone else sick of hearing the phrase 'low block' like it's a thing...
.I reckon it's up there with GENGAPRESSING or whatever the fuck it is... It's a fad... Like bubble tea and zoom calls!!

If we're any good, we'll beat whatever is in front of us... Regardless of the Faddy Formation they're playing...

If we're NOT good enough, we'll use it as an excuse!
 
1882 said:
Anyone else sick of hearing the phrase 'low block' like it's a thing...
.I reckon it's up there with GENGAPRESSING or whatever the fuck it is... It's a fad... Like bubble tea and zoom calls!!

If we're any good, we'll beat whatever is in front of us... Regardless of the Faddy Formation they're playing...

If we're NOT good enough, we'll use it as an excuse!
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How good, do you think we can become.
 
Shadydan said:
It did, watch how many times Werner passed back instead of initiating the full back for especially, Johnson was guilty of it a couple of times as well.

2nd half especially when we were camped up in their half, I lost count the amount of times we isolated players, a specialist in those situations would have taken a split second opportunity to go past past a defender.

We have been creating those situations all seasons, there's so much space in the wide areas of the pitch but our players just aren't natural at attacking the space.
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It feels like Werner plays with the handbrake on a lot of the time. Why not try and burn the full back on the outside? Or attack a cross like a mentalist for once?

Come on Timo
let it go GIF
 
Thin Lilywhite Duke said:
Putting it into perspective, even Man City couldn't break down Woolwich this weekend when they employed similar tactics. It happens.

:pochunimpressed:
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Toon out 4 past them just a few days ago
sudoku said:
We were easily the better side and we should have won. But WHU have a very good home record this season, as do Fulham :confused: , so a draw is not to be sniffed at.

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yes we were better but Vic had to pull off a few great saves. We had the ball but rarely moved out of 2nd gear. To me it looked like we didn’t want to give it enough. We had some good moments towards the end when there seemed to be a bit more fire in the belly. Which is what I thought Ange would bring not the lethargic conte ball.
 
Jaynola said:
West Ham always play that way.

And they've conceded 55 goals this season. That's like 2 a game.

Weird, that means other - and worse - teams than us have managed to score a few & even beat them, whereas we took one solitary point off them across two games. And without Vic it'd be a big friggin 0.
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It’s obvs against low blocks try to attack the wings, overload wide areas, try to win corners and free kicks. Hence why set pieces are so vital against these teams. We are pathetic at set pieces no invention or even a decent cross. We try the short corner and then end up passing it back to our CBs. Also we kept trying to pass down the middle to so where it’s congested with their players and our FBs. Love to see us spray the ball around. Only person who does that is PEH.
 
Deuterz said:
Probably. They're not very good either, the point was that we had a very high xG chance that we led from and then essentially created ... nothing ????

Yeah you keep saying this but we're not breaking down anything. You should hate games like this as football of this kind is every bit as boring and ineffective as a bus park. Sideways passing and the odd floaty cross. It's not just our attackers, our midfielders (including Maddison) are offering very little in the way of drive or creativity.

Liverpool and City put 11 past this lot in 4 games. Newcastle just put 4 past them. Woolwich 6. They're not THAT good a bus and we had the lead. To have that much of the ball and just consistently do nothing with it that is remotely interesting is AVB flashbacks.
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Great post. That is the same in most games we have a little spell of attacking threat like yday after the goal then from 15 mins we did nothing. Why can’t we go for the throat like we did under poch and harry. To me Ange wasn’t to bothered about drawing based on his subs and post match comments.
 
Richard Arlison said:
Literally nobody is blowing any smoke.

Bowen played Ok tonight but didn't look like scoring once.

If we want to improve, and we def do, we need better than what we have AND better than what fucking west ham have.

FFS
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Come on Bowen has 15 goals or something like that, has pace, great control, drives at players and puts in a shift. Now just imagine him on our right instead of kulu or BJ. Plus his not scared to get stuck in. Last few balls where both bj and Timo bottled it as usual.
 
Seeing “muh low block” as an excuse for failing to win against the likes of Spammers and Fulham, I wonder what it’ll be when we shit the bed against City or Liverpool. Bbbb but they have better players mate. Bbbb but their managers have been for longer at their clubs mate. Bbbb but no one had as much possession against them as we did mate.
 
Kekerinho said:
Seeing “muh low block” as an excuse for failing to win against the likes of Spammers and Fulham, I wonder what it’ll be when we shit the bed against City or Liverpool. Bbbb but they have better players mate. Bbbb but their managers have been for longer at their clubs mate. Bbbb but no one had as much possession against them as we did mate.
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Fulham wasn’t low block. They just exploited the space we seem to be not bothered about and expect VDV to mop up. That is the some of our defending.
 
Hampshire Spur said:
Said that the other day but got grilled. Hes got too cosy imo. Every position needs to be challenged in side. Plsyers join us on a high, settle in, good payday, international call up but dont have the desire to win titles. Ange is trying to change mentality. The mentality has to change!
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We have gio although some think kulu is the 2nd coming and can play that role.
 
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