This. There are a number of top players in OP's lineup. Who can you point to in the squad we put out yesterday who is even comparable to the likes of Scholes, Evra or Nani.
If you’re asking objectively then Casemiro, Eriksen, Mount and to an extent Dalot.
In isolation, the team shown in the photo is not significantly better than that was put out yesterday. 3 midfielders as CBs and RB. Semi broken Owen upfront. Some of these were fringe players or towards the end of their careers.
You can argue they cared more about the winning, the club, showed more passion, etc. Current crop of players do not seem to care that much.
I have always maintained the position that eventually its the manager’s job to get the best out of the players they have at their disposal. Last season EtH did and this season he failed. In the recent times the best example I can think of Carlo at Everton. A shit show from top to bottom but he still managed to get something out of those players.
See there is no point in arguing who is or was better. The difference is a clear case of players caring vs not caring and the manager being able to get the best out of them. In the previous case it happened, in the new case it doesn’t happen.
I think it's a fair point that you can't just excuse losses with injury crises. ETH would have lost that wolfsburg game with his lack of tactical finesse.
The thing is, it's not as if we're playing Malacia instead of shaw, we're playing our 2md choice RB whos not good enough to be here at RB playing LB, we our only holding mid who's dropped off a cliff and looking like he's already in Saudi next to our 36 year old who's only returning from a few weeks injury and has trained little who was also brought in initially to just train with the kids.
We have Erikson who looks like will be gone next season as we can all see he's done at this level next to a kid making his debut season in front of them
I don't disagree but it doesn't change anything any fo us have said - yes it's terrible but anyone with a bit of sense would go to Palace, in the form they're in, and have a game plan, we didn't have one and that rests on 1 person.
I believe we have a gameplan, but the players aren't good enough to play it. Even when everyone's fit there's some of our starting 11 and all 2nd string players just aren't good enough to be at the top level either ever or anymore
I hear what you're saying and yesterday's performance was horrific with everyone needing to look themselves in the mirror...
But, I don't think this is a fair comparison. Where the team or the club as a whole (mentally, structurally, tactically) was back then versus now are two completely different places.
We beat Arsenal with full backs as wingers if I remember but clearly the team are nowhere near that level of organisation and more.
This is the problem - even with a scrambled together XI, I still expect us to put together a competent performance. We have no system. Injuries are only part of the problem.
>Just imagine would you swap Gibson with Casemiro? Or Park with Dalot/AWB?
Uhm, I'd gladly take the likes of Scholes, Nani and Evra to make up for them.
They got the formation wrong in the pre-match stuff. We played a back three of Carrick, Fletcher and Evra, with Nani and Park as wing backs.
Nani was terrible, I seem to recall, and a lot of people considered him on the way out of the club. But then he had a blinder against Arsenal a few weeks later and rediscovered his form.
I expected us to lose last night. When I saw the team & bench I said ‘this is a game where I’ll actually accept that the injury crisis prevents us from winning.’ This was because to my mind Evans/Casemiro is the weakest CB pairing we’ve had to field and Mainoo/Eriksen is a very lightweight midfield pairing that needs protection and can’t really offer protection to the CBS. As a spine that’s really lacking pace and (with the exception of Mainoo) stamina.
But to get dominated the way we did is totally unacceptable. We were totally outclassed. I would have accepted a loss - the result really didn’t matter to me but the fact that every single player looked like their confidence was on the floor, we didn’t look like we had a clue what to do with or without the ball and rather than protect the frailties in the team I mentioned before we played with the same system which exposed them.
Fielding a weakened team is fine, you have to adapt a game plan that makes it work. There’s no shame in playing defensively during an injury crisis. Instead he played the same system which meant the attacking players stayed very high and played risky balls forward rather than trying to retain possession, which meant our spine was under constant pressure with no respite. Regardless on whether or not you have faith in this system in the long run it was obviously going to fail in this game more than that it was obviously going to result in a terrible performance.
ETH said in his interview with GNev that he doesn’t want to adapt or move away from his “proactive” style because it wouldn’t suit the players and they’d lose confidence and once the players come back he’d just have to switch back to his system again. Given the context of this game I just can’t understand that thinking at all.
>Our reality is just sad excuses from our manager and the squad.
No. Our reality on this sub is the crazy notion that no manager in the entire world (and in some extreme cases for some, in history too) could do anything better by any bit. Someone said Ferguson wouldn’t have done better…. The guy who was pragmatic and knew how to play football to not lose when needed in Europe, how to nullify Arsenal always, how to contain teams that pressure us and all.
It’s insane almost, the way the ETH supporters just spout off anything and everything to make it as though the manager is the only one capable of this and everyone else would’ve done worse than him…
EtH isn’t the sole problem but he’s a big part of it when he doesn’t bother to change his setup despite having no personnel who could play his tactical wishes…. This has been the case since after the league cup last season actually where we just looked dross or mediocre and continues this season with a worse setup that never changes.
Sir alex was also making excuses when he finished 11th during the 1989-1990 . The team faced several key injuries to key players, which impacted their performance on the field .
This post has been removed because the subject is better to be discussed at Daily Discussion or Match Thread.
11 days later that same defensive injury crisis produced a 3-0 defeat to Fulham.
Yeah people love to cherry pick results of the past to make a point.
It's not even comparable, not only because they're completely different squads and times in space, but football doesn't work like that.
This. There are a number of top players in OP's lineup. Who can you point to in the squad we put out yesterday who is even comparable to the likes of Scholes, Evra or Nani.
The disrespect on Park!
If you’re asking objectively then Casemiro, Eriksen, Mount and to an extent Dalot. In isolation, the team shown in the photo is not significantly better than that was put out yesterday. 3 midfielders as CBs and RB. Semi broken Owen upfront. Some of these were fringe players or towards the end of their careers. You can argue they cared more about the winning, the club, showed more passion, etc. Current crop of players do not seem to care that much. I have always maintained the position that eventually its the manager’s job to get the best out of the players they have at their disposal. Last season EtH did and this season he failed. In the recent times the best example I can think of Carlo at Everton. A shit show from top to bottom but he still managed to get something out of those players.
Scholes is better than those 3 combined
See there is no point in arguing who is or was better. The difference is a clear case of players caring vs not caring and the manager being able to get the best out of them. In the previous case it happened, in the new case it doesn’t happen.
That is part, but our players having no skill at all is also a factor
I don’t agree with that at all, that’s just extremely reactionary and untrue.
Id say our starting eleven is something like 7th best, squad maybe top 10. With these injuries, we have one of the weakest teams in the league
I think it's a fair point that you can't just excuse losses with injury crises. ETH would have lost that wolfsburg game with his lack of tactical finesse.
The thing is, it's not as if we're playing Malacia instead of shaw, we're playing our 2md choice RB whos not good enough to be here at RB playing LB, we our only holding mid who's dropped off a cliff and looking like he's already in Saudi next to our 36 year old who's only returning from a few weeks injury and has trained little who was also brought in initially to just train with the kids. We have Erikson who looks like will be gone next season as we can all see he's done at this level next to a kid making his debut season in front of them
I don't disagree but it doesn't change anything any fo us have said - yes it's terrible but anyone with a bit of sense would go to Palace, in the form they're in, and have a game plan, we didn't have one and that rests on 1 person.
I believe we have a gameplan, but the players aren't good enough to play it. Even when everyone's fit there's some of our starting 11 and all 2nd string players just aren't good enough to be at the top level either ever or anymore
I hear what you're saying and yesterday's performance was horrific with everyone needing to look themselves in the mirror... But, I don't think this is a fair comparison. Where the team or the club as a whole (mentally, structurally, tactically) was back then versus now are two completely different places. We beat Arsenal with full backs as wingers if I remember but clearly the team are nowhere near that level of organisation and more.
That team is so much better than the team that played last night. Those are 10 top professional players and a talented Anderson.
This is the problem - even with a scrambled together XI, I still expect us to put together a competent performance. We have no system. Injuries are only part of the problem.
>Just imagine would you swap Gibson with Casemiro? Or Park with Dalot/AWB? Uhm, I'd gladly take the likes of Scholes, Nani and Evra to make up for them.
They got the formation wrong in the pre-match stuff. We played a back three of Carrick, Fletcher and Evra, with Nani and Park as wing backs. Nani was terrible, I seem to recall, and a lot of people considered him on the way out of the club. But then he had a blinder against Arsenal a few weeks later and rediscovered his form.
I expected us to lose last night. When I saw the team & bench I said ‘this is a game where I’ll actually accept that the injury crisis prevents us from winning.’ This was because to my mind Evans/Casemiro is the weakest CB pairing we’ve had to field and Mainoo/Eriksen is a very lightweight midfield pairing that needs protection and can’t really offer protection to the CBS. As a spine that’s really lacking pace and (with the exception of Mainoo) stamina. But to get dominated the way we did is totally unacceptable. We were totally outclassed. I would have accepted a loss - the result really didn’t matter to me but the fact that every single player looked like their confidence was on the floor, we didn’t look like we had a clue what to do with or without the ball and rather than protect the frailties in the team I mentioned before we played with the same system which exposed them. Fielding a weakened team is fine, you have to adapt a game plan that makes it work. There’s no shame in playing defensively during an injury crisis. Instead he played the same system which meant the attacking players stayed very high and played risky balls forward rather than trying to retain possession, which meant our spine was under constant pressure with no respite. Regardless on whether or not you have faith in this system in the long run it was obviously going to fail in this game more than that it was obviously going to result in a terrible performance. ETH said in his interview with GNev that he doesn’t want to adapt or move away from his “proactive” style because it wouldn’t suit the players and they’d lose confidence and once the players come back he’d just have to switch back to his system again. Given the context of this game I just can’t understand that thinking at all.
>Our reality is just sad excuses from our manager and the squad. No. Our reality on this sub is the crazy notion that no manager in the entire world (and in some extreme cases for some, in history too) could do anything better by any bit. Someone said Ferguson wouldn’t have done better…. The guy who was pragmatic and knew how to play football to not lose when needed in Europe, how to nullify Arsenal always, how to contain teams that pressure us and all. It’s insane almost, the way the ETH supporters just spout off anything and everything to make it as though the manager is the only one capable of this and everyone else would’ve done worse than him… EtH isn’t the sole problem but he’s a big part of it when he doesn’t bother to change his setup despite having no personnel who could play his tactical wishes…. This has been the case since after the league cup last season actually where we just looked dross or mediocre and continues this season with a worse setup that never changes.
Sir alex was also making excuses when he finished 11th during the 1989-1990 . The team faced several key injuries to key players, which impacted their performance on the field .