players passing to each other, looking up before they pass (forward - need to work on 100% concentration for the passing back a little bit), not afraid to try some tricks (shows confidence is surfacing again), some good tackling...not sure what andy gray brings to the game that late on when we needed somebody to attack, not somebody to hold and i suspect parky may have told ambrose to fill the bouzza role, hence why he seemed to go missing a bit too often for my liking - do your own thing darren and get involved, its a great game when you're in the thick of it. leave the watching to us...all in all, i thought we had a team on the pitch yesterday...things are looking up...
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What? This post and Weegie's post seem very confident?
and some people dont lay down and die...
I agree it's much better to die on our feet. I certainly want to see us restore a bit of pride with some battling spirit and nerver-say-die football and may be even break this run and sneak one or two victories before we go down.
In each game there seemed to be a lot to be optimistic about, only for following performances to be sub-standard.
I just don't see us turning it around.
Did we really dominate like that?
They would suggest we were on top for most of the game, although I have to admit it didn't always feel like that watching from the stands. I think a lot of people's pereception of our performances are being affected by our form and just how far into despair we each have fallen as individuals. If we were mid table and had won a game or three since Christmas I don't think people would be nearly as damning of yesterdays performance as they have been. Understandably, no one's gonna be happy until we get three points, but we're really not THAT far away. Our all round performance was pretty good, but we'll obvioulsy get nowhere missing 2 one on ones and making two terrible defensive errors in every match.
Boro got to both cup finals, lost both of em and got relagated.
I for one now no longer have any optimism left, yesterday finally beat it out of me. Not proud to now have the same confidence and mental resiliance as our players, but i'm overcome with annoying realism.
Each to their own, I suppose, but I think I'd have topped myself by now if I couldn't find some way to see the good things we've done as well as the bad.
It's a shame Shelvey can't play on the wing, but a midfield three with the above two and Shelves could do it for us. Gray can't play on his own up front whilst Burton can't score on his own up front. Of course playing Dickson with players who create chances just wouldn't do.
So how do you score more than one goal a game every other game? Don't play 4-5-1. Play two up front with Mouta as a wing back and 3-5-2.
It'll never happen we'll continue playing 4-5-1, even though we don't have a striker to do it. Now is 3-5-2 a solution? Don't know but a manager who continues to play a formation that is proved to not work for us is really worthy of the Pardew prize for King Prat of the year. So why would you trust that man to swap high paid good to bad players for lower paid average to good players?
I'll second this.
I'll third it
We appear to be competing better - but we've played an awful lot of shit in the last 10 games - sides in the bottom half, YET we've still earnt less points
So, actually we are playing WORSE
Spring looked solid enough, not a bad debut considering (you sure him & Bryan Hughes were not seperated at birth?)
Shelvey, different class, Murty was dependable, Fortune, always liked him, Hudson showed some real steel as well, shame about the cock ups for the goals.
Burton.....go for one please, average at best.
The chance Burton missed in the first minute was with hindsight the game turner - if he'd put that in we might have scored two more before half-time and blown them away.
For all the possession we had we didn't create many if any other clear-cut chances and yes their keeper made three good saves (shelvey, Hudson and Ambrose at the end) but they were all shots straight at him
Murty looked poor to me - very rusty and short of match sharpness. He has to take a portion of the blame for the first goal - should called for the header so Hudson left it to him and his crossing in the second-half was very average...