Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

6 hours ago, enigma said:

Pep never started from the literal bottom (think Sunday League) and coached teams up until Serie B, to then manage Napoli in Serie A to where they finished his final season almost pipping Juventus to the title. Pep has always had the best players at his disposal since starting his senior management career. Sarri had a professional career before starting coaching at 40 years of age.

It isn't easy to give up a career in banking like that, to then manage sunday league teams for next to no money and continue coaching until the level he got to, just for the sheer passion he had for it. Just because he hasn't won a trophy, doesn't mean he isn't an elite level manager in the tactical sense. Former players and even colleagues (including Pep and Arrigo Sacci) have complimented his football brain previously. However, he's never had the fortune to walk into a Juventus, Barcelona, PSG, Real Madrid job with world class talent at his disposal. If he had, I am sure he would have plenty trophies by now. 

I totally agree about Guardiola not having to start from the bottom like most managers do and being lucky to inherit the most talented side of the last decade at Barca and then taking over another top club at Munich. Perhaps if Sarri was in his place, he'd have done just as well, but my point still stands, until he wins something, he won't be considered in the same bracket as managers like Mourinho or Pep, and rightly so.

8 hours ago, CFCCAN said:

Lighten up, we all know that Morata has not been the striker we all thought we bought and more recently he's been dog sh*te when it comes to putting chances away but he can't be blamed for the 80 yards of sh*te going on behind him; I think any striker would be tearing their hair out watching 85 minutes of sideways and backwards passing and having an audience standing on the 18 yard box when someone actually does get a cross into the box; watch City, they have at least 4 or more players running into the box when they go forward, its like a minefield to our lot and that comes from the coaching staff as naturally a forward player would head to the box and 6 yard box without thinking...

Agree with that. With this set of players, up against packed defences, they require too many touches in and around the penalty box. Running from deep or quick, one touch football are the ways to unlock defences like these. Anything like that, that puts them on the back foot and takes the opposition out of their comfort zone. Meanwhile, Morata was feeding off scraps for the whole game, as the quality of crosses from both flanks were abject.

7 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

We are running out of scoring options. The way we are playing and the number of passes we put together before a final shot or pass, we are aiming to score the perfect goal. There are no quick crosses, not early through balls, shot outside the box, and set pieces are just awful. For most of the game, we were in cruise mode, and managed to put the crowd into sleep, The Morata goal should have stood, 2 goals gone to the toilet because of guessing work by the linesmen in the last 4 days. Hazard was unlucky, Gk had no idea about he first save, ball hit the head and bounced the other way. Losing Willian in the game wasn't the deciding matter, he was wasteful in possession and set pieces as usual, RLC actually did a pretty good job even he's not match fit. Cesc should have came on earlier for Jorginho, Cesc is a better player in possession and has better long passing game. Our best 2 chances were created after he came on. Both Leicester and SouthHampton have done it against us without riding too much luck, I reckon most teams will come to the bridge knowing they have a good chance by parking the bus and stay patient.

Not sure about trying to score the perfect goal, I just don't think this lot have any bollox about taking responsibility and just want to pass the problem over to someone else

On another issue our fall backs need replacing, football has moved on and full backs are a huge source of creating attacking situations, these two just haven't got that spark

9 hours ago, CFCCAN said:

Lighten up, we all know that Morata has not been the striker we all thought we bought and more recently he's been dog sh*te when it comes to putting chances away but he can't be blamed for the 80 yards of sh*te going on behind him; I think any striker would be tearing their hair out watching 85 minutes of sideways and backwards passing and having an audience standing on the 18 yard box when someone actually does get a cross into the box; watch City, they have at least 4 or more players running into the box when they go forward, its like a minefield to our lot and that comes from the coaching staff as naturally a forward player would head to the box and 6 yard box without thinking...

 

15 minutes ago, old git said:

Agree with that. With this set of players, up against packed defences, they require too many touches in and around the penalty box. Running from deep or quick, one touch football are the ways to unlock defences like these. Anything like that, that puts them on the back foot and takes the opposition out of their comfort zone. Meanwhile, Morata was feeding off scraps for the whole game, as the quality of crosses from both flanks were abject.

 

The trouble is we are only 5 months into this project, and we cant retrieve the ball back like City can, so we tend to concentrate on holding onto the ball, more touches for each player, slower build up. Very simliar to how city played in Peps first season, they didnt retrieve the ball like they do now.

32 minutes ago, coco said:

 

 

The trouble is we are only 5 months into this project, and we cant retrieve the ball back like City can, so we tend to concentrate on holding onto the ball, more touches for each player, slower build up. Very simliar to how city played in Peps first season, they didnt retrieve the ball like they do now.

I wouldn't exactly associate one touch football and retrieving the ball with Ross Barkley.

Edited January 3, 20197 yr by the special one

I have no issue with the Sarri style, have just noticed that with this style Giroud and Morata just dont work, we were just impotent in attack yesterday, we are a lot more effective with a free flowing trio and Hazard as false 9, more like what liverpool have. Maybe Pulisic will be the answer, and hopefully with Hazard, CHO and Willian we will have 4 very good options for 3 spots next season.

One thing that grates on me more than anything is watching Salah at Liverpool, if we gave him and KDB a chance just think what our team could be now.

4 minutes ago, Jackbuchanan said:

I have no issue with the Sarri style, have just noticed that with this style Giroud and Morata just dont work, we were just impotent in attack yesterday, we are a lot more effective with a free flowing trio and Hazard as false 9, more like what liverpool have. Maybe Pulisic will be the answer, and hopefully with Hazard, CHO and Willian we will have 4 very good options for 3 spots next season.

One thing that grates on me more than anything is watching Salah at Liverpool, if we gave him and KDB a chance just think what our team could be now.

I'm sure you could add another 10 players to those two over the years that one manager or another didn't fancy and we let them go.

I think the general consensus over this game is somewhat over-critical. Granted, I wasn't exactly blown away, but a few mitigating thoughts:

 

- We currently have two fit attackers to play in the front three roles. One of them is Morata. I might be inclined to give us a pass for a somewhat blunt attacking display...

- It might be worth bearing in mind that we did actually score a perfectly legitimate winner which was incorrectly ruled out. Had the linesman made the right call we might be talking about an injury-hit Chelsea earning a plucky win, sign of champions, etc. 

- For all the complaints of sideways passing, lack of Plan B, (etc.) we spent most of the second half playing gung-ho, end-to-end football. Sarri also absolutely made the right call in bringing on Fabregas (although personally I would have been inclined to hook Jorginho rather than Barkley). 

- Hopefully we might see a little more appreciation for Willian given that we were almost incapable of keeping the ball in the final third and had to resort to long balls from the back four more often than not after he went off injured. Perhaps a little more understanding of what his role in the team actually is? How many times did we see somebody get isolated in the corner somewhere and precisely nobody showed up to receive a pass? 

- Kanté's attacking instincts are coming along very nicely. His natural intelligence saw him show for the ball in some dangerous positions, he also made a couple of Lampard-esque late runs into the box. Some of his dribbling looks lethal as well. If he can improve on his ball control we might have a true absurdity on our hands, especially given his natural ability to win the ball high up the pitch. 

I see Sarri in his post match conference changed from his normal the 'time we had control of the ball' to the 'number of meters we had control of the ball' ....well no sh*t Sherlock the opposition are letting you have it for the first 80 meters... .   

Just saw this comment in one of the game reviews lol

Alonso-sh*t

Morata-sh*t

Barkley - dog sh*t

Jorginho-sh*t

Man I dont see Hazard staying behind end of  this season because this team lacks quality. I dont see us in top 4

2 minutes ago, PloKoon13 said:

I think the general consensus over this game is somewhat over-critical. Granted, I wasn't exactly blown away, but a few mitigating thoughts:

 

- We currently have two fit attackers to play in the front three roles. One of them is Morata. I might be inclined to give us a pass for a somewhat blunt attacking display...

- It might be worth bearing in mind that we did actually score a perfectly legitimate winner which was incorrectly ruled out. Had the linesman made the right call we might be talking about an injury-hit Chelsea earning a plucky win, sign of champions, etc. 

- For all the complaints of sideways passing, lack of Plan B, (etc.) we spent most of the second half playing gung-ho, end-to-end football. Sarri also absolutely made the right call in bringing on Fabregas (although personally I would have been inclined to hook Jorginho rather than Barkley). 

- Hopefully we might see a little more appreciation for Willian given that we were almost incapable of keeping the ball in the final third and had to resort to long balls from the back four more often than not after he went off injured. Perhaps a little more understanding of what his role in the team actually is? How many times did we see somebody get isolated in the corner somewhere and precisely nobody showed up to receive a pass? 

- Kanté's attacking instincts are coming along very nicely. His natural intelligence saw him show for the ball in some dangerous positions, he also made a couple of Lampard-esque late runs into the box. Some of his dribbling looks lethal as well. If he can improve on his ball control we might have a true absurdity on our hands, especially given his natural ability to win the ball high up the pitch. 

I think the players are overly cautious with this system, they say they are enjoying it in interviews but IMO they are not totally accepting it and do not have total faith in it.  We don't press high enough and we don't press the player with the ball and hunt in 2's or 3's like we used to under Conte or even Jose.  Again, unfortunately, I'll go back to City as they are the nearest comparison to our possession based football; they hunt the opposition player down with the ball and they are doing it with 3 and 4 players at a time, surrounding him and suffocating him in his own half, that when they win the ball they have a number of players in the oppositions half already to spring forward, whereas we (apart from Kante) stand off 5-10 yards or try and press with 1 player, this myth of 'Sarriball' simply doesn't work in its current format regardless of how bad the strikers have been.  

Willian is far too predictable, especially coming from the left side, cut inside, run along the 18-20 yard line and shoot with his right foot, on the right he'll do the same thing but pass instead of shooting.  As I have said previously, if so called 'Sarriball' is about one and two touch football then the likes of Hazard, Willian and Pedro are creating the problem, because they would rather hang onto the ball and take on 2/3 defenders than pass when they should; however this problem is created because there are rarely no other players ahead, alongside or near  them when they actually get the ball; sure take a player(s) on now and then, but they are constantly doing so at times when the ball should be passed, they lose the ball and the entire idea of keeping the ball goes out the window.  And when we lose it we rarely win it back quick enough.  

And as for yesterday, its sad when we have to find an excuse of an apparent offside goal to say we were robbed against weaker opposition, when we should be good enough to beat the likes of Southampton, Leicester and Everton at home without blaming the officiating (as bad as it may be); I'm sure we have not been the only team to have been 'robbed' while some other teams get a break, but that's football and I'm sure we'll get a few calls go our way also as the season wears on.  Currently the only thing 'Sarriball' is good for is sending everyone to sleep...zzzz

1 hour ago, Jackbuchanan said:

I have no issue with the Sarri style, have just noticed that with this style Giroud and Morata just dont work, we were just impotent in attack yesterday, we are a lot more effective with a free flowing trio and Hazard as false 9, more like what liverpool have. Maybe Pulisic will be the answer, and hopefully with Hazard, CHO and Willian we will have 4 very good options for 3 spots next season.

One thing that grates on me more than anything is watching Salah at Liverpool, if we gave him and KDB a chance just think what our team could be now.

Willian doesn't work. When Pedro is not playing on the wing our attack even with Hazard can't produce goals.

Sarri should shoulder the responsibility for this one. None of our team were fantastic but everyone was okay. Alonso and Morata, subjects of vitriol in here, were good. That's not good enough in Morata's case as he has to be scoring as well, but he did hold up well and spray the ball around and he also crossed to an empty forward line a few times (as did others). Too slow and no penetration made for an awful dull match.

We need to take more risks up front if we are to beat well organised, defence centric teams.

You might as well say bye bye to CL.......we wont get it. Way too inconsistent, slow and predictable to get CL footy. Im not feeling Sarii at all......I cant name 1 good thing we do, not 1. We are way too one dimentional and why so easy to play against. Sarii himself dont know and wont change Things till better players arrive.......nahh forget CL footy. Without it Eden is as good as gone. 

9 hours ago, axman2526 said:

And so so boring. This and the Leicester game. More boring than any of Jose's games imo.

Such an easy sweeping statement to make years down the line...

If you actually sat and watched a replay of some of the worst games under Jose I am sure you would reconsider.

And that is by no means a dig at Jose, I just think every manager has their 'low lights' and Jose had plenty in terms of dull games.

Call me crazy but I actually thought last night was alright for a 0-0 draw. Frustrating sure, but Southampton made a game of it. Seen much worse.

3 hours ago, PloKoon13 said:

I think the general consensus over this game is somewhat over-critical. Granted, I wasn't exactly blown away, but a few mitigating thoughts:

 

- We currently have two fit attackers to play in the front three roles. One of them is Morata. I might be inclined to give us a pass for a somewhat blunt attacking display...

- It might be worth bearing in mind that we did actually score a perfectly legitimate winner which was incorrectly ruled out. Had the linesman made the right call we might be talking about an injury-hit Chelsea earning a plucky win, sign of champions, etc. 

- For all the complaints of sideways passing, lack of Plan B, (etc.) we spent most of the second half playing gung-ho, end-to-end football. Sarri also absolutely made the right call in bringing on Fabregas (although personally I would have been inclined to hook Jorginho rather than Barkley). 

- Hopefully we might see a little more appreciation for Willian given that we were almost incapable of keeping the ball in the final third and had to resort to long balls from the back four more often than not after he went off injured. Perhaps a little more understanding of what his role in the team actually is? How many times did we see somebody get isolated in the corner somewhere and precisely nobody showed up to receive a pass? 

- Kanté's attacking instincts are coming along very nicely. His natural intelligence saw him show for the ball in some dangerous positions, he also made a couple of Lampard-esque late runs into the box. Some of his dribbling looks lethal as well. If he can improve on his ball control we might have a true absurdity on our hands, especially given his natural ability to win the ball high up the pitch. 

Bang on.

6 hours ago, PloKoon13 said:

I think the general consensus over this game is somewhat over-critical. Granted, I wasn't exactly blown away, but a few mitigating thoughts:

 

- We currently have two fit attackers to play in the front three roles. One of them is Morata. I might be inclined to give us a pass for a somewhat blunt attacking display...

- It might be worth bearing in mind that we did actually score a perfectly legitimate winner which was incorrectly ruled out. Had the linesman made the right call we might be talking about an injury-hit Chelsea earning a plucky win, sign of champions, etc. 

- For all the complaints of sideways passing, lack of Plan B, (etc.) we spent most of the second half playing gung-ho, end-to-end football. Sarri also absolutely made the right call in bringing on Fabregas (although personally I would have been inclined to hook Jorginho rather than Barkley). 

- Hopefully we might see a little more appreciation for Willian given that we were almost incapable of keeping the ball in the final third and had to resort to long balls from the back four more often than not after he went off injured. Perhaps a little more understanding of what his role in the team actually is? How many times did we see somebody get isolated in the corner somewhere and precisely nobody showed up to receive a pass? 

- Kanté's attacking instincts are coming along very nicely. His natural intelligence saw him show for the ball in some dangerous positions, he also made a couple of Lampard-esque late runs into the box. Some of his dribbling looks lethal as well. If he can improve on his ball control we might have a true absurdity on our hands, especially given his natural ability to win the ball high up the pitch. 

This is just getting a bit ridiculous. We are not being given the benefit of the doubt when we play very defensive teams, and that is taking away points from us. It’s hard scoring against these teams parking the bus, and refs disallowing legal goals makes it harder. We should have comfortably beaten CP by 3-0, and end up defending a single goal advantage. Yesterday a legal goal disallowed again to lose 2 points. It is frustrating.

I cannot wait for VAR

3 minutes ago, RMCM said:

I cannot wait for VAR

I don't think it will be used for offsides.

3 hours ago, atomis said:

You might as well say bye bye to CL.......we wont get it. Way too inconsistent, slow and predictable to get CL footy. Im not feeling Sarii at all......I cant name 1 good thing we do, not 1. We are way too one dimentional and why so easy to play against. Sarii himself dont know and wont change Things till better players arrive.......nahh forget CL footy. Without it Eden is as good as gone. 

8

This unfair. COnsidering the man said the team still need to work on their "offensive phase" in his last press conference it pretty much shows he knows what is wrong with the team atm and is willing to work on it

21 minutes ago, coco said:

I don't think it will be used for offsides.

I thought it was to be used in reverse, if a goal goes in and stands then VAR can be used to determine if it was onside, but maybe not the other way around. Linesman could just delay the flag and then have VAR as a cop out if they honestly can't tell. Regardless of if it would have made our goal last night stand, I can't wait, because the reffing in this league is a sh*te sandwich

The trend continues. Hazard had to play with Morata and didn't score. 

1 hour ago, Frankie8Lampard said:

This unfair. COnsidering the man said the team still need to work on their "offensive phase" in his last press conference it pretty much shows he knows what is wrong with the team atm and is willing to work on it

Lets hope so......I really do.

More than happy with a point. 1 more than I was expecting!