I understand it's very frustrating for supporters, because I can't even remember when we were a good stable team, as far as results and performances go it's been miserable under the Boehly era.

However, it's still early days and a lot of investments have been made. When you spend that much in such a short period of time, on inexperienced and young players, you can't expect instant success. Anyone who thinks we are getting a top 4 finish, I would seriously get that out of your head right now or it's going to be a very long season for you. 

This season is about laying the foundations and developing, it's going to take time. Don't forget, we still don't have our defensive midfielders yet, Caicedo was clearly unfit and not in the best condition to play. We played two awkward fixtures and got a point out of it, it's not the end of the world. Our next fixtures are pretty flattering and we should see some better results and performances. 

My only concern, and this goes above the manager, is the injury crisis. We're all seeing it happen before our eyes but we have no idea what's going on. Almost every young player we have had here gets a horrible injury that severely impacts their career. I'm worried about the return of Broja that he might not be the same, I'm worried that Carney might not be the same player, I'm very worried that Reece James is never going to play consistently nevermind become a superstar. Even after a good result and performance we always get this giant slap in our face with someone pulling down and having to sit on the sidelines for weeks/months, I don't see how we could ever mount a title challenge in the future with this sort of nonsense going on. 

52 minutes ago, big blue said:

You see the bigger picture and play the young left winger and hope he develops instead of playing the left back out of position. Long term not sure term, to match the profile of the squad. 

That is how you get sacked by January. 👍👍

Pochettino has had no illusions on being successful. He himself said you need to win to hold on to the job. 

Gladly 5th place wins you the CL spot, or the chance to get to CL. That is one objective for the season. 

He has talked about instilling winning mentality to the squad which for me sounds very good. You get winning mentality by winning. That is pretty simple. 

Injuries sadly could really derail us this season. The medial team has to be assessed but also realize luck has a ton to do with injuries as well. 

57 minutes ago, cfr95 said:

Obviously hindsight is 20:20, but don't hate Poch going for the "win now" lineup (even though it didnt get a win) early on. We need to get used to winning games again, plenty of youth in other positions, can't expect to blood/develop everyone at once whilst still trying to win games.

You can't play kids because they are kids. You will lose the dressing room  very fast and it will be just a downward spiral and you can start pack up your stuff. 

 

3 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

That is how you get sacked by January. 👍👍

Is it? Good to know we have someone with inside knowledge of all tactics and board affairs gracing us on the shedend. 

It's clear you know more than anybody else, but I would've thought the board would embrace Poch trying to get the best of Mudryk, rather than playing Chilwell and Colwill out of position.

Let's see how we get on, maybe you are right and we see this system regularly with Chilwell deployed there, or maybe we see players back in more familiar roles, and stop trying to be pep light.

Just now, Bob stark said:

You can't play kids because they are kids. You will lose the dressing room  very fast and it will be just a downward spiral and you can start pack up your stuff. 

 

The majority of the squad are kids. 

Senior professionals didnt exactly light it up last season did they? 

You cant go the root we have without using the raw players we have brought in, or it is literally money down the drain. 

3 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

You can't play kids because they are kids. You will lose the dressing room  very fast and it will be just a downward spiral and you can start pack up your stuff. 

 

That's literally impossible because 95% of our squad are kids, what do you suggest Pochettino does? Start fielding the 50+ year-old board members and investors? 

Even though we are going through an injury crisis, and have several new players settling in, and a new manager trying to figure them all out, we could have won both games, we hit the woodwork, had dodgy offside goals chalked off, missed a penalty, a bit of luck and it could have been six points.

With Broja, Nkunku, Lavia, James, Carney, Fofana, Badiashile all available we will be wiping the floor with the likes of West Ham and the bottom half of the table.

It’s tough on Poch with the injuries, but they will mostly all be back over the coming weeks, we need to dig in until then.

12 minutes ago, big blue said:

The majority of the squad are kids. 

Senior professionals didnt exactly light it up last season did they? 

You cant go the root we have without using the raw players we have brought in, or it is literally money down the drain. 

My point is that your age should not be the main factor.

Let's look at Enzo. If we still have jogavic, no chance poch will pick jogavic over Enzo. 

In murdyk case is the same. Right now he need to improve many part of his game. He can't just play 100 km/h  everytime and he need to run back everytime. 

 

Edited August 21, 20232 yr by Bob stark

Had the penalty gone in, West Ham would have to have been a bit more adventurous, and with our speedy players, given the confidence of leading. I really think we could have picked off at least 2 more goals. Missing the penalty was the vital point where an experienced player could have lifted them. Over the coming months, i think over enthusiam is more likely to be our problem, where Poch will need to reign them in a bit.

5 minutes ago, coco said:

Even though we are going through an injury crisis, and have several new players settling in, and a new manager trying to figure them all out, we could have won both games, we hit the woodwork, had dodgy offside goals chalked off, missed a penalty, a bit of luck and it could have been six points.

With Broja, Nkunku, Lavia, James, Carney, Fofana, Badiashile all available we will be wiping the floor with the likes of West Ham and the bottom half of the table.

It’s tough on Poch with the injuries, but they will mostly all be back over the coming weeks, we need to dig in until then.

I personally think just with  Nkunku, I can see us winning against pool n west ham. 

7 minutes ago, coco said:

Even though we are going through an injury crisis, and have several new players settling in, and a new manager trying to figure them all out, we could have won both games, we hit the woodwork, had dodgy offside goals chalked off, missed a penalty, a bit of luck and it could have been six points.

With Broja, Nkunku, Lavia, James, Carney, Fofana, Badiashile all available we will be wiping the floor with the likes of West Ham and the bottom half of the table.

It’s tough on Poch with the injuries, but they will mostly all be back over the coming weeks, we need to dig in until then.

Injuries are part of the game unfortunately, although we have been particularly unfortunate in this area. We will hopefully get most of these players back over the next few months. However, my concern is that we have quite a few key players who seem to have chronic/recurring injury problems. You are absolutely right that we would be looking much better with Reece and Nkunku all in the starting lineup. But if these players are regularly injured then we cannot rely on them and tough decisions would ultimately have to be made.

5 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

My point is that your age should not be the main factor.

Let's look at Enzo. If we still have jogavic, no chance poch will pick jogavic over Enzo. 

In murdyk case is the same. Right now he need to improve many part of his game. He can't just play 100 km/h  everytime and he need to run back everytime. 

 

My point is what is the point in having Mudryk in the squad if dont give him loads of minutes? He has played 2000 odd minutes total in his whole career. So I'm struggling to see what the point is of spending so much money on someone so raw. We arent going to loan out a £62m player and he isnt going to improve playing cameos. 

It's still very early days for poch so this isnt really on him yet, as I hope the situation improves, and so far I'm pretty impressed with poch overall. 

If you are happy for Chilwell to play left wing instead, then great for you. 

Maatsen wouldve been a better choice in that role too in my humble opinion.

 

4 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Injuries are part of the game unfortunately, although we have been particularly unfortunate in this area. We will hopefully get most of these players back over the next few months. However, my concern is that we have quite a few key players who seem to have chronic/recurring injury problems. You are absolutely right that we would be looking much better with Reece and Nkunku all in the starting lineup. But if these players are regularly injured then we cannot rely on them and tough decisions would ultimately have to be made.

The owners need to sort out the medics, if they can’t stop the injury list growing then sack them. Our only option is to hope the medics can get a grip of these injuries, it feels like we just spent a billion £ in the infirmary, we literally have 1/4 of the squad out injured. Without all the injuries we can compete for 2nd place, but with 1/4 of the squad missing we will be very lucky to get top 4.

1 minute ago, coco said:

The owners need to sort out the medics, if they can’t stop the injury list growing then sack them. Our only option is to hope the medics can get a grip of these injuries, it feels like we just spent a billion £ in the infirmary, we literally have 1/4 of the squad out injured. Without all the injuries we can compete for 2nd place, but with 1/4 of the squad missing we will be very lucky to get top 4.

Think the physio argument only pertains to James', as its becoming clearer he needs to improve his mobility. 

Other than that, all of these knee injuries are a result of our players lunging in. Either its simply bad luck or our players need to understand and mitigate these type of collisions. 

 

8 minutes ago, big blue said:

My point is what is the point in having Mudryk in the squad if dont give him loads of minutes? He has played 2000 odd minutes total in his whole career. So I'm struggling to see what the point is of spending so much money on someone so raw. We arent going to loan out a £62m player and he isnt going to improve playing cameos. 

It's still very early days for poch so this isnt really on him yet, as I hope the situation improves, and so far I'm pretty impressed with poch overall. 

If you are happy for Chilwell to play left wing instead, then great for you. 

Maatsen wouldve been a better choice in that role too in my humble opinion.

 

Not sure why Maatsen isn't playing actually.  Poch actually played Matsen in an advanced 10 type role in pre season and i think he bagged two goals. I think it was an opportunity missed and continues to leave me uneasy regarding whther we are going to be able to keep Maatsen in the group or if he is moved on.

30 minutes ago, WhiteWall said:

Not sure why Maatsen isn't playing actually.  Poch actually played Matsen in an advanced 10 type role in pre season and i think he bagged two goals. I think it was an opportunity missed and continues to leave me uneasy regarding whther we are going to be able to keep Maatsen in the group or if he is moved on.

Agreed. I would like to see Maatsen feature more.

41 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Think the physio argument only pertains to James', as its becoming clearer he needs to improve his mobility. 

Other than that, all of these knee injuries are a result of our players lunging in. Either its simply bad luck or our players need to understand and mitigate these type of collisions. 

 

I don't think our players are doing anything different to players from other teams when it comes to competing for the ball. They just seem to be picking up injuries more frequently.

3 minutes ago, forbzy said:

I don't think our players are doing anything different to players from other teams when it comes to competing for the ball. They just seem to be picking up injuries more frequently.

You may be right. But looking at these injuries back, you have to say the exposure of injury is high.

Broja and Fofana (against Milan) both of them completely extended their leg, lunged and planted their leg to win the ball. Surely these types of challenges can be mitigated. 

 

59 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Think the physio argument only pertains to James', as its becoming clearer he needs to improve his mobility. 

Other than that, all of these knee injuries are a result of our players lunging in. Either its simply bad luck or our players need to understand and mitigate these type of collisions. 

 

Absolutely. It's mostly been bad luck. Villa player falls full force across Broja's knee, etc.

2 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

Not sure why Maatsen isn't playing actually.  Poch actually played Matsen in an advanced 10 type role in pre season and i think he bagged two goals. I think it was an opportunity missed and continues to leave me uneasy regarding whther we are going to be able to keep Maatsen in the group or if he is moved on.

It could be because he hasnt renewed, so maybe there is a directive from above to not use him if possible. Very strange that he has played that role for us, as that wouldve at least made a bit more sense, given his ability find space and pick a pass. Hopefully her some clarity on Maatsen soon, as he should be pushing to start left back if we are selecting players based on form. I bet the club would love to find a new home Cucurella tbh.

1 hour ago, big blue said:

It could be because he hasnt renewed, so maybe there is a directive from above to not use him if possible. Very strange that he has played that role for us, as that wouldve at least made a bit more sense, given his ability find space and pick a pass. Hopefully her some clarity on Maatsen soon, as he should be pushing to start left back if we are selecting players based on form. I bet the club would love to find a new home Cucurella tbh.

We should be treating him if not on an equal footing to Colwill, certainly pretty close to an equal footing. Granted he had a season in the Champ rather than in the PL but it was undoubtedly a break out season and like de Zerbi, Kompany was keen to sign him permanently. Throughout pre season he has thrived in any position he has played and has been an effervescent character on the pitch. He would have been an ideal foil to have worked with Jackson and Sterling buzzing around a retreating West Ham back 9 insistent on protecting the fort.

He has shown what he can do and if the hold up is contract renewal negotiations we need to get this done. It is counter productive letting this lad leave and then paying over the odds for a Kudus or similar when we have no idea what we will be getting.

Hopefully now we have Caicedo and Lavia to help the defence we can ditch this back 3 rubbish. So much of what was exciting about what we saw in pre-season wasn't on show at all. 

15 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

Not sure why Maatsen isn't playing actually.  Poch actually played Matsen in an advanced 10 type role in pre season and i think he bagged two goals. I think it was an opportunity missed and continues to leave me uneasy regarding whther we are going to be able to keep Maatsen in the group or if he is moved on.

Over who? 

31 minutes ago, Bob stark said:

Over who? 

Mudryk, Chukwuemeka or Madueke. Has played in each position during pre season and did well there. Chilwell will most likely be injured within the next month. Definitely room for Maatsen within this group.