BrainOfLevy
Michael Carrick
Completely agreed.
However, as I've mentioned before, there are 2 incredibly annoying extremes on this board. People who will be negative and go overboard on everything, regardless of what we see. And people who will be annoyingly, holier than thou positive on everything, to the extent that they will attack fans who dare to criticise and say negative things about the manager or the team.
We've now played 6 home games in the league so far this season. We've scored 5 in those games and picked up 10 points from a group of teams that I'm sorry, are not particularly impressive.
In many of those games (and in most of the away ones), our general attacking play has been poor (and yet until Defoe came on in the second half, I thought our attacking play was actually quite good. Where has that been so far? So we can do it? What the hell was the first half?).
People do realise that the team will need some time to gel. However, there has been little improvement as the season has gone on. Everytime we have looked like we might be turning a bit of a corner (Norwich, first half of Chelsea), we go back to the same dross.
So people have rightly been critical about already losing twice at home only 11 games into the season and being served up some ridiculously boring football. Yet the same individuals will come down hard on those (sometimes overly hysterical) people and criticise, act like a better fan etc etc.
Thing is mate, I don't need to look very far for positives on today. We played a poor first half today but ended oh testing their keeper more times than any other this season, and the most for a losing team since 2006/7. So it's clear to see where the positives are. Me being overly positive would be to say that the first half was great, when it clearly wasn't.
I think people do need to realise though that a season is ups and downs. These kind of days will happen to us and every other team. People also need to realise what we are trying to achieve. We probe, we play at a slow tempo but carried out right, it can lead us to looking very comfortable and not conceding much, giving us a nice platform to improve. That won't always happen though.
But absolutely NO strategy will lead to perfect football over the season, so people calling for AVB to go are misguided. So while we have positive and negative aspects of our play, we saw the negatives today and other teams are looking positive. But over the season, we will have great positives and other teams that are looking great now will have negatives. And sometimes, depending on the scale of change in a squad, it may take longer than a season. But a season is the main barometer.
So to be honest, I do think you are a better fan if you can exercise some patience and perspective after a match, rather than go for the players or the manager like a child would, or by having a go at other fans for having that perspective.
I repeat, being overly positive is claiming something obviously **** is actually good, eg our first half. Claiming that the world is not coming to an end after a very respectable fight back is thwarted by a goalkeeper in great form is not being overly positive to that extreme. It's perfectly normal and rational.