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All Hail Martin O'Neill - King of Anti-football

Spur of the moment said:
To think I once hoped he'd be next Spurs manager. Today's grotesque display by Sunderland ranks as probably the most nihilistic I have seen - ever.

fudge off MO'N!
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I believe ?ô N?®ill is a pragmatist first. People's perception of him is that he advocates negative football, but that's because they've only ever seen him in charge of underdog sides. He'd not be doing a better job if he was in Roberto Mart?¡nez's position instead.
 
We were set up wrong ! I read someone on the OMT saying we should start 4-4-2 coz they weren't going to come at us. By the time azza, jermaine and saha came on, there wasn't much time left.We defended stolidly BTW, O'Neill is ex-gooner scu, from the halcyon days of 1-0 to the arsea'nal, what did you expect ? Plus his record v arry makes very poor reading
 
Aside from Foy letting Sunderland kick us (but not as much as Stoke were allowed to kick us), I don't really see how we can complain. If Barca play Bristol Rovers and draw, they'd have no right to blame the draw on Bristol Rovers not trying to beat them at their own game.

If I were a Sunderland fan, I'd be proud of my home record under MON. To go from fighting a relegation battle to 8th is extraordinary. I was terrified Arsenal would get him before Sunderland did because he's a good manager. His squad is not the best, he even has a few injury problems at the moment and I don't know what's happening with that AWOL record signing striker Bruce got, but next season Sunderland will be aiming for the Europa League places because MON always manages to overachieve.

To complain that he got his tactics right is a bit strange. It makes more sense to be disappointed that Harry got his so wrong, we all knew what the match would be like. We were unfortunate that Foy was the ref so we didn't get a penalty, but MON didn't inherit a squad of flair players, he can only do the best with what he has.

We got a point and no injuries. Bentner didn't score, BaE didn't get a red card from Foy, Sandro didn't get a red card from Foy. The rest of our games are "easy" games, the two strongest teams we have yet to play are Fulham and Norwich and both of those matches are at home.

To expect Sunderland to try to outplay us is wishful thinking in the extreme. The match was 0-0 because they didn't score from their set pieces and we played three people that get into offensive positions... Of those, one was played out of position, the other plays in whichever position he wants. Our 4th and 5th most offensive players are our full backs. Sunderland had the more attacking formation and MON is the king of anti football? Bentner and Sessegnon are both attacking players, McClean and Larsson are wide men that attack... That's already more forward players than we had out there. They just defended well, on another day any one of our mistakes could have ended up with Sunderland getting a winner.
 
elltrev said:
I would prefer to see Niko come in for Parker, and stick Luka back into central midfield in a 4-2-3-1. Whatever you think of Kranjcar in terms of his quality or ability, at least he is the type of player who excels against teams who park the bus (IMO).

I also think Livermore is more positive in possession than Parker or Sandro, so would at least prefer to see him playing if Luka is playing further forward as he was today.

I don't mind VDV dropping deep if he's playing in the hole and we have three other attacking players, as long as one of the central midfielders then moves into the space that he vacates. I think movement and players swapping positions is almost always a positive thing. But in the system we were playing today, in which we already have three central midfielders and he is the nominal right-midfielder, him dropping deep is so counterproductive. I'd love to know what Harry thinks about this, and if he ever asks VDV not to!
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Adebayor
Bale-Kranjcar-VdV
Modric-Parker

With that kind of attack we could have won the game
 
On the long car journey home after the game, I heard MO'N being interviewed on the radio. In essence, he "parked the bus" at home, whilst hoping to hit us on the break, or from a set piece. I don't really care what formation we played, who we sent out on the pitch. The facts of the matter are that we had 70% of the possession, but only managed 1 shot on target.

When it comes to tactics, I agree with those posters who've said that MO'N is the King of Anti-Football. He set his team to do a job against us, and that job was to deprive us the space to play our enlightening attacking brand of football (which are what teams now do to Barcelona - just look at the "stats" for their game away at AC Milan, they almost mirror our's from yesterday).

I am afraid to say that he won his particular tactical battle against us and for all of our tactical changes, we could not break them down. Being pragmatical, I would have settled for an away point against Sunderland, I got what I expected!
 
We can't blame the oppo for setting up like that it's up to us to break them down. We didn't have any ideas though, too many players under performed. I may have taken off walker for an attacker yesterday and gone 3 at the back.

Kaboul, galls, Bae,
Lennon, modic, Parker,bale
Vdv
Ade, Defoe,
 
Gazza Dazzla said:
We can't blame the oppo for setting up like that it's up to us to break them down. We didn't have any ideas though, too many players under performed. I may have taken off walker for an attacker yesterday and gone 3 at the back.

Kaboul, galls, Bae,
Lennon, modic, Parker,bale
Vdv
Ade, Defoe,
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Wow. No one to mark McClean, no one to look after Sessegnon.....forget a 0-0, we would have lost 10-0.
 
In the last 10 mins? 10-0, really?

Parker would have been in or around sessegnon and we'd have had 2 spare players at the back to deal with the runners like McLean.

What we were trying was clearly not working, we had to change it up and keep as many of our match winners on as possible. You'd have probably said the same about etherington and pennant when we went 3 at the back away to stoke?

I think it could have been better trying to gain 2 points than losing 1. Although I do think a draw up there isn't a disaster.
 
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Gazza Dazzla said:
In the last 10 mins? 10-0, really?

Parker would have been in or around sessegnon and we'd have had 2 spare players at the back to deal with the runners like McLean.

What we were trying was clearly not working, we had to change it up and keep as many of our match winners on as possible. You'd have probably said the same about etherington and pennant when we went 3 at the back away to stoke?

I think it could have been better trying to gain 2 points than losing 1. Although I do think a draw up there isn't a disaster.
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If we played the system you propose, we would have been no better off mate. Parker marks Sessegnon. One of our three CBs is then pulled out far wide to deal with McClean, and one has to stay central to deal with Bendtner. On the break, Sunderland could then push Larsson and one of their CMs up, and still leave five at the back. Don't you see what would happen, man? As long as they keep the ball, we'll be frustrated, and when we get it, we won't dare give it away because we'll be left intensely exposed. Nah, a bit too risky.

And I'd rather we tried to play within our limits and gain a point than go all-out insane and lose 5-0 to five counter-attacking goals. Doesn't mean we play defensive, merely means we're sensible when it comes to committing men forward.
 
DubaiSpur said:
If we played the system you propose, we would have been no better off mate. Parker marks Sessegnon. One of our three CBs is then pulled out far wide to deal with McClean, and one has to stay central to deal with Bendtner. On the break, Sunderland could then push Larsson and one of their CMs up, and still leave five at the back. Don't you see what would happen, man? As long as they keep the ball, we'll be frustrated, and when we get it, we won't dare give it away because we'll be left intensely exposed. Nah, a bit too risky.

And I'd rather we tried to play within our limits and gain a point than go all-out insane and lose 5-0 to five counter-attacking goals. Doesn't mean we play defensive, merely means we're sensible when it comes to committing men forward.
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So why didn't it work out that way when we did it away to stoke? Your talking like it's fact that it wouldn't work, whereas the only evidence we have is chasing a game for 45 mins against stoke when we hammered them playing it! Stoke by the way being a similar sort of side and set up and in similar form to this Sunderland side!

Talking about 5-0 and 10-0 is a bit silly isn't it, I'm talking about giving it a go for the last 15-10 mins, not set up from minute 1 like that!

At the end of the day we'd still have 4 defensive players on the pitch to deal with them, but our attacking players would be spread out on the pitch better.
 
Gazza Dazzla said:
So why didn't it work out that way when we did it away to stoke? Your talking like it's fact that it wouldn't work, whereas the only evidence we have is chasing a game for 45 mins against stoke when we hammered them playing it! Stoke by the way being a similar sort of side and set up and in similar form to this Sunderland side!

Talking about 5-0 and 10-0 is a bit silly isn't it, I'm talking about giving it a go for the last 15-10 mins, not set up from minute 1 like that!

At the end of the day we'd still have 4 defensive players on the pitch to deal with them, but our attacking players would be spread out on the pitch better.
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Ah.....I completely missed the 'ten minutes' bit. I thought you were advocating us setting up that way from the start... my fault, mate.:oops:

Yeah, you're right. We should have tried it ,at the very least.
 
Fair enough. Like I said, a draw up there isn't a disaster anyway, it's whether you want to risk losing the point on the chance you get 3? It's a tough one.
 
Having got up early and travelled all the way there and back and watched one of the worst games i have seen all season, i feel i have a right to have a moan about MON. He is one of the most defensive managers in the game, look at the sides he sent out at Leicester and Villa and now Sunderland, he sets out not to lose the game first and formost and hopefully hit teams on the break and win a deadball situations.

Do i blame him for this? yes i do but Redknapp is just as much to blame for the bore draw yesterday. It was obvious that MON would defend and pack the middle of the pitch, we needed to play with width to get in behind them but we started with Two DM's and allowed Bale ( once again) to drift in from the left to often.
 
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