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Harry Winks

We don't tend to find our rhythm till october time - let's see how we've been playing by Christmas time before we judge any progress made
 
We don't tend to find our rhythm till october time - let's see how we've been playing by Christmas time before we judge any progress made

True, but have slow starts not been a problem for a few years now?

I was hoping we’d have a different approach this cycle.
 
2 games is too early to tell form for this season, no-ones looked particularly good except City and maybe Sheff Utd (in terms of playing to their potential)

It does feel like a long time since we’ve played anywhere near our best though, so I get the concern. Hopefully with Son, Dele, Jan back and Lo Celso integrated we may see a more balanced side.
 
True, but have slow starts not been a problem for a few years now?

I was hoping we’d have a different approach this cycle.
How? With only one of the key signings made before the season started. Two games in and Lo Celso has had 10 minutes. This was totally predictable with Levy's typical transfer prolonging. Until we have a chairman who understands how important preseason is to his coach we will continues to have slow starts to every season.

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It’s not about one performance, it’s that there is no discernible progress away from the stuttering of last season despite an uninterrupted summer.

I don’t agree we stood still just because we didn’t sign anyone, it’s not the only way to improve a squad.

How else do you improve a squad? If you're lucky you have a quality youth player break through but that is not something that can relied upon, we're not going to have a Harry Kane come through every season. Coaching the team can only take you so far if you don't possess the raw ingredients in the first place.

So yes transferring new players in is the most significant and reliable way to improve a squad. Remember every year you don't bring in player your existing players age a year, which can be both a positive and a negative.

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How? With only one of the key signings made before the season started. Two games in and Lo Celso has had 10 minutes. This was totally predictable with Levy's typical transfer prolonging. Until we have a chairman who understands how important preseason is to his coach we will continues to have slow starts to every season.

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Lo Celso isn’t going to be the difference between us starting the season playing well or not. What about all the other members of the squad who had a full pre-season, should they not be expected to be up to speed?

Ideally you’d want all signings in before pre-season so they can integrate earlier into the team, but the idea that a single player signed on deadline day is the reason for our seemingly slow start is ridiculous.
 
Lo Celso isn’t going to be the difference between us starting the season playing well or not. What about all the other members of the squad who had a full pre-season, should they not be expected to be up to speed?

Ideally you’d want all signings in before pre-season so they can integrate earlier into the team, but the idea that a single player signed on deadline day is the reason for our seemingly slow start is ridiculous.

He is not the sole reason, but as always our pedestrian performances stem from a low quality CM that still has Sissoko starting games for GHod's sake. Lo Celso and Ndombele have likely been brought in to enhance our options in CM, where we have for seasons after season have lacked passing ability and range and very importantly have press resistance.

If we hamstring ourselves by not actually bringing in a clearly important part of the plan until deadline day knowing fully well he won't now be integrated into the team then you can't be surprised that once again our playing form is poor once again.

CM is the most important part of the pitch and frankly in Poch's time it has been sadly neglected.

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Lo Celso isn’t going to be the difference between us starting the season playing well or not. What about all the other members of the squad who had a full pre-season, should they not be expected to be up to speed?

Ideally you’d want all signings in before pre-season so they can integrate earlier into the team, but the idea that a single player signed on deadline day is the reason for our seemingly slow start is ridiculous.
Agreed, It’s totally ridiculous!
 
How? With only one of the key signings made before the season started. Two games in and Lo Celso has had 10 minutes. This was totally predictable with Levy's typical transfer prolonging. Until we have a chairman who understands how important preseason is to his coach we will continues to have slow starts to every season.

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It’s a squad game and it takes months to integrate new players, you use what you have and plan accordingly, I think it would be sub optimum to rely on new signings in the first phase of the season.
 
How else do you improve a squad? If you're lucky you have a quality youth player break through but that is not something that can relied upon, we're not going to have a Harry Kane come through every season. Coaching the team can only take you so far if you don't possess the raw ingredients in the first place.

So yes transferring new players in is the most significant and reliable way to improve a squad. Remember every year you don't bring in player your existing players age a year, which can be both a positive and a negative.

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physically, mentally, you train them and coach them, just because the games stop for two months doesn't mean the learning should
 
physically, mentally, you train them and coach them, just because the games stop for two months doesn't mean the learning should
I don't disagree that players can be improved upon via training, I do though likely disagree with you as to what extent. The raw materials need to be present in the first place, you can not carve a diamond from a hump of wood.

Also take into account as over the last 2 or so we have not really added any players, these same players have already been trained to the maximal level that Poch is able to achieve
More training is not at this going to improve them much beyond their current level. This is why new players are important, fresh blood and hopefully better attributes along with the chance that Poch will be able to push them further than their existing level.

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I don't disagree that players can be improved upon via training, I do though likely disagree with you as to what extent. The raw materials need to be present in the first place, you can not carve a diamond from a hump of wood.

Also take into account as over the last 2 or so we have not really added any players, these same players have already been trained to the maximal level that Poch is able to achieve
More training is not at this going to improve them much beyond their current level. This is why new players are important, fresh blood and hopefully better attributes along with the chance that Poch will be able to push them further than their existing level.

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we are not dealing with humps of wood though are we, all of the players in our squad have proven themselves as exceptional talents
 
we are not dealing with humps of wood though are we, all of the players in our squad have proven themselves as exceptional talents
Our midfield bloody hasn't [emoji38]

And my point was that they have ready been trained to a maximal level, Poch is not going to get any more of out the same group of players he's already had for multiple seasons.

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Our midfield bloody hasn't [emoji38]

And my point was that they have ready been trained to a maximal level, Poch is not going to get any more of out the same group of players he's already had for multiple seasons.

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I disagree with that, I think you can always learn something new, obviously players physical stats are going to be a bell curve but football intelligence should show a steady increase as long as they are actively involved.
 
@galeforce does raise a fair point regarding our slow starts and the way that our play is still a bit disjointed (and has been for months now). However, i wanted Poch to go into this season having ZERO excuses re the way the team started from a coaching pointy of view.
I'm still not quite in a position to totally put the whole focus on him because whilst he got one of his main targets early, he still had to wait until the morning before the season started to get his others (plus i'm still wondering if there was a lesser request to bring in another attacker to be able to give Kane more opportunities to rest, but let's not digress to far on that now).

So i think given that and that we had City as ouir first away game, we've done ok in tersm fo points (thanks to VAR!) and our general play.
I still have worries over:

- our defensive discipline in central midfield - who can we bring on in games vs top 6 rivals that would be seen as someone to 'shut the game down'?
- Winks is becoming too cautious in is passing choices because he doesn't have someone more defensive behin and on his mind he worries if he loses it, we are in trouble
- our attacking movements and passes: how often do we feel confident that we will create a good opportunity to shoot on goal when we get in behind on the break? We seem to constantly make the wrong passing choices in the biggest games
- Passing around at the back; have we gotten more vulnerable at doing this compared to the other top 6 clubs? Hugo being so dodgy is starting to catch us up more and more imo. I feel we need to simply chose our moments more on when to do this and when to somply go long to be able to regroup our defensive positions

Hopefully we get a good win vs Saudi Sportswashing Machine AND a good team performance from a tactical and gameplay point of view and take things from there.
 
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