Staying Up Thread 2019/20 | Page 17 | Vital Football

Staying Up Thread 2019/20

Steven Nzonzi would of fit the bill .
Sadly that ship has sailed
Either way , next window we need this type of player to build around
 
tarzansbrother said:
Ahhh tongue in cheek. Wouldn’t it be novel if our manager tried to lift the gloom. His current attempt is to throw the players he is going to have to use under the bus. Stop their chance of appearing at Wembley, they are going to be buzzing the following week aren’t they. I have absolutely no confidence in Smith and it looks like you haven’t either.
Click to expand...

Not sure how you come to that conclusion but I think both you and I know that I’ve a tad more confidence than you...no doubt if he’d come out last night and protected the players you’d have criticised him for that as well. And as for lifting the gloom....yes winning a cup final next week would be a start wouldn’t it.
 
Langoe66 said:
Not sure how you come to that conclusion but I think both you and I know that I’ve a tad more confidence than you...no doubt if he’d come out last night and protected the players you’d have criticised him for that as well. And as for lifting the gloom....yes winning a cup final next week would be a start wouldn’t it.
Click to expand...
Smith for weeks now has been telling us this telling us that. But when it comes to showing us we have a decent first half at Burnley and an extremely lucky win against Leicester in the cup to show for the last dozen games. Fair play with your confidence. Like I have said mine went a while back. Talk of survival went for me with the players clearly throwing in the towel on Saturday, making Southampton look like Brazil. I will certainly keep criticising Smith. There is something clearly wrong with the set up that he is a massive part of. The football is deteriorating week on week, the players are not together as a unit, Smith tactics and style of play looks broken along with the players he has been given and had a hand in buying and continues to persist with them stubbornly.
 
Last edited:
It'll be interesting to see what he does in the final because I'd bet the farm no matter what happens he'll go back to 433 in the Premier League.

He decided yesterday to bring it back when he pulled off Konsa and I thought for about 5 or 10 minutes it was our best spell and we seemed to get back into the game but then it all went to complete shit again.

His reaction seems to be to lean even more into his philosophy rather than take a break from his philosophy and just focus on getting some draws and clean sheets. You can play to win and keep it tight at the back but all he knows is playing 'bravely' because that's what worked in league one and the championship.
 
I think a lot will depend on how our rivals do whilst we are otherwise engaged at Wembley next week.
If we find ourselves ensconsed in the bottom three after our Carabao Cup game I fear it will take a lot of strong mindedness and sheer bloody guts to get back out this time, and I am not sure this group of players has got it.
 
One of two things has to happen for us to survive this season, it is possible but not carrying on the way we are:

1. Deano stops dreaming and sets up the team less open and much harder to beat with a ‘first rule is don’t concede’ policy rather than ‘we’ll score one more than you (we won’t)

2. We get another manager in who will.

That’s it.
 
Dean criticised the players after Southampton for lacking fight, he said it twice. I can’t see any fight in any of them bar Mings and Grealish. We looked a bunch of lightweight mercenaries who will not, or cannot, impose themselves on a game. I remember Ron Saunders telling us in a shareholder’s forum in the Holte that he used to count the hearts getting on the coach for an away game. He said something like, 7, 8, 9, 9 and a half, 10. I wonder how many hearts Dean would count for our away games now? Our buying policy should take character into account as a first base particularly after all the mistakes of recent years.
 
Wicked Messenger said:
Dean criticised the players after Southampton for lacking fight, he said it twice. I can’t see any fight in any of them bar Mings and Grealish. We looked a bunch of lightweight mercenaries who will not, or cannot, impose themselves on a game. I remember Ron Saunders telling us in a shareholder’s forum in the Holte that he used to count the hearts getting on the coach for an away game. He said something like, 7, 8, 9, 9 and a half, 10. I wonder how many hearts Dean would count for our away games now? Our buying policy should take character into account as a first base particularly after all the mistakes of recent years.
Click to expand...

Smith talked about that last summer saying that they did a load of research into the players as people before signing them. I guess that was just PR bollox.
 
BodyButter said:
Smith talked about that last summer saying that they did a load of research into the players as people before signing them. I guess that was just PR bollox.
Click to expand...

We've all had interviews and told them we are team players, I've never been a team player in my life. I've never been micromanaged and resent people who try but I was bloody good at my job, I would help anyone but I never suffered fools. Certainly, never accuse me of being a creep but I would do anything to help a good manager and do my best to scupper a bad one.

I think I had a fair few bad ones, to be honest

Hard to vet someone on a single meeting
 
Villan57 said:
We've all had interviews and told them we are team players, I've never been a team player in my life. I've never been micromanaged and resent people who try but I was bloody good at my job, I would help anyone but I never suffered fools. Certainly, never accuse me of being a creep but I would do anything to help a good manager and do my best to scupper a bad one.

I think I had a fair few bad ones, to be honest

Hard to vet someone on a single meeting
Click to expand...

This . I have captained cricket teams , but you only find out someones true character when the going gets really tough. You can't judge it in one meeting or even by looking at other games.
 
sirdennis said:
This . I have captained cricket teams , but you only find out someones true character when the going gets really tough. You can't judge it in one meeting or even by looking at other games.
Click to expand...

I've interviewed loads of people in the last few years after vetting CV's for hours and throwing most of them in the bin, especially after checking Facebook profiles for any signs of Bluenose! seriously!

We used to have to score them against a set of answers to questions that were in general nothing to do with the job. Then I'd ask them the technical stuff but at the end, I'd add a few of my own and have a relaxed chat, it's amazing what people will tell you when they think the interview is over.
 
Wicked Messenger said:
I wonder how many hearts Dean would count for our away games now? Our buying policy should take character into account as a first base particularly after all the mistakes of recent years.
Click to expand...

In the summer our recruitment team specifically talked about bringing in players of a certain character and personality. I'd love to know how they determined this and the metrics they used.

There is a woeful lack of leadership and it is rare to get players at 24/25 that are true leaders. I think we did bring in some triers and workers but there are just enough weak links and lack of leadership that heads drop more easily than they should.

Throw in whats looking like a failure of leadership on the management staff and when the heads turn who are they looking to? Grealish, Mings, Reina? It's not enough. It'll be interesting to see if Samatta has those leadership qualities or if his head will drop too when he is continually left alone with only Grealish taking charge.

In desperate need of McGinn.
 
McParlandTheGreat said:
We've managed to avoid signing players who are out and out trouble, of which there are a fair few around.
Click to expand...

I hope so, the problem is we don't see what goes in behind closed doors. He's allegedly had words with Engels and Jota has been frozen out and he knew him but he's never dropped him before. You never know who is shit-stirring because they aren't playing, especially players that have suddenly been dropped, I know I wouldn't be happy being left out.
 
I've watched a couple of those programmes where Ant Middleton and his team of SAS sadists put ordinary people through a tough regime to see who survives. Funnily enough it's not always the physically toughest, who talk a good talk, but the mentally toughest who keep going. We need some moral fibre and bloody minded determination from our lot.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.