foxfan92

Don't talk sensible formations on here!

Take solace from the knowledge that if we lose today ... er ... nothing will change!

You misspelled De Cordova-Reid! And it'll be Mavididi who comes off not Ayew even then.

Surely playing Ricardo would help since, if he's allowed to play a similar role to last season, he'll effectively help ease the burden in the middle of midfield at times, and offer an avenue on the right which would stretch the opposition and as a result, make Winks less of an easy target.

Playing as negatively as we do will not only limit the number of chances we create, but invite more pressure on ourselves so these both go hand in hand given our style of play, and doesn't exude a winning mentality. We either change this way of playing or get used to losing or scraping draws... pretty much as we have done so far, and get relegated at the end of the season.

I wouldn't bet on it, unfortunately.

What worries me is the repeating pattern of playing awful first half then having a decent spell in the first part of the second half, which is disrupted by Cooper's bizarre substitutions. It worries me for several reasons. 1 - if Cooper can rally the players together to play like this in the second half, then why can't he get them to start the game in this fashion? Is he reacting to things he didn't plan for initially? Or is it always the plan to try to hold out for the first 45 minutes, and up the pace in the second half - because there must surely be so many things wrong with these tactics if this is the case ... 2 - the alternative being at half time players abandon the plan themselves through collective embarrassment of their first half display - with Cooper passing it off as his coaching which gives players greater freedom to express themselves. 3 - the substitutions seem to come at a time when we're finally stringing attacks together and disrupt the flow by being invariably negative / defensively minded Or 4 - we introduce players in positions when they are not the most suited for those positions from the players available on the bench. Or 5 - the substitutions are attack minded with the right players but come far too late and have little time to have impact on the game (sometimes only a couple of mins before the end of the game). I'm also concerned by the fact we don't seem to adjust our tactics to suit our opposition. Against Everton at home, who had a lot of injuries and their confidence at an all time low, we should have been attacking their fullbacks with attack minded players right from the off, but we didn't set up to take advantage of those weaknesses. I'm all for getting behind the manager and the team, but there have been so many things that just seem off, that scream we're underperforming and while we may only be 6 games in that's almost 1/6 of the season. We're averaging 1/2 a point a game. And while we may not be in the relegation zone at the moment, we will be if The Saints beat Bournemouth later. There are some positives, we seem better at defending corners. Okoli looks better than I thought he would. Buonanotte looks decent. We have one heck of a great keeper! We manage a few minutes football where we look half decent each match, (or nearly every match). Sometimes Ayew doesn't fall over.... But the negatives far outweigh the positives. We won't stay up only playing semi-decent football for 30 mins or less each game. Cooper keeps trying to say the right things in press conferences, but for all his talk of adapting and implying he is listening to fans concerns, and building on the way we played last season, he's just doing the same each week. I'd have more respect for the guy if he said "No, I'm doing things my way because I believe in my system." I'd still be concerned because I think his system is wrong, but at least I wouldn't be angry each week looking at the team sheet and thinking "I've been lied to again." I'm hoping I'll look back on this thinking Cooper proved me wrong. And I normally back the manager, and maybe being unfair on him due to feeling so let down by the mess Rodgers left us in, so having less patience. But I do feel we look best this season when we've played more aggressively and attack minded, and I'd love for us to just set up that way, picking the best personal for us to go at the opposition, throwing more caution to the wind. Yes we might suffer some heavy defeats, but I feel we'll also be beating those teams we're going to be competing against in the bottom half of the table more often than not. Right now I don't think our style of play suits us or plays to our strengths, and unfortunately from what we've seen of Cooper thus far, I can't see us changing any time soon. And this is why I'd like our board to be proactive for once ... but I can't see that happening either ....

Why those subs??

Amazing from Mads

Mads doing very well. Having a decent keeper this season will help our survival chances

Do not suddenly go super defensive Cooper!!! Let's build on this momentum.

Amazing!!!! JJ

I've not got an issue with Ayew. He's nowhere near as exciting as Mav or Fatawu, and I've had issues with his positioning a few times, making us narrower than we need to be, but he seems to hold up the ball okay, and could offer us something different if we played a more attack minded team elsewhere. I think Ayew could work if we played Ricardo because it would allow Ricardo to give us width on the right, as he surges forward, but and this is my biggest issue with Cooper, while our full backs have been far from great, Ricky hasn't had a single minute of play in the first 5 games. His name should be one of the first on the team sheet. I just feel like Cooper has this conservative mindset with a certain system he wants to implement, regardless of whether that means sacrificing our best players to try to fit his philosophy. I was hoping from what we were told before he came, that Cooper would be more adaptable, because I feel the best managers alter their own playing style to suit the players they have and develop a system that compliments them, while Cooper looks out of his depth and stubbornly refusing to adapt to our strengths. We knew Eveton were there for the taking. On top of how poor they've been they had real weaknesses at the back, with their fullbacks positions we should have been testing from the off, but we didn't set up to take advantage of that. There are so many alarm bells ringing. I believe managers need time to get the best out of their players, and should be given time to do so, but there are so many of these alarm bells ringing I worry the more time he is given the more damage is being done.

Only because after half time they'll stop trying to avoid unnecessary injuries.

Normally defend the managers when they first come in. So angry I can't even express my feelings properly right now. Just want him gone.

Too little too late. Even if we win, we should have been making attacking subs ages ago.

We now need to go on and win this ... but Cooper still needs to get his act together even if we do somehow manage to get something out of this.

Lost my stream. I know this is torture but does anyone have a working stream they could message me?

Cooper sending a clear message about what he felt of the players performance that half by making zero changes. More of the same then lads..

Me too.

Nice to see we're able to organise players going out on loan. Rudkin and Glover need to take note of how Huth operates!

Surely a better option than some of the other dross we've been linked with.

I get we can't just sell players for whatever might be offered, but the number we seem to hold on to that are very unlikely to get any game time ... surely cutting the wage bill and some money in the bank will help our finance issues more than no money coming in, higher wage bill and players leaving for free at some point in the future...

The Emu is fine. You're thinking of Rod Hull - R.I.P.

Ricardo!!!