Sheff Utd (A) Post Match Thread - 1 - 2

[Fox85]

6 minutes ago, Deeg67 said:

Becaus it’s embarrassing that parking the bus is the only you can see off a newly promoted side. Especially if you have aspirations for European football.

 

I take nothing away from Sheffield, I’ve been praising them all night. They’ll stay up, and win some matches against good teams along the way.  But we had to throw in a 3rd CD because they were killing us in the box and basically bunker down for the last 20 minutes. That’s not ideal.

I just wanna know was the Artist Kasabian?

[urban.spaceman]

****ing walloped it mate. 

 

 

[StriderHiryu]

 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

7 minutes ago, Deeg67 said:

Becaus it’s embarrassing that parking the bus is the only you can see off a newly promoted side. Especially if you have aspirations for European football.

 

I take nothing away from Sheffield, I’ve been praising them all night. They’ll stay up, and win some matches against good teams along the way.  But we had to throw in a 3rd CD because they were killing us in the box and basically bunker down for the last 20 minutes. That’s not ideal.

Have a fvcking beer mate and chill out

[Master Fox]

Hamza is better than Kante. What a player. 

[Guest Col city fan]

Absolutely made up today with that win

Vardy scores and takes the piss, Barnes scores a worldy and Hamza plays the perfect defensive midfielder performance 

And all that in front of a dangerous side, with a partisan crowd on a very hot day.

Brilliant victory

[Paninistickers]

6 minutes ago, BlueBrett said:

My stream was beyond wank. Missed majority of second half including Barnes' screamer   Never know whether I'm better off with VPN on or off. Thoght we looked decent first half though, lovely bit of quality from Maddison to put JV through. Pity he couldn't manage to find  another pass like that last week - we'd be top of the league now!

Used first row sports. Perfect all match.

[vanity]

Great result. Delighted to get the win, and I think we will continue to improve. This game perfectly illustrates what will be the theme of our season: balancing the need to protect our CBs with two DMs vs. fielding our most dangerous attacking line-up. 

 

The reality is, our CBs lack of size, speed, and physicality is a problem. They either need to improve, or we need reinforcements. I don't think SU score their goal with Maguire on the field, he reaches that ball that Soyuncu missed. But forget that goal, we repeatedly looked open and vulnerable at the back, especially in the center of the pitch. Teams more adept with their corners will really hurt us unless we shore this weakness up. 

 

And Rodgers knows it. That is why we are seeing the 2 DM looks. Our CBs simply aren't ready for primetime. Benkovic has that height (6-4), and I wonder whether he may be able to add something at some point this season.

 

Overall so far, we look like a team w above avg Prem players all over the field, which is terrific, but we don't have any world class players who are a threat to take the game over the way we did when we won the league and had Vardy, Mahrez, and Kante all among the best in the world at their positions. Maddison may be the closest to that level, though he cannot manage that alone, it just isn't his game. I think Barnes is the player most likely to grow into a legit goal-scoring superstar, but we have to play him. Tho with our CBs, we really can't go without the two DMs.

 

But those look to be the two things we need to do going fwd -- we need to shore up CB, and we need to be looking to add truly special players in our upcoming transfer windows. Forget adding 4-5 players, we need to be looking at 1-2 outstanding talents. If we cannot interest them, we go with younger players on the verge of blossoming into monsters, and we hope our scouting holds strong and we choose correctly.

[manders86]

Harvey Barnes, he's better than John!

[Heart-Shaped Fox]

Not a good performance really but obviously a good win.

 

I don't get the system from Rodgers though. Just seems to shackle our attacking play, lacking and pace or width.

 

Hamza motm for me. Especially late on he was everywhere and got a toe to intercept many of their attacks. 

 

Perez doesn't seem to fit in at all out wide. 

 

Happy with the win and hope we can beat Bournemouth for a good solid start

[StriderHiryu]

So to look at the other side of things (being a generally optimistic person), I am sure some of the things some will be wondering are:

 

- Tielemans slow start. He's not been terrible, but nowhere near the levels that made us all fall in love with him. It's notable that with Maddison playing further forward he's looked worse. But personally I am not worried, one of the reasons he was a good signing for us is that we know he is not consistent in his performances yet. At Leicester he doesn't have to shine every game. Also today we played Praet alongside with him for the first time, who himself needs time to adapt. No need to panic on this one yet, though for sure he has not looked like a 40m player.

 

- Perez ineffectual. Missed some opportunities to play in Vardy, looked like he's huffing and puffing without much end product. Needs more games and a run in the side, but I can see why people want Barnes and Albrighton in the team.

- Maddison out wide. Well i would say that Maddison drifts around rather than playing as an out and out wide man, but for sure it's a bit frustrating knowing how we played last season when he and Tielemans were next to one another. But Maddison has looked good in the last two games IMO, he already has two assists.

 

What else is on everyone's minds?

[srex9]

15 minutes ago, Deeg67 said:

Total straw man -  never said anything about “blowing away”. But you shouldn’t have to throw in Morgan as a third defender and have him pinball around the box emergency defending for 15 minutes to see out a match against a mid to lower-mid table side.  Getting three away points is great.  The manner in which the last 20 minutes played out is something we should take as less than desirable and something to be corrected.

Not trying to argue and blow away was an over exaggeration on my part. I guess what I was trying to say was that we can't always expect to be controlling the game. It was an effective sub and he did the job. Be happy with the win! I agree we have a lot to work on but more positives than negatives 

[HankMarvin]

2 minutes ago, Master Fox said:

Hamza is better than Kante. What a player. 

Lets not get too carried away

[HankMarvin]

1 minute ago, StriderHiryu said:

So to look at the other side of things (being a generally optimistic person), I am sure some of the things some will be wondering are:

 

- Tielemans slow start. He's not been terrible, but nowhere near the levels that made us all fall in love with him. It's notable that with Maddison playing further forward he's looked worse. But personally I am not worried, one of the reasons he was a good signing for us is that we know he is not consistent in his performances yet. At Leicester he doesn't have to shine every game. Also today we played Praet alongside with him for the first time, who himself needs time to adapt. No need to panic on this one yet, though for sure he has not looked like a 40m player.

 

- Perez ineffectual. Missed some opportunities to play in Vardy, looked like he's huffing and puffing without much end product. Needs more games and a run in the side, but I can see why people want Barnes and Albrighton in the team.

- Maddison out wide. Well i would say that Maddison drifts around rather than playing as an out and out wide man, but for sure it's a bit frustrating knowing how we played last season when he and Tielemans were next to one another. But Maddison has looked good in the last two games IMO, he already has two assists.

 

What else is on everyone's minds?

It was probably Ricardos worst game

[Master Fox]

Barnes is liquid gold

[bridport007]

Good away win from a tough game. The Blades made some great crosses and are no whipping boys. Hamza MOTM, and a worldie from Harvey. Stopped doing the match thread as it is depressing and the equivalent to politics on facebook....seriously negative and moronic comments.

[ScouseFox]

27 minutes ago, sdb said:

I don't get the Sheff Utd praise either. Distinct lack of quality and bankers to finish 20th. 

agree, has any team who comes up and “battle hard” and is a “tough place to go” ever stayed up? isn’t that just code for they have a big man up front, they’ll probably take a point off arsenal but ultimately they’ll score 25 goals all season and then fu ck off 

[SouthStandUpperTier]

14 minutes ago, Deeg67 said:

Becaus it’s embarrassing that parking the bus is the only you can see off a newly promoted side. Especially if you have aspirations for European football.

 

I take nothing away from Sheffield, I’ve been praising them all night. They’ll stay up, and win some matches against good teams along the way.  But we had to throw in a 3rd CD because they were killing us in the box and basically bunker down for the last 20 minutes. That’s not ideal.

 

7 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Have a fvcking beer mate and chill out

 

And remember not to go out in your Leicester shirt. Wouldn't want you to feel embarrassed when people point and laugh at you.

[Deeg67]

Just now, srex9 said:

Not trying to argue and blow away was an over exaggeration on my part. I guess what I was trying to say was that we can't always expect to be controlling the game. It was an effective sub and he did the job. Be happy with the win! I agree we have a lot to work on but more positives than negatives 

I thought Morgan did exactly what he was sent on to do, and props to him.  But it’s possible to praise his performance and not the fact that it was necessary. Just as it’s possible to be happy about the result and respectful of the opposition and still be concerned about the overall performance. 

 

If if we need to play a back five and park the bus against Sheffield United, what’s it going to look like if we need to see out a game against somebody in the top half of the league?  I think the mention of Benkovic here is a good one - throwing on Morgan isn’t a practical option every time you have the lead, and maybe Benkovic can add a physicality that’s needed back there.  I like Soyuncu and Evans, but we were getting bossed pretty badly in the end.

 

We also need to be able to maintain a little possession and take the pressure of the back line in that situation, and going to a back five makes that a lot harder to do.  A nice win to be sure, but there’s work to be done.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Deeg67 said:

Becaus it’s embarrassing that parking the bus is the only you can see off a newly promoted side. Especially if you have aspirations for European football.

 

I take nothing away from Sheffield, I’ve been praising them all night. They’ll stay up, and win some matches against good teams along the way.  But we had to throw in a 3rd CD because they were killing us in the box and basically bunker down for the last 20 minutes. That’s not ideal.

Nah, it would have been embarrassing if we'd thrown men forwards to try to kill the game and been caught on the break, or if Soyuncu and Evans got beaten to another cross for an equaliser. Obviously it'd be nice to just flick the switch and score another few goals but it's not that simple. We got our lead, came up with a plan to hold on to it and executed it against a very awkward team.

 

If we are to get anywhere near Europe then we're going to need plenty of scrappy wins exactly like that. Just because we might fancy ourselves as one of the big boys doesn't mean we're suddenly going to rock up at these places and absolutely batter teams. We're still a fairly average team at this level and I think a few amongst us have let the supposed push for the top six go to their heads a bit.

 

 

[manders86]

A 2-1 victory away in the premier league = not embarrassing.

 

A bunch of tools in the match thread expecting us to thrash all teams and calling every performance embarrassing = embarrassing 

[HankMarvin]

Just now, Deeg67 said:

I thought Morgan did exactly what he was sent on to do, and props to him.  But it’s possible to praise his performance and not the fact that it was necessary. Just as it’s possible to be happy about the result and respectful of the opposition and still be concerned about the overall performance. 

 

If if we need to play a back five and park the bus against Sheffield United, what’s it going to look like if we need to see out a game against somebody in the top half of the league?  I think the mention of Benkovic here is a good one - throwing on Morgan isn’t a practical option every time you have the lead, and maybe Benkovic can add a physicality that’s needed back there.  I like Soyuncu and Evans, but we were getting bossed pretty badly in the end.

 

We also need to be able to maintain a little possession and take the pressure of the back line in that situation, and going to a back five makes that a lot harder to do.  A nice win to be sure, but there’s work to be done.

If Morgan was a masterstroke

The Mendy challenge couldve cost us the points against a better free kick taker

[Deeg67]

Totally misrepresenting arguments and brooking no criticism as long as the result is acceptable = embarrassing.

[SecretPro]

3rd in the league and above Man United. What's to moan about? 

[Spudulike]

8 minutes ago, manders86 said:

Harvey Barnes, he's better than John!

He's better than John

He's better than Johnnnnnn

Harvey Barnes

He's better than John