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Post by jmgull on Nov 4, 2012 18:06:57 GMT
Ok James, you're probably on a wind up but as you are so hilarious....I'll play. The fact is we have been played off the park by some terrible teams of late, including now a team 2 divisions below who played 120 minutes on Wednesday. This isn't a one-off - it's been a consistent thing.Err......no we haven't and no we weren't, you weren't even there, so how you can judge beats me - we haven't played any "terrible" teams lately let alone been played off the park. We missed a hatful of easy chances......it happens sometimes with L2 players. It's only going to be a matter of time before we're going to lose at home in the leagueNo shit....sherlock. Just because we're 7th doesn't make us a good teamIt makes us the 7th best team so far. I don't care where we are in the table. Look at the performances. They are a much better indicator of where we are at the moment We've had a lot of easy games of late against poor sides and yet we still haven't taken full advantage of them. Judge by where we should be, based on the fixtures - and where we should be is in the automatic promotion spots. And the 2nd Round of the FA CupYou are totally clueless. |
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JamesB
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Post by JamesB on Nov 4, 2012 18:35:24 GMT
Err......no we haven't and no we weren't, you weren't even there, so how you can judge beats me I cannot get to games so I do the next best thing - I read the reports of people who were there. And the reports of people who were there yesterday are overwhelmingly very negative. The same can be said about the Morecambe performance - yes, we won, but it was a poor game against a poor side and we played poorly. Against Bristol Rovers we were terrible, and their form is very poor at the moment. The same goes for Wycombe. Aldershot, second from bottom, made us look like idiots in the first half - we made them look like idiots in the second (as Arsenal showed in midweek, low confidence doesn't always show until you're under pressure - that Arsenal side wasn't all that great but put Reading a little bit of pressure and they caved in), but we shouldn't overlook the fact that we conceded 3 in 45 minutes to a very poor side. Not to mention the Rotherham game where again people were saying we were very poor I'm aware that there will always be people who will over-exaggerate. Nor do I believe that the players aren't trying - that's nearly always nonsense. Nor do I believe that Ling doesn't have a Plan B - every Torquay manager in my time has been accused of not having a Plan B. Nor do I believe that his starting tactics are wrong - I'm fully supportive of his tactical approach, especially 4-5-1 However, there are clearly issues there. Results and performances have been very inconsistent so far and nobody seems to know why - judging by his post-match comments even the manager is at a loss at times. It can't all be going swimmingly if the manager is defending a performance that some are saying was the worst Torquay performance for years, or the captain is having to be restrained from a pensioner. That's not the sign of a happy club I was just watching Liverpool vs Newcastle and couldn't help but notice the parallels between us and the home side. Everything was going through Suarez. There was no structure - the players seemed to abandon Rodgers' tactics and just go hell for leather. They dominated possession (64%). They had several good chances. They even had a man advantage at the end. Newcastle were pretty poor and created very little. And yet it finished as a draw Some fans may argue that they're doing fine and will recover but I'm concerned for them - they're not going to get relegated because there are some terrible teams in the Premier League this year, but they're not winning matches. They're very sloppy, some players clearly don't fit into the style of football Rodgers wants to play (particularly the captain) and yet he doesn't have the options in the squad to change it, and Rodgers himself seems to trying to talk his way out of problems that are clearly visible - I'm not sure he has a full grip over the situation They have a couple of injuries here and there but that's no excuse. Faith is being placed in talented youngsters but is it too much too soon? Is it too much pressure? If Suarez goes in January, they're going to look pretty blunt. They could bring a striker in in January but there's not much money to spend - instead it looks as if that will be focused on improving facilities It is conceivable that they could finish in the bottom half and that will cost them a lot of money. In an ideal world the manager would get time to impose his methods on the club but how far can you let it go before it becomes detrimental to the short term? No one's saying he should be sacked now, or even in the future, and the vast majority of people would respect Rodgers' abilities as a manager considering what he achieved elsewhere. But surely there has to come a point where you start to think "hey, I know it's a long term project but Liverpool need to be in a position to attract the best players to the club and they won't come if they can see they're struggling. It's pointless building for a future that may not come" Just swap Howe for Suarez, Ling for Rodgers and the Premier League for League Two there and the comparison holds It makes us the 7th best team so far. No it doesn't. It just means we have the 7th most points and goals scored and conceded in the division. It doesn't tell us anything about how good we are at this stage in the season, or indeed any club lower than 3rd or higher than about 20th |
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Post by Ditmar van Nostrilboy on Nov 4, 2012 18:39:06 GMT
Far be it for me to agree with Stu Jnr but he has got some valid points.
No one could say that Wycombe, Brizzle and Aldershot were anything but very poor teams (we managed to get
out of jail against Aldershot after going 3 down at home).
Even though we matched Gillingham in a pretty even contest, there was certainly plenty of luck in our goals (hardly scored through incisive attacking play).
Accy was probably our better performance amongst the medeocrity, Morecambe also being pretty poor by all accounts.
What concerns me most about yesterday was not the way the players performed but the seemingly clueless tactics employed.
The back 5 played pretty well, Lathrope sitting in front of them which is standard fare, however the match was well and truly lost in midfield. Mansell spent most of the match trying to break down/intercept an opposing midfield 4, sometime 5, pretty much on his own. Whilst Craig may have a sweet left foot, he does get bypassed by play in the centre a lot. The less said about Bodin/Stevens and the assistance they gave to midfield the better.
In effect we had 2 players (or perhaps 1 1/2) trying to get on top of four in midfield. Its no wonder that any time the ball came out from defence, Harrogate usually got a man to it first.
Even 20 minutes into the game there were about 5 or 6 around me in the bench all pointing out the same fact, that we were getting overrun in midfield and needed more bodies in there.
Yes there was some pretty inept finishing on display, but the game was lost in midfield by a poor choice of tactics/game plan and leaving it too late to try and change it...
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Post by jmgull on Nov 4, 2012 18:45:48 GMT
James.........with apologies and you do seem a very nice lad but I really can't be arsed to carry this on.....
One day though, you'll make a fine politician, in that you have mastered the art of relentlessly blabbing and bullshitting about a subject that you appear to know very little about - that's not easy to do and I take my hat off to you ;D
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Nov 4, 2012 19:41:32 GMT
That won't last forever - teams will find consistency. I know that Barty has tried to point out the bleeding obvious in a nice friendly way, but just to recap it is mathematically impossible for every team in the league to "find consistency" if you define that as winning more than you lose - although your benchmark for consistency seems to be even higher than that as our record of winning more than we lose is either "inconsistent" or "consistently poor" depending on your mood. Either half the teams will win consistently and half will lose consistently or everyone will be "inconsistent" or what usually happens is that a few will win consistently, a few will lose consistently and the majority will be inconsistent. But some football supporters seem to believe that failure to win consistently is utterly unacceptable. If you support a team with more resources than everybody else that position might almost be understandable, but if you support a team with less than average resources, you really do need to get real. |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Nov 4, 2012 19:46:20 GMT
Just swap Howe for Suarez, Ling for Rodgers and the Premier League for League Two there and the comparison holds Liverpool has a "top 5" budget and sit in the bottom half. TUFC has a bottom eight budget and sits in the top eight. No comparison. "Regression to the mean" suggests that Liverpool will end up higher than they are now and we will end up lower than we are now. If you are looking at "overperforming" or "underforming" the budget, my money would still be on Torquay to do better than Liverpool. |
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JamesB
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Post by JamesB on Nov 4, 2012 20:11:59 GMT
That won't last forever - teams will find consistency. I know that Barty has tried to point out the bleeding obvious in a nice friendly way, but just to recap it is mathematically impossible for every team in the league to "find consistency" if you define that as winning more than you lose - although your benchmark for consistency seems to be even higher than that as our record of winning more than we lose is either "inconsistent" or "consistently poor" depending on your mood. Either half the teams will win consistently and half will lose consistently or everyone will be "inconsistent" or what usually happens is that a few will win consistently, a few will lose consistently and the majority will be inconsistent. But some football supporters seem to believe that failure to win consistently is utterly unacceptable. If you support a team with more resources than everybody else that position might almost be understandable, but if you support a team with less than average resources, you really do need to get real. I think this is a slight misinterpretation. Having watched several promotion campaigns over the past few years I'm not expecting us to be flawlessly consistent week in week out - that doesn't happen at this level. Gillingham, who are by far and away the best side in the division so far, have tripped up a few times already However, what concerns me isn't that we've had 1 or 2 good showings and then 1 or 2 poor showings. It's that those poor showings have been very poor, by all accounts, to the point where several matches have been followed by people saying "that was the worst performance for years" - it's lurching between extremes. I know people exaggerate, especially when frustrated, but I don't believe so many people would be genuinely annoyed if the performance was merely OK There is a pattern emerging where we seem to be raising our game against some of the better sides in the division - we're unbeaten against the current top 4 - and yet struggle against some of the worst sides. That these performances are creeping in is a matter of concern, and the manager seems to be struggling with this. If it's fatigue, he needs to make changes and rest players, which he is pretty much refusing to do in most ases And that's one of the annoying things about this - that even after yesterday's woeful showing, the maximum number of changes he'll make for Tuesday's match is about 2 or 3. Barnet, on the other hand, rested a lot of key players yesterday in preparation for our visit. And if we can't cope with a tired side, how are we going to cope with one that has had more rest than us? Knowing our luck we'll probably thrash them but my question will then be "why didn't you do this on Saturday?" Liverpool has a "top 5" budget and sit in the bottom half. . I don't think Liverpool's budget is all that much, actually. They spent about £28m over the summer but also sold 5 players. No doubt there are three or four players on big money but of the team that Rodgers has been putting out of late, I don't think many of them are earning all that much. It's more like about 6th or 7th - I know that seems a bit like nitpicking but they're certainly not competing with the likes of United, City and Chelsea for spending, or even Spurs and Arsenal They've also had a tough start to the season |
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chelstongull
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Post by chelstongull on Nov 4, 2012 21:11:31 GMT
Spoke with Sir Clint this afternoon who asked how Torquay were getting on this year.
"Somethings missing this year" I said "One or two additional players required" I added.
Missed the match for several reasons, not least having to take my dear old Mum to casualty - took a tumble getting up from her seat on the train. Bit bruised but okay now.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Nov 4, 2012 21:18:03 GMT
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Post by stuartB on Nov 4, 2012 21:53:13 GMT
which smilie should i use Jon for the person who insisted all afternoon that the flood gates were about to open?  we can't be right all the time can we? |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Nov 4, 2012 22:02:48 GMT
for the person who insisted all afternoon that the flood gates were about to open What I said was that if we got one the floodgates would open. We didn't and they didn't. The fact that Harrogate were "there for the taking" makes defeat all the more frustrating, but that is football I'm afraid. |
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Post by stuartB on Nov 4, 2012 22:19:16 GMT
for the person who insisted all afternoon that the flood gates were about to open What I said was that if we got one the floodgates would open. We didn't and they didn't. The fact that Harrogate were "there for the taking" makes defeat all the more frustrating, but that is football I'm afraid. we did get one but it was incorrectly ruled out for offside but the floodgates stayed firmly shut |
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davethegull
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Post by davethegull on Nov 5, 2012 6:20:29 GMT
What an awful result. It was just painful to listen to. So, what now? I guess we find out from the lads tomorrow night.
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Post by Ditmar van Nostrilboy on Nov 5, 2012 9:58:19 GMT
What an awful result. It was just painful to listen to. Even more painful to watch  |
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Post by Ditmar van Nostrilboy on Nov 5, 2012 10:02:46 GMT
we did get one but it was incorrectly ruled out for offside but the floodgates stayed firmly shut Not so sure on that Stu. I was pretty much in line sat in the bench and my first thought when Bodin kicked the ball was Rene looked about a foot offside. |
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we can't be right all the time can we?
