The Mail Bag
A bit more craft and guile
Comments (4)
Think about our defeats last night and against Utd. Think about our 13 game unbeaten run before Christmas. What was the one thing in common? The winning side had better players, better at keeping the ball and was able to grind mistakes out of tired opposition players at the end of a game.
In other words, Chelsea and Utd did to us what we've been doing to the rest of the Premier League all season. Chelsea beat us last night not because they were lucky, not because of Howard and the inspirational Lescott, but because despite being one man short, they could keep the ball and always had options.
I've previously criticised Moyes due to the talk of 'consecutive top 10 finishes' and crap football. I've enjoyed this season because we're playing better football, beating the sides we should be beating and we're on two cup runs. That is genuine progress.
It's very easy to say Chelsea were there for the taking, but when Mikel was sent off, my first thought was 'how will we take advantage of this with the team we have on the pitch?' Oh to have had Arteta and Pienaar at that stage!
I've been saying for the last three years that we ought to be fighting to be the 'best of the rest ' and challenging for cups for starters and then moving on. Happily I think we're at that first stage ? the hard challenge is to get among the 'big four'. What was clear last night is that we desperately need a midfielder who can keep the ball, run the game and take the pressure off our defence. Neville and Carsley are good hard-working pros who are at the top of their game living with the like of Chelsea and Utd. A bit more craft and guile is needed to take us further. I'll let those with the purse strings decide who we can get.
None of this is meant in criticism of Moyes, who I think has recently bought well and shuffled his limited pack as well as he could. I think the last couple of weeks has shown us our level and what we need to do to build on our recent and, at last, genuine progress.
Paul Tran, Posted 09/01/2008 at 10:27:00
Comments
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2 Posted 09/01/2008 at 12:57:31
Just after we scored he was put through with a glorious back heel by The Yak... now I was sitting behind The Shed End goal last night so I had a perfect close up view of what happend next.... ALL he had to do was pass the ball 10yrds across the face of goal and Cahill would have put it into an empty net, simple as that. All this being made easier by the fact that there was no Chelsea player in front of McFadden to block the pass and the whole Shed End was screaming for the pass to be made... but no what did the greedy, glory-hunting twat do...he chose to shoot and MISS (yes he clipped the post but in my book that's still a miss), the chance to floor Chelsea had gone and Cahill went balistic!!
Time and time again McFadden shows us that he is quite simply not good enough by his terrible decision making ( amongst many other things) how many more times will he get away with it. That mistake was just as important as the one in the last minute and just as responsible for us coming away with nothing last night. IMO if we can get rid to McCleish (or anyone) do so NOW !!
3 Posted 09/01/2008 at 14:34:41
Our stray passes on the night came from Yakubu, Yobo, Hibbert and Jagielka (although on the whole they had reasonably good games).
4 Posted 09/01/2008 at 15:14:57
It was regarding more news on the Fernandes Saga and is not off topic as this Topic is talking about guile and craft!
Sorry, Stuart, I moved it to a Mailbag thread of its own.
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1 Posted 09/01/2008 at 09:54:35
This is something that resides in me at the moment. At the beginning of the season there were times our style of play was close to awful but then when Cahill came back something clicked. This wasn't some coincidence, the most obvious things that seemed to improve our form was a full strength squad fitting back into the 4-5-1 formation and the omission of Hibbert.
: These two occurences that sparked our magnificent run of form are now gone. My fear is that we will go back to the style of football we had to watch at the beginning of the season.
Granted Moyes could retain the 4-5-1 set up but I just feel that this doesn't suit AJ as much as the Yak and wouldn't be as effective, especially without Osman and Pienaar to back it up.
I think with Yobo missing Moyes may (and hopefully will) bring Baines back into the fold. But with our midfiled still short (with Neville covering) watching Hibbert at right back may be something we have to endure for a while longer.
The most obvious solution is to bring players in. We have heard over the last few weeks from Wyness and the likes off that Everton are an attractive team to play for etc.. Which leads me to wonder, with the exception of Manny, why are we only be linked with Sheff Wed, Cardiff, Plymouth players!