The Mail Bag
18 Points dropped???
Comments (15)
A bit bored on a Bank Holiday Monday... so I've been analyzing where we have dropped or thrown away points over the season.
Yesterday we deserved nothing more than a draw so I'm not going to say it's 2 points dropped. However, I do feel my analysis of the points dropped this season is fair and justified. Others will feel the likes of Liverpool at home and Fulham away might've brought something but my analysis is based on the following:
- Arsenal (A) — 2-1 up and concede in injury time (2 points dropped);
- Spurs (A) 2-1 down and Donovan misses an open goal (1 point dropped);
- Birmingham (A) — 2-0 up and throw away the lead (2 points dropped);
- Birmingham (H) — Saha's goal disallowed, even though clearly onside and the ref didn't give penalty for clear handball by Carr (2 points dropped);
- Stoke (H) — (2 points dropped);
- Wolves (H) — (2 points dropped);
- Wolves (A) — We leathered them but could not score in a brothel (2 points dropped);
- Bolton (A) 2-0 down but we get into gear... 2-2 and we still trow it away (1 point dropped);
- Hull (A) — Come on, it's hull for fuck's sake (3 points dropped).
- Burnley (A) — missed penalty by Saha (1 point dropped).
Reasons???
Lack of a clinical finisher (whether we like it or not, we need a Torres). Even with our injury crisis, we should be sitting pretty in 4th now. The squad is absolutely fine but we need a Torres. Hopefully there's a cheap one at the World Cup this summer who we can buy... and hopefully he won't look like a girl.
John Crook, Posted 05/04/2010 at 12:00:06
Comments
Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer
Yak just doesnt suit our sytem anymore, back to goal he is useless.
Wigan H - played shit won with injury time penalty - 2 pts gained
Portsmouth A - played shit, had one shot and scored - 3 pts gained
West Ham A - played shit, somehow managed 2 goals - 3 pts gained
Spurs H - just basically outplayed on the day, they miss a last minute penalty - 1 pt gained
Wigan A - played pretty average in a dour game - last minute winner, 2 pts gained.
The above is 11 points that could be argued we pilfered from teams. The real point is you get the points you deserve at the end of the season. All teams can say they should have won this game or that one and they should have more points but its all irelevant. No matter how we have played we have 50 points from 33 games end of.
It's all irrelevant about what we should have got — the bottom line is we haven't been good enough. You can't go to places like Hull and Bolton and concede such soft goals yet expect to be challenging for 4th.
That is problem number one. Problem number two (and this list can go awhile) is the second striker conundrum. Love Cahill but we need a lad who can pump in 12-15 a season from the second striker spot.
GK-Howard
DF- New RB, Jags, Heitinga, Baines
MF-Rodwell, Fellaini in front of the back four, this gives cover and having the pair of them gives one licence to go forward whilst the other provides defensive cover, especially with our attacking full backs
Pienaar, Arteta, Bily in front of the defensive guys. Creative, interchangeable and will get goals.
ST-Yakubu, we just look more threatening when he is up there.
Subs:
Mucha
Neville
Distin
Osman
Cahill
Saha
New striker
With the like of Yobo, Gosling, Vic and others waiting in the wings, this has all the makings of a great squad and team. Solid at the back, creative coming forward and continuity without too many new faces to gel in.
Bily needs to rest and will be a great player for us next season. When I watched his goal compilations when in Russia on Youtube, he seemed to be playing behind the strikers, and he looked the business to me.
Just shows we need Donovan back, or a wide right hand player, plus a striker in the summer — that will do it for me.
Moyes is not totally blameless either, in the derby when Liverpool went down to 10 men Everton should have took the game to them and finished them off, but Moyes' negative tactics ended in us losing!
Add Your Comments
In order to post a comment to the MailBag, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site.
Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and MailBag submissions across the site.
-sm.jpg)
-sm.jpg)
-sm.jpg)
1 Posted 05/04/2010 at 14:36:19
Report abuse
Far be it from me to eulogise a Red Shite player who looks like an ugly sister, but there aren't any Torreses (is that the plural?). He's a special player
We're actually rather well off with the Yak and Saha given our budget. What we need is a deeper pool of creative players who can make something happen when we're struggling or others are misfiring.
Arteta's our main man, creator, match winner. Pienaar has something special in his locker, and Bily shows touches of promise if he can learn to get more involved in the game. Everyone else is a worker, or can do a job, and we have one good overlapping full back. We need a constant threat down the right, a Donovan, a Bentley. The next level for us also mean's Cahill's starting XI position should go to an out and out creative player who will pull something out of nothing, something Cahill, for all his qualities, will never do.