Shows courage and maturity that he is not rigid or overly stubborn to make this change IMO. Over all happy with him and we will know much more after an awful set of fixtures rough December.
Needs to have the balls to hook Gerrard when he's not bothered in games like today.Needs to instill an attitude that poor work rate and poor effort won't be tolerated.The amount of times Gerrard lazily challenged for the ball or took the easy back pass option was shameful from our skipper.Id rather see joe Allen try to prove himself at least he would put in more of an effort.
BR actually looked lost for a solution today, when the camera fliked onto him a couple of times. While I'd agree that he needs to be brave enough to take Gerard off the pitch, the problem here is we've sod all options in midfield, when you cut to the chase (sorry but there's no way in hell I want to see Allen brought on, bad as some of our midfielders have been this season). We needed to invest in midfield this summer and we didn't ... it's our achiles heel and after this evening, I'd be worried that other teams will do much the same to us, simply overrunning our midfield.
Jon Flanaghan, bless him he tries but he's a championship player. The manager knows this himself and has proved it by never playing him and by playing raheem sterling, kolo toure and jordan henderson right back ahead of him. We played with 10 today and the manager has some explaining to do.
Brendan has just said we were well beaten and that the players have been fantastic in the opening period and that we are in with a fighting chance of top 4.
I thought Flanagan was one of our best players first half. Surprised to see him start alright but he did alright imo. What exactly did he do wrong Bobby? Oh and just for giggles, you still think the entire arsenal team is shit yeah? (That's a sly dig in fairness, but I couldn't resist mate)
You only need to look at the 2 teams midfields today to see where the problem lies. We had lucas,gerrard and henderson and arsenal had ramsey,ozil,cazorla, rosicky and arteta. No surprise either that every one of those arsenal midfielders are creative as well. The only creative midfielder we have is young coutinho. Hopefully come january we are still in or around the top four and invest on that midfield.
I named 3 players who where shit, girioud was shit, gibbs was up against a championship player and koscenily played well but suarez exposed him plenty of times, sturridge made a show of him and then took a shameful dive. I stand by it, the players I didn't mention done the damage.
I have to agree with bobby.I don't think he done much wrong but didn't do much full stop.One could argue that he could have tracked back for the first goal instead of watching it go in from the sideline.I can't see him getting much game time anymore.We struggle without glen and Enrique I think personally and it's crucial we by a top class centre midfielder in January.
And that's reason for criticising him? What did Gerrard do? What did Lucas do? Full team did the damage Bobby. But I was just being a smart-arse mentioning it to be fair
You mean you couldn't see his thoughts through your TV screen? Come on Garrett,that's a silly statement. Did you see his interview after the game,it sounded like a man who knew exactly what was happening and explained in detail his assesment of what was going on and his reasoning for the changes he made. They didnt work out because Arsenals players were better tonight and we actually had better chances than the ones they scored from but that's football.
They where both shite but that was irrelevant to the point I was making. The manager picked a player he seen train a thousand times and never deemed him a more suitable right back than glen johnson, martin kelly, kolo toure, raheem sterling or jordan henderson ,all but 1 of those was available today. To me it looks like he was trying to be clever and I would bet you any amount he never selects him again. Also I wasn't criticising him, I never have, he does his best.
Johnson & Enrique can do a job as a wingback in this formation, what quality wingbacks are out there? Rodgers could end up changing to a flat back 4 next month for all we know. He seems to refer to this formation as a 3-4-1-2, same difference as the 3-5-2 I guess. Allen, Borini & Aspas are 3 signings all of which have question marks over them, if he gets a bit of money to bring in a CM I hope he gets it right.
You're quoting my answer to another post. Ken said he didn't do much wrong but did nothing full stop. And that's why I mentioned Gerrard and Lucas. So obviously it was irrelevant to your post, considering I wasn't even talking to ya man As for the rest, Kelly for me was the obvious choice. But I've said that 1,000 times on here and it never happens. Was the manager trying to be "clever"? I doubt it. He must have picked him for a reason and I thought he did as well as most. You said earlier that it left us with 10 men, which is fcukin nonsense mate. Very unfair on Flanagan. If I was to rate players out of ten for the way they played today, Flanagan wouldn't be in the bottom three. gerrard would be beaneath him too
Maverick quoted me saying he agreed with me and you responded to that, that means you where talking to me in a round about way. Also I forgot about Wisdom earlier so that makes him 7th choice right back. Mental team selection, why not follow logic instead of being clever? Play kelly right back or toure with agger in the middle or henderson instead and play moses, alberto, allen or coutinhio in midfield, they are all his signings and he seems to have zero faith in any of them (except coutinhio). This is not me being smart after the event, the manager clearly agrees because he never ever selects him and he won't ever again.