Granted it looked like the players had the same idea in the second half but I'm really not arsed about this one.
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Granted it looked like the players had the same idea in the second half but I'm really not arsed about this one.
A slam dunk of a defeat, never stood a chance.
On we go.
What did anyone expect, honestly ?
Arsenal are miles away from City, who I hope win the league, and are very very unlikely to make the top 4.
That's the way it is and if you expect more, you will only be disappointed.
To be expected. Onto Huddersfield.
Yep! We might get a point out of that one!Quote:
Originally Posted by SMatthews
Remember when we used to go into these games thinking we might get something?
:(
Still, at least the BATE game has gone on General Sale <_<. I
I think we'll end up 6th based on what I've seen, the defence as we know is poor and the midfield is average and although we have two very good strikers it's not enough.
Expected a defeat today so not surprised, but no shots in the 2nd half is pretty disappointing, you're not going to get any points if you don't get shots on goal.
I don't know what to make of Emery right now, he's come into a difficult situation of that there's no doubt, but on the other hand some of his team selections, tactics and signings are odd, as the season has gone on he's been less and less impressive and even in the first part of the season he couldn't get the team going in the 1st half in almost every game.
Yes he needs time, but he also has to show the fans some sort of direction and plan, right now it's pretty aimless and he seems short of ideas.
Didn't disgrace ourselves like at Anfield but obviously the same result points wise. Thought Guendouzi was one of the better players in stark contrast to Lilo & Stitch at right back who moved like he needed putting down.
Emery needs to spend all his spare time analysing Chelsea as the entire season could come down to seeing them off in the Europa.
Guendouzi is decent and has potential, he's a better bet than Xhaka who should be sold IMO.
Agreed about the Europa, it's our only chance of getting into the CL, can Higuain play in that for them?
Worryingly, I agree with a lot of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Wenger has clearly become “a problem” but I always felt that getting rid of him was no silver bullet. We have an owner concerned only with business and profit. So long as we do the bare minimum and the money keeps rolling in he’s happy.
The clubs doing well have got good managers AND had owners prepared to spend big. The exception arguably being Spurs but even then it hasn’t translated into trophies for them.
Until our owner sods off the manager can only make a limited difference.
I think Emery has to incorporate Ozil in the team, we just don't have other options if we want to win games, Iwobi is OK but lacks footballing intelligence, Guendouzi is young and is still learning, frankly our midfield creativity is in a shocking state right now and we need him in the team workrate or not.
Besides didn't think a lot of players worked hard enough today anyway.
Wenger was not the only problem (although this is the squad he largely built and it's not good at all and he wasted an awful lot of money building it), we all know Kroenke was a big problem (though some preferred him over Usmanov), our only hope was to bring in a manager that can work miracles,in terms of setting out the team, tactics and motivation and also discovring gems in the transfer market.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Based on what I've seen I don't think Emery is that, he's a decent manager but I don't think he's elite level who can work miracles, we were never interested in the elite managers however.
I do think Emery has to take some responsibilty though, he could do better than he has, I mentioned the regular poor 1st halves for a lot of the season, he didn't seem to be able to identify and fix that quickly which was odd, he's also shown too much faith in certain players, also think he could have done better in Jan, defenders and a winger were a priority, not some CM who if we're honest hasn't done much in his career, prioritisng him over other signings we needed more was just odd.
He's doing the best he possibly could be as far as I am concerned. Maybe we will finish 6th, I don't think so given our relative fixtures remaining but even if we do, we'll be a lot closer than we were last season.
Agree with most of this, and got to say that watching shitsteiner today just made we wonder why the f**k we didn't do everything we could to get a decent RB, tbh that will be the biggest reason if we don't win the EL or make top 4Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
One other thing i thought Leno had a good game today, seems silly to say given the score but i thought he did his best and it could have been worse without it
Lichsteiner is awful but then he's way past his best, honestly don't know why we signed him, he was never going to pan out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac76
The point is, if Emery ever plays him again (and i mean ever) it's proof he's not a good judge of players - in fact it's proof he's not watching the game properlyQuote:
Originally Posted by Özim
No it’s not. It’s a confirmation he has very limited options there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac76
It was a poor decision by Emery, Jenkinson is limited but can at least run. Lichsteiner has looked off the pace everytime hes played for us, I don't know what Enery was expecting to happen. We basically played with 10 men today he was that poor.
Pretty much the same as last year at this point, with a couple of points more and closer to fourth. Given what’s at his disposal I’m not sure what else we can expect at this stage.Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
It’s the same thing with Ozil - the less they play the more important they seem to become. There is nothing to choose between any of the four options at RB. They’re all pretty bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gooner23
Unfortunately that's completely incorrect, if Emery was worried about right back (or indeed CB) he could have got someone on loan last month, he didn't and as he said he was happy with his options in defence, so it's got nothing to do with limited options, it's to do with him thinking Lichsteiner. is up to the job, it's clear to everyone else he isn't and shouldn't have been signed in the 1st place, he's also played AMN there when he can't play there.Quote:
Originally Posted by SMatthews
IMO it's because he seems a bit slow to cotton onto things and doesn't spot the obvious.
Yet he was all too happy to sign a middle of the road player in a position we absolutely do not need at the moment. I'd say Emery is somehwhat misguided.
Problem with this club is they sign players based on cost rather than need.
Luckily you're around to point them all out for us. Not sure if that's a blessing or a curse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Definitely a blessing.Quote:
Originally Posted by SMatthews
You pretty much said it all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
We all accept he inherited a challenged squad but what exactly has he brought to the table 8 months and 2 transfer windows later?
Torreria and playing 2 upfront is all I can think of and IMO that is pretty mediocre.
We’re pretty shit and I think some of Emery’s decisions have been questionable but he’s really working with scraps here. I don’t think we should come down on him like a ton of bricks just yet.
We probably only have 3 maybe 4 players that could get into the other teams in the top 6. We need huge investment but it’s just not going to happen.
The Europa League is where it’s at for us this season. Emery could really lay down a marker for himself and the future if we could somehow win that. I highly doubt we will but that’s got to be the target even more so than 4th.
I hope you all understand this brand of "work rate" football with very little creativity. This is Emery ball to a tee. We better get use to it
Rams lose the Super Bowl.
Kroenke. :haha:
:lol: :lol: :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
#Karma
I expected a defeat because we can't compete with the best teams in this league, we all know that and we all know that we are a level or two below them.
As Zim has stated, Emery makes some very dubious team selections and his tactics at times leave a lot to be desired.
I am prepared to give Emery time and so far he has done so great work mixed with questionable work.
I have a question though, who here trusts Emery to get it right assuming he is given some kind of backing to build "HIS" team / squad?
I question Emery has what it takes to take us to the next level if I am being brutally honest.
True but if we look at yesterday for a start the lineup was wrong, it was really negative with only Iwobi (who has no footballing intelligence and pretty much caused 2 goals they scored) as a creator, you're always going to struggle with that, especially given we don't have a good defence at all, I still think given our resources, Ramsey and/or Ozil should have played as let's face it noone else creates anything for the strikers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
The subs I also thought could have been brought on earlier, then 2nd half we went 45+ minutes without a shot on goal which is pretty poor to be honest, we're not one of the promoted clubs we should be getting shots on goal, it's pretty disappointing and you've got no chance if you can't even shoot towards goal.
Then there's Lichsteiner, we all know he's awful, it would actually be better to play with 10 men than with this guy, we could have played Jenkinson (also rubbish but better than Lichsteiner) or stuck Mustafi at right back and played Mavropanos (my favoured option even though Mustafi isn't that great, he's played there for Germany).
The way I see it there were a lot of errors he made yesterday and they gave us no chance of getting anything, in reality the score flattered us, City weren't that great but had a fair few chances, Leno made quite a few decent saves.
I agree Emery has had it tough, but it would be better if he didn't compound it with basic managerial errors as well.
I don't entirely trust him now, but that's based on his decision making recently, including signing Suarez a middle of the road guy in a position we didn't even really need that much, he chose to sign him instead of focussing on defence (which he admitted he's fine with - a shocking admission if you ask me based on everything we've seen) or even a winger, we're actually crying out for width.Quote:
Originally Posted by selassie
These are the kind of things that make me sceptical, if he couldn't find a winger or defender then fine (although there were players he could have got) but why bother with Suarez, we don't actually need him and he's not a long term option either IMO looking at his career.
With the current set up and investment, there is no next level. We might get back to doing what we did under Wenger, which is top four and playing champions league, but aside from the cups, that’s about it. Unless we sell big and reinvest, whether now or in the near future, there’s a limit to what we can do as a club now. Any manager we hire will be limited.Quote:
Originally Posted by selassie
I think his team selections are partly guided by factors other than the best players or lineup - he favours limited players who will no doubt be loyal to him in return for getting games - Mustafi, Iwobi, Xhaka (now mercifuly dropped admittedly), ShitsteinerQuote:
Originally Posted by Özim
what happened at PSG says it all - he can't control the big egos - trouble is they are often also the best players
look at how Soljaer has brought the best out of Pogba - find me a Man Ure fan who's complaining about that £89m now...
Yes that seems to be the case which is worrying, we had enough of favouritism with Wenger the last thing we want is another manager who does the same, those players you mention should be nowhere near the first team.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac76
I agree about PSG as well, he couldn't deal with the big players at all, but as you say they are usually the best players so that's an issue, Suarez in many ways is one of those small club players who'll do what he's told without asking questions, trouble is we're not Sevilla who with all due respect are a small club, I don't know whether he's more suited to managing a small club, some managers are.
I find the Ozil situation bizarre. I don't know if they've had a falling out or if Emery simply doesn't rate him, either way we don't have the options to replace him at this moment. He will have to be sold now because you can't keep expensive deadwood like this, it's just haemorrhaging money. The Ramsey thing I have some sympathy for because that was out of his hands and now he's reluctant to use him. I agree both should be playing because without them we lose a lot from our midfield in terms of forward play.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
I can't be bothered to dissect this game because even if we had gone with the best players/tactics etc the chances are we still would have been beaten easily. City have better players than us in every position and have been competing for the top prizes for years. We are so far behind right now.
The jury is very much out on Emery but he needs to be backed in the summer, otherwise it will be the same old story. You could be Pep in charge of this squad and results wouldn't be much better.
Yep, I agree. Signing that Denis Suarez at the expense of strengthening our defence was a bit "Wenger-ish" IMO!Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
I don't know, I'm still backing Emery but I hope he makes the necessary required changes in the summer or at least goes someway towards really trying to tackle our problem areas.
I agree, with the current options we are where we are irrespective of the quality of the manager.Quote:
Originally Posted by SMatthews
I think we just need to invest and squad build wisely. I don't think we are going to need "City" level investment to improve...we obviously won't be getting that investment anyway.
We just need to build the squad wisely.
It is bizarred, but as MAC said it's not the 1st time he's struggled with players with egos, sometime you have to put your pride aside for the good of the team, right now he's cutting off his nose to spite his face, the squad is rubbish and yet he's intent on cutting out one of our most creative players because he doesn't get on with him, that's fine if you have other options but not in this case, he'll probably end up costing us points and as you said Ozil is on 350k a week which is just being wasted at the moment, by all means sell him in the summer but use him until then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
As for Ramsey the way I see it Emery brought it on himself a bit, last summer he should have said I need him to sign by a certain date and if he doesn't we should sell and invest the money, instead he waited and now Ramsey is going for free, he's not entirely innocent in this, I'm sure he was involved and this scenario is all a bit amateurish (again).
Whilst I see why he doesn't want to play him, he's been happy to play him a fair amount since it was decided he'd move on, so not sure what's changed, I can understand why you wouldn't want to play him more than the Ozil situation however.
City lost to Newcastle and Palace recently, if you try your best there's always a shot, but you need to get the lineup/tactics right, Emery just didn't, we've now accepted we're going to get a pasting from the big teams, even the likes of Palace don't so that shouldn't be the case.
I agree about backing him, if he makes many more the Suarez type signings however I'm not going to be particularly please, these aren't the kind of players we need, they're small time squad fillers with very limited talent, signing those kind of players won't get us anywhere, we need to be signings players in their mid 20s or young players with lots and lots of potential much like Spurs have done when building their team.
To be honest Ozil has never struck me as being someone with a massive ego or someone who's difficult to deal with anyway, he's a lot of things but disruptive and confrontational he is not. I think Emery had a lot more to contend with at PSG with the likes of Neymar who knew full well he was bigger than the club and better than everyone else in the league by a million miles.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Completely agree with cutting his nose off to spite his face though, it's pointless when you don't have the options.