For those of you deluding yourselves

[Pigeonho]

Explain why we 'should' be. And if, as I predict, you are going to throw the £200m into the answer, please at least explain why all those players should have gelled withing no time at all. I'm looking forward to this one....

Because the whole point of Hughes buying the players he bought was because they all have Premiership experience. They know how the game is played and what is expected. That's why we spent the stupid money we did. If we wanted to give the team 6 months to 'gel' then we could have spent half of what we did and brought in a load of foreigners.

Adebayor and Toure played in the SAME Arsenal team for the last 4 or 5 seasons
Barry played in the SAME Villa team for 12 years
Lescott has been in the Everton team for the last 3 years

Those 4 polayers now make up part of a first team which has FIVE new faces in it and which have been together for 3 months. Yes they have experience in the league, but not all as part of the same team, so that is a piss poor arguemtn at best.

 

[mike24]

Fulham are a decent side but we were still 2 up and SHOULD NOT have thrown that away!

Burnley are doing a Hull?? What a poor excuse at covering up our inability to beat them at home.

 

[Pigeonho]

Fulham are a good side, Burnley are doing a Hull, kind of, and our defence are learning ach others games seeing as they have been thrown into an entirely new team together. Next......

So your telling me your ok with us drawing at home to Burnley and Fulham? Thats a top 4 mentality if I ever heard one

Against Fulham, it was disappointing to lose 2 goals whilst being 2 up, however they have beaten us at home the last 2 seasons running, so that, on paper is progression. Lets not foget also that Fulham are no mugs.

Burnley, well the defence was shocking, at best. We did though however make a good comeback and only end up drawing because the defence was shocking. I am sure that defensive problem is being worked on, and the break now will do us good to regroup and see what the score is. Another point on Burnley though is that like all the other teams who come to our patch, they will want to make us look stupid because of that money we spent, so it is quite different to compare it to the rest of their away results so far, in my view.

 

[BurnCK]

Because the whole point of Hughes buying the players he bought was because they all have Premiership experience. They know how the game is played and what is expected. That's why we spent the stupid money we did. If we wanted to give the team 6 months to 'gel' then we could have spent half of what we did and brought in a load of foreigners.

Adebayor and Toure played in the SAME Arsenal team for the last 4 or 5 seasons
Barry played in the SAME Villa team for 12 years
Lescott has been in the Everton team for the last 3 years

Those 4 polayers now make up part of a first team which has FIVE new faces in it and which have been together for 3 months. Yes they have experience in the league, but not all as part of the same team, so that is a piss poor arguemtn at best.

How long are people going to use the 'gel' excuse ?? They've had about 14 games together now (including cup games) and at least part of a pre-season....yet they still look disorganised and clueless at times.

That also is a piss poor argument....how long should we give them ? 3 more months ? A whole season ?
Getting beat is not the issue for me, it's how completely naive we look at times, not just in one game but in most of them.

 

[Pigeonho]

Adebayor and Toure played in the SAME Arsenal team for the last 4 or 5 seasons
Barry played in the SAME Villa team for 12 years
Lescott has been in the Everton team for the last 3 years

Those 4 polayers now make up part of a first team which has FIVE new faces in it and which have been together for 3 months. Yes they have experience in the league, but not all as part of the same team, so that is a piss poor arguemtn at best.

How long are people going to use the 'gel' excuse ?? They've had about 14 games together now (including cup games) and at least part of a pre-season....yet they still look disorganised and clueless at times.

That also is a piss poor argument....how long should we give them ? 3 more months ? A whole season ?
Getting beat is not the issue for me, it's how completely naive we look at times, not just in one game but in most of them.

Yes, a season sounds fair enough to me to be honest. What do you propose we do then? Do you think we should sack the manager and/or fuck those players off and bring in a hoard of new ones and restart all over again? Or do you think we should give them time to become a TEAM?

 

[Neville Kneville]

Adebayor and Toure played in the SAME Arsenal team for the last 4 or 5 seasons
Barry played in the SAME Villa team for 12 years
Lescott has been in the Everton team for the last 3 years

Those 4 polayers now make up part of a first team which has FIVE new faces in it and which have been together for 3 months. Yes they have experience in the league, but not all as part of the same team, so that is a piss poor arguemtn at best.

How long are people going to use the 'gel' excuse ?? They've had about 14 games together now (including cup games) and at least part of a pre-season....yet they still look disorganised and clueless at times.

That also is a piss poor argument....how long should we give them ? 3 more months ? A whole season ?
Getting beat is not the issue for me, it's how completely naive we look at times, not just in one game but in most of them.

Dunno. How long do you think it normally takes to build a championship winning team. 1 week? 2?

 

[TonyM]

I haven't posted in a long while because I don't know what I think. I think I think we are stuck I think. Hughes has to be given some credit for bringing in the players we need and for them seemingly wanting what we all want but he is also less than inspiring when it comes to tactics and most of our performances have been substandard (IMO). It's all ying and yang stuff. It requires more time to see if it goes belly up or thumbs up.

My gut tells me Hughes isn't the guy to bring us long term consistent success but then my head kicks in and says who the hell is. I just don't know so I think I'lll go back to lurking till I feel strongly enough one way or tudder to rant.... but I think if others are at their ranting boiling point already then I hear ya!

 

[browny33]

The defence is hardly going to be worked on in the international break, given that two of the keystone cops are away with England, Given is with Ireland, Toure and Zab are probably buggering off somewhere as well.

Having said that the lines of communication betwen them will probably be improved!

The defence is a shambles whoever plays TBH and he's had 15 months and approx 12 players to sort it out and all of them play equally as bad. I read a report saying he was looking at more defenders in January. WTF did he buy the ones he did for the money he spent on them if he still believes he needs to go out and buy more!

 

[BurnCK]

How long are people going to use the 'gel' excuse ?? They've had about 14 games together now (including cup games) and at least part of a pre-season....yet they still look disorganised and clueless at times.

That also is a piss poor argument....how long should we give them ? 3 more months ? A whole season ?
Getting beat is not the issue for me, it's how completely naive we look at times, not just in one game but in most of them.

Yes, a season sounds fair enough to me to be honest. What do you propose we do then? Do you think we should sack the manager and/or fuck those players off and bring in a hoard of new ones and restart all over again? Or do you think we should give them time to become a TEAM?

Hughes had a whole season last season and hadn't really improved towards the end. Even those players should have been playing alot better than they did. What is there to make me think it will be any different this time ? I can't see any improvement on the pitch from game to game....at times we look worse.
I'm not saying I've got a solution, but that doesn't mean I'm just gonna sit around with a fake smile pretending everythings alright either.

 

[el blue]

Pigeon the onus is on you to come up with a better reason than 'gelling', were a football side not a barnet. I thought we paid over the odds for prem proven for a reason. How long do you think it should take to get a defence to distribute the ball properly instead of hoofing it over the entire midfield at every opportunity?

The worrying thing for me is that I can't remember the last time Hiughes made an intelligent tactical decision, and he doesn't seem to be learning either, maybe his 'gel' is still setting - for fulham this year see liverpool at home last. Im not suggesting we do owt about it, what can you do in November but sit and hope it gels soon but surely you can see why people are a little disconsolate.