Ancient Citizen said:
Exeter Blue I am here said:
This is what makes me laugh about you. Straw man arguments all the time. Completely ignore the debate about repeated tactical ineptitude against the same types of teams playing the same way, and try and turn it into one about fans thinking we have a God given right to win every game. Well, no, of course we don't. Any team can lose a football match, but coming up short against every team that employs a high press, and has a bit of pace and width (Southampton, Liverpool, Dortmund, Swansea, Madrid, Ajax, Everton), is a different matter. FFS, we even had a dress rehearsal against Wigan 3 weeks ago, so we knew exactly what to expect, and yet we were still totally unprepared. Thankfully our owners aren't quite as blind......
Did we come up short against Chelsea, the other week? How about stuffing the Rags at their place once again, how many teams in the league have done that?
Why weren't the Rags playing at the FA cup final? It must mean their manager is even more shit than ours. Why didn't they get much further in the CL than the quarter finals, after an opening group against no mark teams? That Fergie is looking more and more like a complete bell end isn't he?
The problem is not SHblue constructing strawman arguments, the problem is this knee jerk lashing out at the manager. We may well be replacing him, but when we play Wigan next season, and if we get beaten, the logical thing to do would be to fuck Pellegrini off wouldn't it?
It's like we're speaking two different languages. The reason we beat the rags and Chelsea is because they don't play to our weaknesses. As has been made ABUNDANTLY clear, the sides we struggle against are teams that set out primarily to thwart us with a high press, but who are also mobile, quick and skilfull enough to then hurt us once they've robbed us of the ball. Swansea, Wigan, Dortmund, Southampton, Liverpool etc. Neither the rags or Chelsea play that way. The rags have very little mobility in the middle of the park (Carrick and 152 year old Bryan Biggs I think they confronted Ya Ya and Barry with) and instead park the bus against all the top teams and then try and sting them with long diagonal counters and evil crosses, whilst Chelsea play like us with 2 holding midfielders and a selection of diddymen ahead of them. Interestingly, when they shoved Luiz further forward for the last 30 minutes they ran us ragged, as did Spurs in the last 20 when they brought on Holtby, pushed Dembele up on Ya Ya and Barry, and had Bale hugging the flank.
Again, and hopefully it will sink in this time, it isn't a case of we beat this team, so losing to that team must be just a blip, it's about having no answer to the same teams espousing the same tactics. QED
