Good morning.
There will be some feeling as we travel oop north today we have far too much in common with the one legged man who entered into a bottom kicking competition.
Striker-less is an unkind phrase as midget gem and all round diminutive dynamo Jermain Defoe is ready, willing and able. As he proved the other night for England. But is he what we really need? Well, my dears …he’s what we’ve got. On an upbeat note, he’s never in his career have a better opportunity to ‘turn it on’ and really prove he’s worth his place. Nevertheless for me he’s benched.
I’d have to run with a 433 and essentially try to implement a ‘best of’ the preseason formations. This is a Premier League game of course so I’m struggling to see the benefit of Rafa as a substitute. That’s a scenario which says once Defoe’s finished bombing around like a mentalist for 65 minutes we throw on a guy who’s prepared to have a few shots from outside the 18 yard box.
Back four picks itself with Vertonghen and Kaboul standing strong front and centre. Dawson seems to lack the finesse for the Villas-Boas method, but the option to bring him in if he’s needed is a bit of a coup. Let’s hope there’s no hair brained scheme to sell him to Liverpool being considered.
Our midfield needs Sandro like a flower needs water. Despite his unavailability for the preseason the boss said of him, “He has had the best training possible in terms of playing time so you can say that he is one step ahead in terms of physical preparation.” Livermore should find Sandro inspiring company and whilst there is obviously no Modric, we are still fielding four players in advanced positions who I’d deem as intensively creative.
The deep lying front line will let van Der Vaart drift slightly forward of Bale and Gylfi who have clearly been developing an understanding. This could be dependent upon AVB’s instruction of course as close to the 433 High Line™ as we have yet seen. Despite the overuse of the phrase High Line™ the only glimpse we got of it was against Valencia went we went into ‘all hands to the pump’ mode after their second goal went in.
The last words from the boss: “It will be very difficult but we have our ambitions and strengths, which we will look to use. It will be a match fully charged with emotion but we have to be solid and stable. If we do that we can take something from the match.” This says to me he’s minded to avoid a loss, try a nick a win. He may well have got that just about right.
Oh well, that can be laid at Danny’s door. Cash is for spending not looking at. :winke:
Yeah, he should never have tried that tackle the silly boy
I don’t believe for one second that Levy hasn’t been and isn’t still trying to sign a forward. Not for one second. It’s frustrating that we haven’t yet got one but I don’t believe it’s for want of trying.
If he really is trying that hard, why is it taking him so long? 3 years since we signed a striker, and we have since sold two.
I genuinely believe that the unrealistic way all the exotic names are bandied around during close season only serves to blind us from reality. How many strikers have we actually been in contact with, let alone close to signing? Far fewer than we believe I’m sure. Top strikers are like hens teeth, and much more expensive. We will almost certainly end up with Ade.
Right. But. THREE YEARS?
since we sold berba & keane in 2008 we’ve signed the following:
Campbell, Pav, Bent, Defoe, Crouch, Ade, Saha
we now have only defoe as our only striker that makes 3 strikers released and 3 sold
You forgot that we also bought (and sold) Keane again.
Whichever way you look at it, this constitutes some kind of crime against our football club.
How can he sign anyone? as apparently his fingers up his arse.Maybe we need Madrids money before we’re able to spend or is that being silly?
3 glaringly obvious observations:
Newcastle were shit.
Livermore is not an adequate replacement for Modric.
If we are going to play 4-2-3-1 we need a striker who can handle the role. Actually we need two of them at least.
We are probably 3 or 4 signings off a proper challenge for CL place – until they are sorted we are at best Europa League candidates. The performance wasn’t terrible: Lennon and Bale looked lively, Gilf had a decent first half, we were decent in the middle of the park, but we missed that spark of creativity and a front man who could hold his own. Hopefully Levy saw enough today to show him how critical this next week is in terms of acquisitions.
” Hopefully Levy saw enough today to show him how critical this next week is in terms of acquisitions.”
Do you really think Levy needed to watch today’s performance for him to see what has been glaringly obvious to everyone else for several years?
amen
left it too late as usual, we badly needed a player like modric today
we’ve got two of three massive holes in our squad
we completely lacked the tempo which made us a decent side last season
I agree with you – we have known that since Berbatov left. But my point was that I think it has reinforced how vital it is to get the personnel in swiftly. It shows that even under a new tactical system Defoe will never be good enough to lead the line, and if it is left this way AVB is on a hiding to nothing and the club will lose millions.
lets not go bonkers and i know a lot won’t agree but we did control the 1st half and okay if we don’t add before aug 31st then we are in trouble,but we won’t be battling for the league title we are battling the arse and for CL footy,no need to slit our wrists just yet,
the press get their avb fodder though
We lost the game to a pretty poor looking Newcastle side who we doubled last season.
The signings – at least one of them – should have been made some time ago. We have added Sig, who is interchangeable with VDV, and Vertonghen who didn’t play. What we needed were the striker and Modric’s replacement.
where was the belgian,none of us seem to be talking on this one
things i do like we didn’t square peg,the shape looked good,AVB has to have some time
I think Vertongen was probably rested as he has no PL experience and away to Newcastle is probably not the most comfortable introduction.
I’m not going to lay any blame with AVB for today, it is 100% Levy’s fault for not giving him the tools he needs to get off to a good start – a good start which is really important to him given his reputation from Chelsea.
Yes, organization and application-wise we looked decent enough. Although I think that taking ***** who offers literally nothing and leaving behind Thud who would at least have come of the bench and gotten hold of the ball and passed it forwards is puzzling in the extreme. Also, VDV for Sig wasn’t tactics, it was trying the same thing with a different player – the exact opposite of tactics really. And Bale has Simpson on a yellow for 2/3 of the game but there didn’t seem to be any direction or motivation to attack him directly thereafter. So yeah, some things that I can criticize AVB for, but generally speaking this is all on Levy.
2-2 away, so we took 4 points not 6
My bad.
Levy’s bad surely.
LLL I have to disagree with you on the VdV Siggy change, I think that was tactics. Livermore was asked to get a little further forward, VdV was told to sit deep and hit diagonal balls from deep, which is what we sort quite a lot of. It was also successful on quite a few occasions. I believe AVB saw this hole in the Geordies’ defence and used this change to exploit it, as he felt VdV could play those passes and that role better than Siggy.
If that is the case then Thud should have been the sub, his entire game is about pinging passes from deep. The fact that ***** took his train ticket is bemusing to say the least.
Levy’s fault 100%
It’s not just the absence of a striker. It’s the inability to move the ball forward fluently, hesitating on the ball because there is no one moving into position, giving the ball away again and again, either by booting it upfield or plain stupid misdirection. No point in going on.
I’ll leave it to the rest of you whose analytical skills are more refined.
We were a little unlucky in their goalmouth. But we did not deserve to win. Drastic action is called for. Not just getting a striker.