Talking about how jolly rotten and unfair David Sullivan is being for wanting to refresh a patently under performing squad, Zola has said:
'The players have earned a bit more respect than that, absolutely. Considering the circumstances, they have done a good job.'
So, avoiding relegation because 3 teams are weaker than ours constitutes a good job does it? Well that means the bar has been lowered incredibly! Pardew was comfortably on course to surpass 34 points from 36 games when he was sacked. Curbishley took us safely into mid table and even Roeder's team reached 42 points. The truth is, we were unlucky to go down under Roeder and we have been bloody lucky to stay up under Zola.
That "considering the circumstances" is interesting. What "circumstances" is Zola talking about? Does he mean considering the circumstances of leading a team into the new season that had finished comfortably in mid table in each of the last two seasons? Did he mean having to deal with less injuries than Curbishley had to cope with? Did he mean managing a squad that the Board invested in over the summer, spending more than was recouped in sales? Did he mean playing in a weakened Premiership with none of Hull, Wolves, Burnley, Portsmouth or Wigan truly worthy of a place in the top division? Did he mean being HELPED by Pompey going bust and having 9 points deducted, effectively reducing the number of clubs relegated on the field of play to two? Did he mean having to deal with playing against 10 men on no fewer than SEVEN occasions this season? 11 against 10? That should be 21 points for starters surely? Does he mean having no less than EIGHT penalties awarded to his side over the course of a season? What "circumstances" is Zola talking about, exactly?
Tell me, by what criteria has a team including Parker, Green, Cole, Upson, Behrami, Noble and Diamanti done well? Only, I suppose, if you argue that, having had to cope with Zola as their manager all season, they have done well to stagger through to 34 points!
4 comments:
Your right mate, we are lucky to have stayed up! A win today would see us go up two places in the table and put us under Fulham, then Zola would be gloating about a successful season, finishing one behind the european finalists. lol
I hope G&S don't do as past chairmen have done and sell our best to buy worse, and wonder why we struggle.
Anyway, onward and upward...
West Ham for life. COYI
I have never been able to understand quite what circumstances were worse this season than last! What troubles have the players had to contend with? certainly none that are worse than what any normal supporter puts up with year in year out.
Zola is trying to disguise his, and the players failures, by enlarging on the clubs problems thereby excusing and converting the downside of near relegation to a brilliant success of avoiding relegation under all these so called difficult circumstances
Spot on. Zola kept telling us that we were too good to go down; if that's the case, why will we end up with a points total that could have seen us relegated? He kept telling us that he had the personnel to do better, so why haven't we? Only two ways of squaring the circle. Either the players are not as good as Zola thinks, in which case Sullivan is right to revamp the squad without consulting Zola because he clearly cannot apraise the capabilities of players; or the squad is as good as Zola thinks, which means he has failed to get the best out of them so he is a crap manager. Either way, Zola's judgement has to be questioned!
I guess Zola was speaking about the players commitment. Sure there were some games their performance was awful and it seemed they weren't even interested in wining that game but all in all they worked their socks off. A much more influence on the whole team performance had Zolas tactical failures when he placed players on wrong positions.
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