Firstly, the change to 4-5-1 / 4-3-3; I warned that a shift away from 4-4-2 would constitute a surrender before the first ball had been kicked. Worse still, he picked the wrong personnel for the formation. I heard the team and thought, "Great 4-4-2" but that was not how we set up. Square pegs in round holes don't work! We should know that by now!
Worse still, when given a chance to correct the mistakes by the injury to Taylor, he sent on Piquionne instead of OBrien, Collison or Noble, all of whom were more logical replacements. The substitution was so perverse that I was convinced Grant and Zola had returned as a management team!
Worse still he gambled incorrectly on Taylor's fitness. The guy obviously has a problem and buggering around playing him when not fit isn't going to do him or the team any favours whatsoever. There are some talking about Taylor as our "most creative player". What an indictment that is of the others! Taylor is a hustler with a wicked set piece delivery, but he aint a Glenn Hoddle or a Gazza is he? Yes he is a useful player but he shouldn't be critical to a side's chances of beating a team who were in the old Third Division last season! Anyway, watching him retire from the action inside 20 minutes reminded me of Dyer. If he has an injury, Doctor Evil has to rest him. And Allardyce is to blame for not having a natural replacement - some of us would like to see Montano back where he belongs!
God knows why Collison wasn't used. Is he carrying an injury? In which case, why did we start one player with an injury and have a replacement on the bench also injured? If he wasn't injured, why the bloody hell wasn't he brought on? When Taylor was struggling, I expected Collison - I was disappointed he hadn't started. Instead, we had the Grantesque decision to use Freddie the Fly Tipper. Dear God, Piquionne even took a corner! What the fcuk was that about?
Had we gone in 4-4-2, we might have won. We gave Southampton a psychological boost from the off and paid them far too much respect for most of the match. If Allardyce aint careful, the crowd will turn. We hit long hopeful balls far too often last night and looked devoid of creative ideas until Noble belatedly entered the fray. Allardyce got decision after decision wrong last night and we gave Southampton a promotion leg up as a result. Player for player, we are a stronger side, but Allardyce imbued fear into the team; and he needs to fess up and say he is sorry to the fans.
your right dr evil did fcuk up last night with his tactics he should back his players in a 4 4 2 formation to be better than southamptons simple as that if they aint why the fcuk did he bring them to the club in the first place does he think there not good enough to play to our attacking strengths
ReplyDeleteITV1 Arsenal game, "COME ON YOU IRONS" behind Arsenal's goal! Hahaa
ReplyDeleteI already had concerns when I head the pre match interviews. Not just those with Allardyce or some of the players, even several supporters "hoped" to get something from the game. Just like we "hoped" last season to get the right results. "We thrashed Blackpool on the weekend so we are coming here to tear the Sainst apart" - That would have been a good motivational response. The mental strenght is one of the most important things in the beautiful game.
ReplyDeleteAnd when Noble did come on we started controlling the game and playing the ball on the floor. I fail to see what diop brings as even as a holding player he gives away more fouls then actual successful tackles. Lets not kid ourselves though we were good against blackpool but they were very poor and southampton took full advantage of us playing lump the ball to carew. Didn't BFS say we will change tactics to nullify the threat posed by southampton. Well looked like we gave them to much respect and they beat us even without lallana and they should have scored more
ReplyDeleteSpot on HF.It's not the first time this season ALLARDYCE has messed up.If he is not careful,just like GRANT, he is going to build up a strong case exposing his weak management abilities......ENGLAND job ,don't make me laugh!! HF you have basically summed up the mistakes he made last night,the worrying thing is, they were not minor, they were major howlers that cost us the match.And as I've stated its not the first time he has made glaringly inept decisions.He had the team playing some decent football against BLACKPOOL ,then he goes and reverts to this old stale 4-5-1 long ball game..WTF is going through his mind! He should have let them play 4-4-2 and told them to repeat what they did on Saturday.But no,he goes and tinkers with the formation and the personel because of the strengths of the SOUTHAMPTON team...bad move ,giving them too much respect.ALLARDYCE should have made ATKINS fiddle with his team because of our strengths.SOUTHAMPTON have played the same formation,same players virtually every game....says it all really doesn't it.
ReplyDeleteOrdinarily, this early into Dr. Evil's tenure as manager, I would argue there should be a reprieve while he 'finds his feet' and figures out how best to move forward with what he has.
ReplyDeleteWell, from all accounts of the game last night I was unfortunate to listen to/read, I think that time has finally come.
If a 4-0 dismantling of Blackpool, (regardless of how toilet they were), was not a clear indication of what our formation should be, then I'm afraid we may well be in possession of a manager who, let's face it, viewed West Ham as an easy gig to leap frog would be contenders to the England job.
Only trick is, obviously someone forgot to remind him that we actually have to win promotion for him to have any chance of getting an interview for the Three Lions.
Some might even argue that hindsight is a beautiful thing. But as said above, the time of reprieve is well and truly over. Piquionne on for Taylor?
Oh dear.
Big Sam, the honeymoon period is over. It's time for you to win us fans over, if you can.