SER19
Full Member
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2008
- Messages
- 13,681
We're in a terrible position, and worse than I thought we'd be in if I had to give my worst case scenario for the start of the season.
People often look at this stop-start spell before the second break as the first chunk of the season, and amidst all the understandable glumness, I thought we may as well consider if anything has improved.
The biggest thing is that we do look more compact and less vulnerable. It was by far the most glaring issue of last season. The liverpool and spurs games were poor, but even Liverpool only had 3 shots on target, and the Spurs game of course was about 65 minutes with a red card, even if we were poor before the red card.
We have 4 clean sheets from 7, only Liverpool have more.
And in terms of shots conceded, last season we ranked 19th in the league, only worsened by Sheffield United. I do enjoy watching us play without feeling like every single loss of possession or break will lead to a shot on goal. So far we're 7th, better than arsenal for example, who have a good defence. It is the basis on which any success has to be built, we can be far off the top teams, but overall should be beating all bottom half teams close to twice if we're conceding few chances.
The squad depth is better, not that we have any evidence of it.
Frustratingly, these improvements seem to have come at the cost of any sort of attacking ability, not helped by fernandes having a really awful start to the season.
That said, with 99.9% of the forum available to turn into endless misery (understandable) Im trying to hope that a good run is possible after the international break. The fixtures look kinder on paper, and you can only hope we will start converting some chances. The margins are so small, that freak offside against brighton was a 3 point swing. Palace and Villa away we hit the woodwork.
Dont get me wrong, we're poor, but if we have any hope of being competitive it has to be built on a more solid foundation than what we saw last season, and at least there is some small optimism there.
People often look at this stop-start spell before the second break as the first chunk of the season, and amidst all the understandable glumness, I thought we may as well consider if anything has improved.
The biggest thing is that we do look more compact and less vulnerable. It was by far the most glaring issue of last season. The liverpool and spurs games were poor, but even Liverpool only had 3 shots on target, and the Spurs game of course was about 65 minutes with a red card, even if we were poor before the red card.
We have 4 clean sheets from 7, only Liverpool have more.
And in terms of shots conceded, last season we ranked 19th in the league, only worsened by Sheffield United. I do enjoy watching us play without feeling like every single loss of possession or break will lead to a shot on goal. So far we're 7th, better than arsenal for example, who have a good defence. It is the basis on which any success has to be built, we can be far off the top teams, but overall should be beating all bottom half teams close to twice if we're conceding few chances.
The squad depth is better, not that we have any evidence of it.
Frustratingly, these improvements seem to have come at the cost of any sort of attacking ability, not helped by fernandes having a really awful start to the season.
That said, with 99.9% of the forum available to turn into endless misery (understandable) Im trying to hope that a good run is possible after the international break. The fixtures look kinder on paper, and you can only hope we will start converting some chances. The margins are so small, that freak offside against brighton was a 3 point swing. Palace and Villa away we hit the woodwork.
Dont get me wrong, we're poor, but if we have any hope of being competitive it has to be built on a more solid foundation than what we saw last season, and at least there is some small optimism there.