This weekend's game - our season opener - was pretty horrendous. No point mincing words. Very drab, pretty boring, few big moments. And I couldn't be happier. Why? Because we did what we had to do.
How many times previously would we have lost to a team like Newcastle on a day like that? Our season starts over the last couple of years have been terrible and have left us playing catch-up from the off as a result, but not this time.
So many times during the reign of SAF, people used to say that the hallmark of champions is to be able to win when they're not playing well. I'm not suggesting we're champion material, yet, but it was an ugly win, grafted and ground out, which is something we haven't seen from our team in a while. Hopefully it's not a one-off.
Happy with that. Three points. Job done.
Win ugly
posted on 14/8/19
Yeah I was quite pleased with the result. Wasn’t our strongest team, so there should be plenty of potential for improvement. I felt overall we dealt with the game sensibility, and worked well as a team to see out the result. The defence wasn’t a complete panicked mess at any point, and rarely it didn’t seem like someone would do something stupid to let them back in.
As you said, with a similar line up in the past no one would be shocked if we lost that game. There was still 1 or 2 weaknesses we’ve seen before, i.e xhaka being bit too slow in midfield, and mhiki continuing to struggle, but in fairness he upped his game in second half. The youngsters all did quite well, guen had a great game, and chambers was surprisingly calm and dealt with Newcastle attack well on the whole
Burnley should be bit tougher, but we should have more first team back. Hopefully we get a good win, then more confidence and match fitness heading into the Liverpool game
posted on 14/8/19
Burnley at home should be a gimme.
posted on 14/8/19
I think Mkhitaryan will be phased out as the season progresses if Nelson improves. He offers so little, which is a shame given how good he can be.
posted on 14/8/19
comment by D'Jeezus Mackaroni (U1137)
posted 2 hours, 40 minutes ago
Burnley at home should be a gimme.
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So were the Palace and Brighton games
Hoping for a big win and another Dyche tantrum
posted on 14/8/19
comment by A Catalyst For Change (U7080)
posted 4 hours, 32 minutes ago
Yeah I was quite pleased with the result. Wasn’t our strongest team, so there should be plenty of potential for improvement. I felt overall we dealt with the game sensibility, and worked well as a team to see out the result. The defence wasn’t a complete panicked mess at any point, and rarely it didn’t seem like someone would do something stupid to let them back in.
As you said, with a similar line up in the past no one would be shocked if we lost that game. There was still 1 or 2 weaknesses we’ve seen before, i.e xhaka being bit too slow in midfield, and mhiki continuing to struggle, but in fairness he upped his game in second half. The youngsters all did quite well, guen had a great game, and chambers was surprisingly calm and dealt with Newcastle attack well on the whole
Burnley should be bit tougher, but we should have more first team back. Hopefully we get a good win, then more confidence and match fitness heading into the Liverpool game
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posted on 14/8/19
Burnley should be bit tougher, but we should have more first team back. Hopefully we get a good win, then more confidence and match fitness heading into the Liverpool game
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Burnley shouldn't pose us to many problems. The Liverpool game is scary at this stage of our team's development though. A heavy beating could really impact our fragile confidence and roll on to the Spurs game.
I'd take a 1 goal defeat to the scousers now, get it out of the way and then beat Spurs leaving us 9 points from 4 games which is a great start bearing in mind our tough set of fixtures.
In other news the winning Lotto numbers for Saturday are 1, 14, 47, 36........