By Hugh Southon
Spuds 2 Irons 0
Not unexpected but no less easy to take and we remain in that dreadful position of watching the teams around us and hoping!
It was obvious from the moment we caught sight of the team sheet that we were set to park the bus us with Moyes naming five midfielders including a 33 year old Mark Noble playing his second game in four days.
In fact he came off after about 70 minutes along with Fornals who missed a second great chance in two games when miscuing in front of goal.
On came the two players who fail and fail and fail again – Anderson and Lanzini – and it was the same story all over again. Five subs available and Moyes throws them on. Not a clue. They made no difference whatsoever.
My heart went out to Jarrod Bowen tonight who hustled and bustled, tracked back, got forward, produced some terrific passes and hit the post. A few more like him and Rice and we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Harry Kane -six months without a goal – obviously got one against us and a Soucek own goal from a corner decided things.
We were better than we had been against Wolves and with Haller and Ogbonna likely to be back for the Chelsea match it may improve but we are now again relying uncomfortably on other results.
Are there three times worse than us? Yes I think so but that’s no guarantee of anything in this game with freak events possible in a farcical end to the season.
The white flag is still not going up but my hands are definitely starting to tremble.
If there are three teams worse than us, they must be pretty bad !
You can just tell soon as we start that were not going to get anything..just negative. ..no threat really…Bowen was good but to be honest I’m sick of watching most of them at the min ..going down would be bad..the money side especially and losing our so called top players but if it ment we start again with young hungry players then I dont mind …we are not getting anywhere with this lot ..noble is looking stupid now ,sorry but he is…he was awful today…and I cant remember the last time Anderson took a player on ..every time we play we just scream defeat..we are never on the front foot …its horrible tbh ..they all just look sorry for themselves…dont give me we played wolves or spurs because Brighton seem to grind out results and palace ,Watford…but with us its not if but when are we going to concede. Really cant see anything but relegation ..I wonder if this nightmare will ever end and we might win or even draw a game ..most people think we will beat the lesser teams but by the time we get to them not only will our confidence be totally shot but we could be quite a few points adrift……depressing..
The first goal was handball Hugh and shouldn’t have counted but lady luck looks elsewhere when you need her most. I do hope we manage to stay up, you are irrelevant if not in the Premier League, but what then, what is going to change whilst we have our current owners in charge?
Don’t worry, Dave’s a winner! Its what he does win games of football, said so himself.
Its gonna be a case of beating Burnley,Watford and Villa at home and a win at Norwich and hope for some favours as usual.VAR is a disgrace or the clowns who make the final decision are.Ball onto hand leads to goal that stands unless you are West Ham then its disallowed as happened at Sheff utd.No wonder we fans want it binning as bias makes it impossible to function properly.
Thanks Hugh for keeping us going in these tough times. As I have stated I was a) of the opinion that Moyes shouldn’t have been fired at the end of the 2017/2018 season and b) was therefore happy that he was re-appointed. However I am now beginning to question my decisions – like you with Pelle ;). Ignoring the 2 cup games (1 won and 1 lost) Moyes now has 8 points in 12 games – a points per game of 0.67 which is really abysmal – I know that many problems were inherited but many saw the need for a striker in January
Relegation is now a huge possibility and would really decimate the club.
Rice and Diop would be off – I think Bowen’s contract includes a clause that allowed him to leave in the event of relegation – Anderson, Fornals, Lanzini and Haller dont seem cut out for the grind of the chamionship – so getting promoted again will be a huge ask, and I am not sure that Moyes is up to the task – so for his own future he has to keep us up – 4 wins in 7 games (will also do wonders for his points per game ratio)
Much as it pains me to say it (and I am not suggesting his return) BFS seems much better at dealing with such situations (his avoiding relegation at SUnderland vs Moyes not doing so, his avoiding relegation with Palace and his getting us promoted
So we move on to Chelsea (when we were relegated on 42 points we did the double over them)
COYI
Surrendering possession and inviting better teams to come on to two lines of defenders just doesn’t work with the lacklustre players we’ve got. The counter was to heft the ball over the top for Antonio to run on to….with three defenders to beat he was never going to make an impression.
I see Bowen played out of position. He’s got talent in the box but plays too deep. He looks our main goal threat so why not put him somewhere on the pitch where he’s got a chance of scoring?
Lanzini and Anderson are off the pace
We need to work on keeping the ball down, good passing and sorely lack a pivot in midfield to collect and distribute the ball
I’m very annoyed that Moyes stuck with Fredricks so long last night. He vanished into thin air every time Son look threatening….. and that happened quite a a few times. He drifts out of position far too often. Nobes looks like every game is struggle right now. I wish Snodgrass was available last night, at least he would have been up for a good scrap.