How Long Will BM Last at this rate?????

[melonhead]

pretty sure karacan has been 1st choice pretty much all season, played until injured, came back straight after etc


same to an extent with morrison, mcarthy too, as oon as they mad eit into the team they were fixtures until injury forced them out

[southbank1871]

Woodcote Royal talking a fair amount of sense here.

It's hard for McDermott with players being injure yes, but none of those players (apart from Kebe I suppose) are players he's seen as worthy of automatic selection so they're hardly the automatic starters that WR makes them out to be. If they were that much better than their competition why wasn't McDermott selecting them in the first place?

McCarthy, Kebe, Roberts, Karacan and Pearce would all be starters if it wasn’t for injuries or other factors. Assuming Pearce isn’t playing because of the contract situation, it won’t be a decision BM will have made.

Roberts may not have been gr8 this season, but along with Shorey he has been one of the few players who has generally has a positive impact on games.

[Hoop Blah]

Karacan was dropped for West Brom, but that is splitting hairs to an extent.

Agreed that with McCarthy and Morrison it was injury that forced them back out of the team. My point is that if they were significantly better than their competition then I'd have expected them to have been in the side instead of them before they got their chance.

I don't disagree that injuries have hampered McDermott (arguably we went into the season too light in certain positions though), I'm just saying that none of our players are so much better than the others that it significantly weakens the team, which was WR point.

[melonhead]

still agree with him

karacan, mcarthy, roberts and kebe all improve the side
and i think its by a considerable ammount



though i will allow you your opinion on this issue

[Woodcote Royal]

But only one of of them played in our only win WR? Only Kebe is a certain starter when fit as the manager has selected others over all those players so how can their absence be deemed to significantly weaken the team.

Remember that Morrision only came into the side as our form deteriated and played in 4 of the 6 consecutive defeats.

Watch this space, HB.

As soon as Kebe was fit he started, as will all the others. In those 6 matches Morrison established himself as first choice centre half and McCarthy only lost out through injury having made a number of world class saves before colliding with a post.

Whilst Jem was benched for a few matches and Tabb has been the surprise package for most of us, there is no doubt in my mind that Karacan and not Leigertwood would now be his partner and that this would go a long way to bolstering the solidity of the entire side.

The fact we beat Everton without Jem, McCarthy and Kebe and playing 4-4-2 should give us all some hope that all is not lost just yet.

[Hoop Blah]

Morrison played in the win WR. As he did 4 of the 6 defeats.

I don't doubt that Karacan and probably Morrison will come back in though (especially with the way the team are performing) I just don't see them as these significantly better and major players you seem to be making them out to be. McDermotts treatment of them doesn't warrent that status either.

We went into the season with a squad that McDermott built, albeit without perhaps enough cash to improve it enough. He said he got every player he wanted though so I still think the lack of resources is as much his fault as anyone elses. I think Coppell had a similar weakness where he perhaps wouldn't rock the boat enough if he wanted more. It seems as though McDermott might've fallen into the same trap.

[Woodcote Royal]

He didn't have a good transfer window (and still places too much faith in Federici) but the current injury list would effect bigger clubs than us. If we can get Morrison and Karacan back we will see some improvement.

[BR2]

Woodcote's post above is the classic example of players getting better when they don't play.

Utter nonsense.

We agree about Pearce (and McDermott swapped him for Gorkss against Arsenal) but all of McCarthy, Morrison, Karacan and Kebe are now starters when fit and, as such, their absence significantly weakens our starting 11 which (surprise, surprise!!! ) has been reflected in our worst form of the season so far.

There's more evidence here of McDermott's detractors using this misfortune to trash his reputation.

Why do you always have to take an aggressive stance by using terms as "utter nonsense".
If you followed football a bit more closely you would know that players out injured are always perceived to be better the longer they are out-it's standard football fan RTG.
You also write as if no other teams have injuries whereas Villa the other week and QPR had something like 10 of their first team squad unavailable.

HB has also pointed out that we do just as badly with the players you mentioned in the team as when they have been out.
You mention in another post that we will see improvement when Jem and Morrison return (not possibly or maybe but categorically).
So that improvement will mean what?
Instead of 5 we ship 4 or instead of 4 we ship 3-if so we will still lose.

My view is that all of these players are much of a muchness with only Shorey (who you lambasted on here last time around) looking anything but a Championship player.
Whether the assembly of this squad is down just to Brian is an area for discussion but ultimately they are not as good as he (or the players themselves) thought they were.

[Royal Rother]

Any evidence to suggest the players thought they were better than they are?

I've missed any BBBollox behaviour / comments from them myself.

[BR2]

Any evidence to suggest the players thought they were better than they are?

I've missed any BBBollox behaviour / comments from them myself.

Yes,a signed affidavit that is in my possession signed by all 25 of the squad.

[SPARTA]

Any evidence to suggest the players thought they were better than they are?

I've missed any BBBollox behaviour / comments from them myself.

Yes,a signed affidavit that is in my possession signed by all 25 of the turkeys.

Amended.

[Hoop Blah]

Any evidence to suggest the players thought they were better than they are?

I've missed any BBBollox behaviour / comments from them myself.

Has anyone suggested it?

We had the usual 'happy to be Premier League player' rubbish over the summer, and some of them give it the big I am a little on Twitter, but I think in general they've been pretty humble and realistic from what I've seen and heard.

[Woodcote Royal]

Woodcote's post above is the classic example of players getting better when they don't play.

Utter nonsense.

We agree about Pearce (and McDermott swapped him for Gorkss against Arsenal) but all of McCarthy, Morrison, Karacan and Kebe are now starters when fit and, as such, their absence significantly weakens our starting 11 which (surprise, surprise!!! ) has been reflected in our worst form of the season so far.

There's more evidence here of McDermott's detractors using this misfortune to trash his reputation.

Why do you always have to take an aggressive stance by using terms as "utter nonsense".

Because your assertion that the respective abilities of McCarthy, Morrison Karacan and Kebe have somehow been enhanced in their absence is precisely that.

It might suit your view that these players are "much of a muchness" when compared to those McDermott was forced to use when his first choices suffered injuries but the fact remains that, as the numbers on the treatment has grown and those who were previously not in the starting 11 now are, so the teams performances have deteriorated.

Furthermore, whilst there will always be a case for saying the squad could be stronger, an impartial view would be that a manager who suffers no injuries to his first 11 would be seen as fortunate whilst he who loses anything approaching half his team would be deemed unfortunate.

[Hoop Blah]

Furthermore, whilst there will always be a case for saying the squad could be stronger, an impartial view would be that a manager who suffers no injuries to his first 11 would be seen as fortunate whilst he who loses anything approaching half his team would be deemed unfortunate.

I'm not going through the whole they weren't first choice a couple of months ago discussion again, but I will comment on this last bit of your post as I don't think it is just being fortunate.

Under Pardew and Coppell we had very good injury records and went for long periods with very little disruption to those players available for selection. I put a lot of that down to the excellent work of Niall Clark and Jon Fearn. Since Clark left our injury record has got progressively worse and we've seen a lot more training injuries and little niggles keeping players out. With Clark at the club I think our conditioning was that good that our players just didn't pick up those non-impact injuries.

It's also noticable that, I think, you seem to get more little niggles that don't clear up quickly when a team is struggling. When the team is winning it seems players play through the pain that bit more or come back from niggles that bit quicker.

When the squad isn't quite good enough you'll also notice the impact of players missing more games.

Lastly, I also think we're seeing a longer injury list this season because our players are playing at a level where they've got to really stretch themselves every game. They can't play at 98% which allows them to prevent injuries and they're not chasing the play as much and having to make those stretches and last ditch tackles that can often result in pulled muscles or impact injuries.

Basically what I'm trying to say is injuries aren't, IMO, just a matter of luck and fortune.

[Royal Rother]

Any evidence to suggest the players thought they were better than they are?

I've missed any BBBollox behaviour / comments from them myself.

Has anyone suggested it?

Yes, BR2 did in the last sentence of his post preceding mine.

Whether the assembly of this squad is down just to Brian is an area for discussion but ultimately they are not as good as he (or the players themselves) thought they were.

[Divvy]

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/8346049/

Brian agrees we are a Championship team

[creative_username_1]

Furthermore, whilst there will always be a case for saying the squad could be stronger, an impartial view would be that a manager who suffers no injuries to his first 11 would be seen as fortunate whilst he who loses anything approaching half his team would be deemed unfortunate.

I'm not going through the whole they weren't first choice a couple of months ago discussion again, but I will comment on this last bit of your post as I don't think it is just being fortunate.

Under Pardew and Coppell we had very good injury records and went for long periods with very little disruption to those players available for selection. I put a lot of that down to the excellent work of Niall Clark and Jon Fearn. Since Clark left our injury record has got progressively worse and we've seen a lot more training injuries and little niggles keeping players out. With Clark at the club I think our conditioning was that good that our players just didn't pick up those non-impact injuries.

It's also noticable that, I think, you seem to get more little niggles that don't clear up quickly when a team is struggling. When the team is winning it seems players play through the pain that bit more or come back from niggles that bit quicker.

When the squad isn't quite good enough you'll also notice the impact of players missing more games.

Lastly, I also think we're seeing a longer injury list this season because our players are playing at a level where they've got to really stretch themselves every game. They can't play at 98% which allows them to prevent injuries and they're not chasing the play as much and having to make those stretches and last ditch tackles that can often result in pulled muscles or impact injuries.

Basically what I'm trying to say is injuries aren't, IMO, just a matter of luck and fortune.

I can't even be bothered

[Ian Royal]

A fair reflection of that first half of football would've seen them 3 or 4 goals ahead, IMO

Well i'm glad it's been downgraded to three but football just does not work like that. Arsenal deserved to be three ahead, not Everton.

Anyway, I don't disagree with the point about 4-4-2 or whatever so let's knock this tedium on the head, accepting the fact that i started it.

The point is that Everton was not reflective of an up-turn in performance for us. It was one of those games where the opposition doesn't punish usas much as they ought to have done, we get a couple of narrow decisions go your way and managed to punish Everton's mistakes. It wasn't anything particularly different to the rest of the pile of steaming turd we'd been serving up, so it's just not useful to hold on to it desperately in the hope that it might mean what we did that day would be good enough in many games we play this season.

I know that's not what you're doing, but I think it is the point from where your disagreement with Hoop came from.

[Millsy]

Furthermore, whilst there will always be a case for saying the squad could be stronger, an impartial view would be that a manager who suffers no injuries to his first 11 would be seen as fortunate whilst he who loses anything approaching half his team would be deemed unfortunate.

I'm not going through the whole they weren't first choice a couple of months ago discussion again, but I will comment on this last bit of your post as I don't think it is just being fortunate.

Under Pardew and Coppell we had very good injury records and went for long periods with very little disruption to those players available for selection. I put a lot of that down to the excellent work of Niall Clark and Jon Fearn. Since Clark left our injury record has got progressively worse and we've seen a lot more training injuries and little niggles keeping players out. With Clark at the club I think our conditioning was that good that our players just didn't pick up those non-impact injuries.

It's also noticable that, I think, you seem to get more little niggles that don't clear up quickly when a team is struggling. When the team is winning it seems players play through the pain that bit more or come back from niggles that bit quicker.

When the squad isn't quite good enough you'll also notice the impact of players missing more games.

Lastly, I also think we're seeing a longer injury list this season because our players are playing at a level where they've got to really stretch themselves every game. They can't play at 98% which allows them to prevent injuries and they're not chasing the play as much and having to make those stretches and last ditch tackles that can often result in pulled muscles or impact injuries.

Basically what I'm trying to say is injuries aren't, IMO, just a matter of luck and fortune.

I can't even be bothered

Why? HB's post seems perfectly reasonable.

[creative_username_1]

Apart from a lack of research to actually back an argument up with stats

And no understanding of randomness and probability. You're attributing lack of injuries (which hasn't been verified) to work of Niall Clark and Jon Fearn. Even if it is the case that we had less injuries it would still fall with expected probabilities of randomness. BeLLOL curve distribution it would actually be strange for one team to not go through a season with far fewer injuries etc honestly can't be farking bothered