What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

Snowball
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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Snowball » 03 Apr 2013 15:15

Being under pressure but the opposition shoots from 20 yards etc is one thing
but it wasn't always like that. We got away with things often because other
teams cut us open but then missed the killer chance.

I said that tactic wouldn't work in the Prem because they will be far more lethal.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by melonhead » 03 Apr 2013 15:17

Snowball Being under pressure but the opposition shoots from 20 yards etc is one thing
but it wasn't always like that. We got away with things often because other
teams cut us open but then missed the killer chance.

I said that tactic wouldn't work in the Prem because they will be far more lethal.


you mean our strikers were better than theirs?
their strikers missed their shots, and ours scored theirs?

ie our players were better than theirs
ie our team was better than theirs
ie its not luck.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Vision » 03 Apr 2013 15:19

Snowball Being under pressure but the opposition shoots from 20 yards etc is one thing
but it wasn't always like that. We got away with things often because other
teams cut us open but then missed the killer chance.

I said that tactic wouldn't work in the Prem because they will be far more lethal.


What has the quality of Prem finishing 12 months later got to do with finishing first in the championship?

If the other teams didn't have good enough finishers (scoring is afterall the main intent of football) then they didn't deserve to win games and score more points than us.

You're really having a 'mare here mate and even allowing for your usual bloodymindedness I'm amazed you're still trying to justify your nonsense.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by melonhead » 03 Apr 2013 15:22

Snowball The idea that a team can't get a run of luck, 6-8- even 10 games is stupid.

Of course they can. It's the nature of variance.

Let me give you one example this year. Away to Newcastle.

We caught them at the end of a wobble. They hammered us first half but they only got one goal.
We were left (luckily) with a chance and then ALF falling over somehow gets the ball over the line
(easily could have been disallowed for handball) then an air-shot from Akpan falls to ALF and we get a second.

LUCK.

We were played off the park by Brighton and should have lost 3-0 or worse. LUCK (their misfiring)

We have had a number of quirky scores e.g. The two goals before HT at West Ham when we should have been dead and buried before we scored




And of course, nerves (from the other side), "momentum", players playing above their expected norms, a few refereeing decisions going your way
and suddenly a run is created.


I am on record as saying AT THE TIME, during the run, that we gave away far too many chances, shots, shots on target and would be found out.


I DONT CARE WHAT YOU SAID AT THE TIME

when you say the shots on target? do you mean the ones we cleared off the line, or our keeper saved? - surely thats our keeper and defenders doing what they are supposed to.
the shots from them that went miles wide/over? thats not luck, thats the incorrect application of a players technique.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by maffff » 03 Apr 2013 15:29

Heeeeerrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeee we go again.



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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Snowball » 03 Apr 2013 15:31

A side that has to rely on its goalie pulling off a dozen saves, has to rely on goal-line clearances is, ultimately a bad side.

Good sides limit the chances the opposition has, or make those chances into half-chances and long-shots.

Most keepers have purple games, strikers have runs of goal-scoring, but good sides, in general, have tight defences
that limit the opposition, and are ruthless when they go forward.


I repeat, we gave away too much possession, allowed the opposition too many chances
and got away with it through luck, but mostly the inefficiencies of Championship strikers

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by maffff » 03 Apr 2013 15:32

Snowball A side that has to rely on its goalie pulling off a dozen saves, has to rely on goal-line clearances is, ultimately a bad side.


Or a good side because they have had the foresight to acquire a good goalkeeper?

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Snowball » 03 Apr 2013 15:35

NO

Of course a good keeper matters, but a side that RELIES on its keeper making loads of saves clearly has
a weak midfield and/or defence

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by maffff » 03 Apr 2013 15:38

ooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr yes.

A team that has a goalkeeper with the ability to do that and the firepower to score one more on the occasions that the slightly sub-standard defence and midfield and decent goalkeeper fails to do the business would still remain above average.

We could have the shittest midfield and defence in the world (we may have if you ask the majority of HNA? residents, but that's subjective), but if you have the goalkeeper and strikes to mitigate those deficiencies then it's still a good team.


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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by melonhead » 03 Apr 2013 15:56

Snowball A side that has to rely on its goalie pulling off a dozen saves, has to rely on goal-line clearances is, ultimately a bad side.

Good sides limit the chances the opposition has, or make those chances into half-chances and long-shots.

Most keepers have purple games, strikers have runs of goal-scoring, but good sides, in general, have tight defences
that limit the opposition, and are ruthless when they go forward.


I repeat, we gave away too much possession, allowed the opposition too many chances
and got away with it through luck, but mostly the inefficiencies of Championship strikers


no. a siade is made up of all its parts, its a complex machine. a team with messi at one end and gordon banks at the other can probably afford to be less good defensively than a team set up differently to that. but when the messi/banks team wins the league despite this, its because across the whole team, they were slightly better than the other sides across the entire 46 game season

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Ian Royal » 03 Apr 2013 16:20

Saying it was fluke is stupid. But pretending that the margins aren't fine enough to allow luck to play a small part is also stupid. When it comes down to it one result over 46 games was the difference. We also had the advantage that coming from where we were we were undrr little pressure while saints and west ham were under loads. They folded, but I have little doubt that had we not been so pressure free and were involved in the auto race from further out we'd have struggled a whole lot more and probably have failed to win the division.

We were in the top four because we deserved to be and we were one of the four best teams. We ended up with the best record. That doesnt automatically mean we were the best team thats overly simplistic. Its more complicated than that.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by melonhead » 03 Apr 2013 16:29

chance plays a part in individual games
chance plays a part in the leagues.


but no team wins a 46 game champsionship as a fluke
and imo the only real test of who has the better team is by testing it in a 46 game league and seeing who comes out on top.



many people would say that QPR have a much better team than us, and a number of others, and are too good to go down.
that they are going down is no fluke though.
they deserve to go down, because they are one of the worst three teams, because they are a team of highly paid primadonnas, with no loyalty or ties to the club, no fight or passion, and they dont know each other and havent bonded and gelled into a team.
despite having "better" more expensive players, mssive budgets, big name managers etc.

cos its not about having a team with the highest scores on football manager,who plays the prettiest football, who has the most shots....
its simply about who gets the most goals while conceding the fewest, and therefore aquires the most points in the league.


were newcastle the better team and unlucky the year they blew the 11 point lead?
no. becuause mental toughness is part of the skillset for a footballer, and newcastle had built a team without the required levels of it.
man united had the required levels. and they were th ebetter team.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Esteban » 03 Apr 2013 16:50

Snowball Being under pressure but the opposition shoots from 20 yards etc is one thing
but it wasn't always like that. We got away with things often because other
teams cut us open but then missed the killer chance.

I said that tactic wouldn't work in the Prem because they will be far more lethal.


Here's one for you then, Mr Snowball. United are walking the league this season, thanks in no small part to the goals of £28m summer signing, Robin Van Persie. Is it luck that he's scoring all of the chances that United create?

Of course not. He's just better than most other strikers in the PL and plays in a side that creates chances for him and defends well. We won the league last season because we had decent strikers who finished the chances we created and defended well. Can you spot any similarities?

Luck plays its part during a season, but I doubt any team, in any sport, has had a season defined by luck, good or bad. One game, or a few games in a row, maybe; but not a 38/46 game season. And before you mention Spurs' Lasagne-gate, if they'd won more matches that season, that last game wouldn't have counted for so much.


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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Maguire » 03 Apr 2013 17:56

Ian Royal Saying it was fluke is stupid


Yes it is.

Saying we should have lost 3-0 at Brighton is stupid (not least because we scored and then hit the bar from six yards)

Saying we were "lucky" to smash seven goals away to our main two title rivals in crunch games is stupid

Snowball is, well you know the rest....

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Ian Royal » 03 Apr 2013 17:57

melonhead but no team wins a 46 game champsionship as a fluke

Yeah, that's what I said.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Man Friday » 03 Apr 2013 19:01

Esteban
Snowball Being under pressure but the opposition shoots from 20 yards etc is one thing
but it wasn't always like that. We got away with things often because other
teams cut us open but then missed the killer chance.

I said that tactic wouldn't work in the Prem because they will be far more lethal.


Here's one for you then, Mr Snowball. United are walking the league this season, thanks in no small part to the goals of £28m summer signing, Robin Van Persie. Is it luck that he's scoring all of the chances that United create?

Of course not. He's just better than most other strikers in the PL and plays in a side that creates chances for him and defends well. We won the league last season because we had decent strikers who finished the chances we created and defended well. Can you spot any similarities?

Luck plays its part during a season, but I doubt any team, in any sport, has had a season defined by luck, good or bad. One game, or a few games in a row, maybe; but not a 38/46 game season. And before you mention Spurs' Lasagne-gate, if they'd won more matches that season, that last game wouldn't have counted for so much.

Not by luck (that evens out) but certainly by biased officiating. We've gained 3-4 points by bad decisions (Everton non-penalty etc) but lost 3 times as many.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Esteban » 03 Apr 2013 19:06

Man Friday
Esteban
Snowball Being under pressure but the opposition shoots from 20 yards etc is one thing
but it wasn't always like that. We got away with things often because other
teams cut us open but then missed the killer chance.

I said that tactic wouldn't work in the Prem because they will be far more lethal.


Here's one for you then, Mr Snowball. United are walking the league this season, thanks in no small part to the goals of £28m summer signing, Robin Van Persie. Is it luck that he's scoring all of the chances that United create?

Of course not. He's just better than most other strikers in the PL and plays in a side that creates chances for him and defends well. We won the league last season because we had decent strikers who finished the chances we created and defended well. Can you spot any similarities?

Luck plays its part during a season, but I doubt any team, in any sport, has had a season defined by luck, good or bad. One game, or a few games in a row, maybe; but not a 38/46 game season. And before you mention Spurs' Lasagne-gate, if they'd won more matches that season, that last game wouldn't have counted for so much.

Not by luck (that evens out) but certainly by biased officiating. We've gained 3-4 points by bad decisions (Everton non-penalty etc) but lost 3 times as many.


Don't disagree there.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Snowball » 03 Apr 2013 19:29

Ian Royal Saying it was fluke is stupid. But pretending that the margins aren't fine enough to allow luck to play a small part is also stupid. When it comes down to it one result over 46 games was the difference. We also had the advantage that coming from where we were we were undrr little pressure while saints and west ham were under loads. They folded, but I have little doubt that had we not been so pressure free and were involved in the auto race from further out we'd have struggled a whole lot more and probably have failed to win the division.

We were in the top four because we deserved to be and we were one of the four best teams. We ended up with the best record. That doesnt automatically mean we were the best team thats overly simplistic. Its more complicated than that.


I agree that "fluke" is a poor word-choice, as it normally applies to a one-off situation.

I should say much what you have said above. I said at the time that IMO Saints, West Ham AND Birmingham were far better first 11s and better squads than we were.

Birmingham, for ages, looked better and "just" had to win their games in hand
but ultimately, the European games did for them, plus God knows what else
that was going on in the back-rooms. We got lucky that they were overwhelmed.



In the end we sneaked home by a single point over Saints, the club who with ten men drew at The MadStad.
A draw in Southampton and we'd've been below Saints. Yes I'm aware of the result, but IMO it was a game
that Saints could rightly think they were unlucky not to win, never mind draw.

They had 59% possession, 19 Shots to our 10, 12 shots on target to our 4, 7 corners to our 2.

But on the day, on that amazing run, we got the goals.

We were pretty dire for half the season, "no threat" or very little threat, but as you say Ian, we were under little pressure
(after 23 games we'd sneaked into 6th but a full 11 points back on Saints)... if we hung in there for the play-offs that would
have been a good season.

I almost agree with your statement that we were in the top four because we deserved to be. I agree that there were three sides clearly better
(Saints, West Ham, Birmingham) but after that, as is usually the case, there was little to pick between the next few clubs.

Birmingham we beat 1-0 and lost to 2-0, we WL versus Blackpool and we lost BOTH our games against Cardiff. Against these clubs we
certainly didn't come out looking "special" That's 2 wins and 4 defeats versus the sides in 4-5-6th, suggesting we were much of a muchness.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by Maguire » 03 Apr 2013 19:33

If we'd needed something at Birmingham last game of the season we would have got it. You can't say it was a sign they were better than us when we just went for a party. Even ChuROFLch played.

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Re: What's Adkins going to say after the Arsenal debacle

by TheSaintlee » 03 Apr 2013 19:36

As a saints fan, your run last season was amazing.

but just from watching highlights and the game at St Marys
I predicted that you would be immediately relegated and put money on it

your style was very different to ours. Many games against the top 6-8 teams in the NPC (it seemed) you defended well, had far less chances than your opponents, got away with Championship standard finishing and took the few chances on target you had.

it worked well for you, congrats

but in the prem, playing like that would see you get well beaten....which you have

adkins will give you a different style than last season, that is for sure

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