by Wimb »
24 Jan 2013 04:29
Generally tend to agree with HB, urz etc but do see where 2WW and WR are coming from.
IMO, I think Brian has been admitting (in a non-direct way) since he took over that our squad has lacked the quality needed to dominate games; and with the budgets he's had to spend, I can't say I'm surprised at that.
What he has done has squeeze the life out of what quality we've had and boosted that by trying to instill a team spirit in the squad and feel good factor around the club. What that leaves us with is a team that can compete but still can't dominate a game at the top level.
How much our results are then down to 'luck' is entirely subjective, however take the result out of the equation, re-watch all of our games this season and you'd probably admit we've had just as much luck go our way as against us.
People can't one minute say Federici's errors are down to bad luck and then at the same time dismiss the good fortune in us scoring 3 times in 12 minutes against West Brom due to some mad defending from the visitors. Likewise, as much as Torres goal was offside, Chelsea had dominated us for a good portion of that match and Guthrie's free-kick had more than a bit of 'good fortune' about it thanks to Cech's woefull keeping. Likewise who's to say that Chelsea wouldn't have scored in those last few minutes anyway?
The Newcastle game was one we could and should have won but how many saw the handball in the stadium and how many of our players were rampantly appealing the decision? It was a bad bit of officiating and bad luck but those things just happen and I cannot for a second agree that there was any 'bias' about it.
My overall point here is that if you look at our wins over Everton, West Brom and Newcastle, if you replayed those games 100 times, more often than not the opposition would win them due to the number of chances they create in comparison with ours.
On the other hand, as others have said, that was the case for plenty of games last season and in the end our resilience combined with being effective with what few chances we did create, saw us win games and get promoted.
That strategy is a risky one but given our resources it's the only one we can employ.
To have refused to roll over and die is a huge testament to Brian and the players and while I think he's made a fair few mistakes, it's impossible to deny he's got the vast majority of key calls right in the past 3 years. The key area we can't fully judge him on is player recruitment because no matter what's been said in public, we really do not know what money he's had to spend, who was available and if they would have wanted to come here. What we can judge him on is how far he's taken the group he has to work with and I honestly don't think any other manager could have gotten more out of this group.