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We blew it!

SUIYHA said:
It doesn't make me feel any better to know that it's our record Premier League points tally and would have got us into the CL in any other year. The fact is, we're not competing against some mystical number, we're competing against specific opposition, and if they raise the bar against us then we have to respond. Ultimately, we did blow it, because not only were we seven points clear in March, but Arsenal had their worst start to a PL season under Wenger and Chelsea had their worst one under Abramovic, I thought we could have capitalised on that more at the time and after being very very good in the second half of the season it's hard not to look back at some of the mistakes that were made in the early part.

There were some extremely poor tactical decisions made in the first half of the season. If the team selection and substitutions hadn't been so badly wrong in the West Brom and Norwich games at the start of the season and we'd only managed to hang on and not concede a late goal in either one of them...well, we'd be in the Champions League now. Those weren't isolated incidents. Chelsea at home, Wigan at home, Arsenal between Adebayor's red card and half-time, Stoke at home...all very poor tactical displays. AVB got better at this in the second half of the season, but there were still games where he got things badly wrong and was bailed out by the brilliance of Gareth Bale. Today being a good example. There shouldn't be any minute of any game in which we don't have at least one of Sigurdsson, Holtby or Carroll on the pitch, otherwise we struggle to move the ball around properly in midfield. We only got 7 of those minutes today. It took AVB far too long to notice that Gallas was finished at this level. It took him far too long to integrate Lloris into the starting line-up. Some of you think this was all part of some master plan, I think he could have done it quicker than he did and got better results.

People talk about an improvement in mentality...we dropped 23 points from winning positions this season, that's gotta be one of our worst ever seasons for that. And of course, just two out of those 23 would have seen us finish top 4. The reason for throwing the points away IMO was poor substitutions - either the wrong players coming on/off, AVB waiting too long to make the subs, or the substitutions being overly negative, throwing away the momentum and inviting the opposition to attack us. Having said that, we've snatched points with late goals in seven successive games now, that's good to see and is a sign of the passion and desire throughout the squad.

But for me, the biggest reason we will be playing Europa League football is simple. And it is our fault. And I'm going to create another thread on it now.
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yes, if AVB corrected all the mistakes you said he made then we would have won the title. Not bad at all
 
SUIYHA said:
It doesn't make me feel any better to know that it's our record Premier League points tally and would have got us into the CL in any other year. The fact is, we're not competing against some mystical number, we're competing against specific opposition, and if they raise the bar against us then we have to respond. Ultimately, we did blow it, because not only were we seven points clear in March, but Arsenal had their worst start to a PL season under Wenger and Chelsea had their worst one under Abramovic, I thought we could have capitalised on that more at the time and after being very very good in the second half of the season it's hard not to look back at some of the mistakes that were made in the early part.

There were some extremely poor tactical decisions made in the first half of the season. If the team selection and substitutions hadn't been so badly wrong in the West Brom and Norwich games at the start of the season and we'd only managed to hang on and not concede a late goal in either one of them...well, we'd be in the Champions League now. Those weren't isolated incidents. Chelsea at home, Wigan at home, Arsenal between Adebayor's red card and half-time, Stoke at home...all very poor tactical displays. AVB got better at this in the second half of the season, but there were still games where he got things badly wrong and was bailed out by the brilliance of Gareth Bale. Today being a good example. There shouldn't be any minute of any game in which we don't have at least one of Sigurdsson, Holtby or Carroll on the pitch, otherwise we struggle to move the ball around properly in midfield. We only got 7 of those minutes today. It took AVB far too long to notice that Gallas was finished at this level. It took him far too long to integrate Lloris into the starting line-up. Some of you think this was all part of some master plan, I think he could have done it quicker than he did and got better results.

People talk about an improvement in mentality...we dropped 23 points from winning positions this season, that's gotta be one of our worst ever seasons for that. And of course, just two out of those 23 would have seen us finish top 4. The reason for throwing the points away IMO was poor substitutions - either the wrong players coming on/off, AVB waiting too long to make the subs, or the substitutions being overly negative, throwing away the momentum and inviting the opposition to attack us. Having said that, we've snatched points with late goals in seven successive games now, that's good to see and is a sign of the passion and desire throughout the squad.

But for me, the biggest reason we will be playing Europa League football is simple. And it is our fault. And I'm going to create another thread on it now.
Click to expand...

Not contradicting yourself at all there are you??:-k

I'd particularly like to know how you calculated the first bolded bit...
 
SUIYHA said:
People talk about an improvement in mentality...we dropped 23 points from winning positions this season, that's gotta be one of our worst ever seasons for that. And of course, just two out of those 23 would have seen us finish top 4. The reason for throwing the points away IMO was poor substitutions - either the wrong players coming on/off, AVB waiting too long to make the subs, or the substitutions being overly negative, throwing away the momentum and inviting the opposition to attack us. Having said that, we've snatched points with late goals in seven successive games now, that's good to see and is a sign of the passion and desire throughout the squad.
Click to expand...

We have also rescued 23 points from losing positions this season, second only to Man United (29). So if you want to start claiming 2 points back from throwing away a lead at Everton etc, then what about the 2 points we scrapped at West Ham with a late Bale goal?

Take off the 23 points we dropped from winning positions, add on the 23 we gained from losing positions and you get....... hang on.......I'm sure I've left my calculator lying around here somewhere.....I'm sure it will get us top 5......maybe not enough for the CL though.....

Either way, these are stats but the only one that matters is the final league table. To be fair, I get your point about AVBs changes, but he's clearly someone that reflects on his mistakes well and I would say a factor in our great run at the end of the season has been some of the right changes. Good to see he is willing to take risks from time to time too, yes we might have been playing 10 men but taking off BAE today left us without a LB (Bale stayed out on the right), yet we still had shape.
 
chicken_badge said:
We have also rescued 23 points from losing positions this season, second only to Man United (29). So if you want to start claiming 2 points back from throwing away a lead at Everton etc, then what about the 2 points we scrapped at West Ham with a late Bale goal?

Take off the 23 points we dropped from winning positions, add on the 23 we gained from losing positions and you get....... hang on.......I'm sure I've left my calculator lying around here somewhere.....I'm sure it will get us top 5......maybe not enough for the CL though.....

Either way, these are stats but the only one that matters is the final league table. To be fair, I get your point about AVBs changes, but he's clearly someone that reflects on his mistakes well and I would say a factor in our great run at the end of the season has been some of the right changes. Good to see he is willing to take risks from time to time too, yes we might have been playing 10 men but taking off BAE today left us without a LB (Bale stayed out on the right), yet we still had shape.
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This
 
glorygloryeze said:
Not contradicting yourself at all there are you??:-k

I'd particularly like to know how you calculated the first bolded bit...
Click to expand...

No...we threw away a lot of points in the early part of the season. The latter part we've been good at grinding results out from when we were down. And it is calculated by the number of points below 3 that we took from every game we at one point winning.

chicken_badge said:
We have also rescued 23 points from losing positions this season, second only to Man United (29). So if you want to start claiming 2 points back from throwing away a lead at Everton etc, then what about the 2 points we scrapped at West Ham with a late Bale goal?

Take off the 23 points we dropped from winning positions, add on the 23 we gained from losing positions and you get....... hang on.......I'm sure I've left my calculator lying around here somewhere.....I'm sure it will get us top 5......maybe not enough for the CL though.....
Click to expand...

I only count 20 - QPR (3), Sunderland (3), Man Utd (1), Norwich (1), West Ham (3), Everton (1), Emirates Marketing Project (3), Wigan (1), Chelsea (1), Stoke (3). Still very good though. Notable that all of them bar QPR came in the second half of the season.
 
SUIYHA said:
No...we threw away a lot of points in the early part of the season. The latter part we've been good at grinding results out from when we were down. And it is calculated by the number of points below 3 that we took from every game we at one point winning.



I only count 20 - QPR (3), Sunderland (3), Man Utd (1), Norwich (1), West Ham (3), Everton (1), Emirates Marketing Project (3), Wigan (1), Chelsea (1), Stoke (3). Still very good though. Notable that all of them bar QPR came in the second half of the season.
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You say we threw away a lot of points in the early part of the season then acknowledge that we gained a lot of points in the latter part? Is that not an improvement in mentality?

Your outlook on the Everton and Wigan games shows how you view it: you could argue that we dropped 2 as we were winning at one point in that match. In fact, if that was in the first part of the season no doubt you would have said that both games represented two points dropped.
 
Jurgen the German said:
So it doesn't matter that earlier in the thread I wrote that this year is not as bad as last year in terms of letting a lead slip?

So you don't consider a loss at home to Fulham and a draw away at Wigan bad results? Or an inexplicable defeat to Liverpool when we were in complete control of the game and somehow contrived to lose?

Somewhat hypocritical of you to single out KD for "hammering other posters" but it's fine for you to do the same to posters you don't agree with.[/

If you ask a question, am I only allowed to answer if I say what you want to say? And am I only allowed to ask you questions if they fit into our brief? You know this game; bring Harry up, drag a riposte from someone like me and the say 'you're a Harry hater'...
I shouldn't rise to it, but on a day when MOST people are respectfully trying to work though it, you and your compadres cannot resist diving in with the 'deep' questions. Tell you what, Adrian Durham's on in about 12 hours, give him a call, he'll be on your side.

As for 'hypocrisy' I always think that people who throw the word around are very often befitting of the term as well...
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I'm not going to bother reading through the thread, but by its title I'm assuming some so-called supporters are digging my club out.

Please do me a personal favour and stop supporting this quite incredible football institution. You're not wanted.
 
Don't think we blew it, I don't think we were good enough. Squad wasn't good enough and the way we played to our system wasn't either. Hopefully next season the players will understand it more. Arsenal just looked much more cohesive and fluent in attack in the last few months. We were close and luck could have turned it in our favour but we all know we have to be better than them to overcome them as they always have the luck.
 
thfcsteff said:
Jurgen the German said:
So it doesn't matter that earlier in the thread I wrote that this year is not as bad as last year in terms of letting a lead slip?

So you don't consider a loss at home to Fulham and a draw away at Wigan bad results? Or an inexplicable defeat to Liverpool when we were in complete control of the game and somehow contrived to lose?

Somewhat hypocritical of you to single out KD for "hammering other posters" but it's fine for you to do the same to posters you don't agree with.[/

If you ask a question, am I only allowed to answer if I say what you want to say? And am I only allowed to ask you questions if they fit into our brief? You know this game; bring Harry up, drag a riposte from someone like me and the say 'you're a Harry hater'...
I shouldn't rise to it, but on a day when MOST people are respectfully trying to work though it, you and your compadres cannot resist diving in with the 'deep' questions. Tell you what, Adrian Durham's on in about 12 hours, give him a call, he'll be on your side.

As for 'hypocrisy' I always think that people who throw the word around are very often befitting of the term as well...
Click to expand...

Point to me where I said you or anyone for that matter is a Harry hater. The fact is, you singled me out for mentioning him in a thread where others have even said its completely relevant and FAIR to do so, various others mention him in other threads and belittle him, don't see you jumping at the chance to tell THEM not to bring him up.

As for the Adrian Durham comment, totally unnecessary and wide of the mark, I can't stand that ****. What was it you said earlier about a big man apologising? Ill get a book, because I think I'll be waiting a while.
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Jurgen the German said:
thfcsteff said:
Point to me where I said you or anyone for that matter is a Harry hater. The fact is, you singled me out for mentioning him in a thread where others have even said its completely relevant and FAIR to do so, various others mention him in other threads and belittle him, don't see you jumping at the chance to tell THEM not to bring him up.

As for the Adrian Durham comment, totally unnecessary and wide of the mark, I can't stand that ****. What was it you said earlier about a big man apologising? Ill get a book, because I think I'll be waiting a while.
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I apologize.
You have not called me a 'Harry hater' here, but in the past you have made many similar references.
Durham comment wide of the mark? Not in my opinion. Why don't you own what you say and own what you stand for? Or do I owe you an apology for finding you similar in approach to someone you dislike?

BTW 'inexplicable loss to Liverpool' what are you talking about? Two individual mistakes. It's was very clear why we lost that game.
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SUIYHA said:
No...we threw away a lot of points in the early part of the season. The latter part we've been good at grinding results out from when we were down. And it is calculated by the number of points below 3 that we took from every game we at one point winning.



I only count 20 - QPR (3), Sunderland (3), Man Utd (1), Norwich (1), West Ham (3), Everton (1), Emirates Marketing Project (3), Wigan (1), Chelsea (1), Stoke (3). Still very good though. Notable that all of them bar QPR came in the second half of the season.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like AVB inherited a team with shoddy fitness/attitudes/mentality and repaired it as the season went on. Well done him.
 
thfcsteff said:
Jurgen the German said:
I apologize.
You have not called me a 'Harry hater' here, but in the past you have made many similar references.
Durham comment wide of the mark? Not in my opinion. Why don't you own what you say and own what you stand for? Or do I owe you an apology for finding you similar in approach to someone you dislike?

BTW 'inexplicable loss to Liverpool' what are you talking about? Two individual mistakes. It's was very clear why we lost that game.
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So basically comparing me to someone who winds people up for a living and does nothing but slate our club and manager, you see nothing wrong with that? One rule for the mods and a different rule for everyone else I guess. Doesn't matter that I've pointed out positive things from this season.

Don't take it out on me just because you set yourself up for a fall every season with your blind faith.
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Robbo said:
Oh come on, we didnt blow it, they were just better than us. But there is hardly a gap between us anymore, which the last two seasons have showed.
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although it seems like sour grapes...you can't help thinking they got the rub of the green....especially towards the end of the season.....even in the games left..they all fell into place for them....example...Saudi Sportswashing Machine nearly had something to play for..but guess what..QPR..go and fail....incredible
 
Mosquito_Coasting said:
Don't think we blew it, I don't think we were good enough. Squad wasn't good enough and the way we played to our system wasn't either. Hopefully next season the players will understand it more. Arsenal just looked much more cohesive and fluent in attack in the last few months. We were close and luck could have turned it in our favour but we all know we have to be better than them to overcome them as they always have the luck.
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I have to concur.....defence...midfield..and attack..lacking....class players respectively..in each position....
 
super spurs said:
I have to concur.....defence...midfield..and attack..lacking....class players respectively..in each position....
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For pity sake.

1 goal. 1 bloody goal would have changed it.

Any game we drew unexpectedly, or even Saudi Sportswashing Machine scoring yesterday, would have reversed things.

How the hell is that lacking class?

FFS
 
Jordinho said:
Let me just add that averaging two points per game adds up to 76 over a season. We are 4 points off what is often considered title winning form. Imagine how next season we will have one or two extra quality players to help us avoid the blips we encountered early on.
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Question is...will we...I hope so...
another question...the most important incidently...who scouting for the club has insight to get the players we need..
 
Crawley said:
For pity sake.

1 goal. 1 bloody goal would have changed it.

Any game we drew unexpectedly, or even Saudi Sportswashing Machine scoring yesterday, would have reversed things.

How the hell is that lacking class?

FFS
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oh yeah..I agree we were dead unlucky....but we had Bale to help us out big time..as has been noted hear ...

our midfield lacked a player with insight! ie a modric..our strikers were brick..and our defence made some blunders..

ie..just pointing out the facts...we did brilliantly for what we had...I have to say though. I'm somewhat desapointed that Defoe and Adebyour blew more cold tham hot!
 
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