Where the season may go wrong.

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ablueclaret
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Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:45 pm

A point against United is very worthy but we cannot rely on our defence getting us out of trouble time after time, our midfield has to become more robust and creative if the wheels are not to come off at some point.
Defences cannot keep on taking the hammering we're getting no matter how good they are, at some point they cave in if they get no rest.

The return of Gray has seen the return of 4-4-2 the system we just aren't able to compete with at this level, we just don't have the midfield personnel to get away with it. 4-5-1 it has to be with the clever use of subs. We now have the squad to do this and bringing on Gray Boyd or Barnes for the last 40 minutes should provide us with a new dimension to our game.

Let's hope SD doesn't retreat into his comfort zone.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by conyoviejo » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:47 pm

We are staying up,I said we are staying up..

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Darthlaw » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:49 pm

In depth tactical analysis from ABC.

Coming next week we have the insightful critique of the works of Jackson Pollock by Stevie Wonder.
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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:50 pm

We've never had a better chance but at some point one way traffic might just open the floodgates. We might defend as a team but we rarely attack as one.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:51 pm

Desperate defending can only get you so far, you have to create and carry the game to teams at some point.

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Re: Where I want the season to go wrong.

Post by Sidney1st » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:52 pm

I've fixed the thread title for you.
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ablueclaret
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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:53 pm

Why do you want the season to go wrong Sidney?

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Sidney1st » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:54 pm

Personally I don't but you're both Doom and Gloom on here with your predictions / hopes/ expectations.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Spijed » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:57 pm

ablueclaret wrote:Desperate defending can only get you so far, you have to create and carry the game to teams at some point.
But was it desperate defending against Liverpool, Watford or Arsenal and even Everton? None of those matches were anywhere near as hectic as the one on Saturday.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:57 pm

Not at all I think we have a great chance of staying up with the best defence in the League In my opinion, but we have to be savvy not stubborn.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ElectroClaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 3:58 pm

We're doing fine.

Christ, buck up, man. Pessimism may be infectious. Like yawning.
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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:00 pm

I think we've yet to get 50% possession in any game this season, which isn't important in itself as that was often the case in the Championship but over a season it will start to have an effect, you just need one big rout to undermine a side like ours.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Darthlaw » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:00 pm

Spijed wrote:But was it desperate defending against Liverpool, Watford or Arsenal and even Everton? None of those matches were anywhere near as hectic as the one on Saturday.
Conclusive evidence that this dipstick didn't watch the Liverpool game.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by MiltonKeynesClaret93 » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:00 pm

We're getting on just fine,
Christ if the games didn't have injury time we'd be 9th.
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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Andingle » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:01 pm

Have you done a thread on Where the season may go well ?
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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:01 pm

If SD stays adaptable we'll do fine but a retreat into 4-4-2 mentality concerns me.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:02 pm

The late goals against us are in part a result of the sustained pressure our defence undergoes.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by claretdom » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:02 pm

Stop being concerned and living in fear, it's getting to you

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Dyched » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:03 pm

We were never gonna dominate a game at old trafford ffs. I was a great point. Keep taking points off the bigger teams and there is far less presure on against the so called must wins.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by dsr » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:04 pm

ablueclaret wrote:I think we've yet to get 50% possession in any game this season, which isn't important in itself as that was often the case in the Championship but over a season it will start to have an effect, you just need one big rout to undermine a side like ours.
Are Sean Dyche's sides especially prone to have "one big rout"? I think you could validly have said that the coach to an away game may be struck by lightning and fall into a giant sinkhole, which may or may not have a footballer-eating dragon inside it, thereby ruining the season. :roll:

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by dsr » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:05 pm

ablueclaret wrote:The late goals against us are in part a result of the sustained pressure our defence undergoes.
What about late goals in our favour?
Last edited by dsr on Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Peter_Nobles_Wig » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:05 pm

I was only thinking earlier on just how positive this forum has been for a few weeks. Then along comes abc!

LOL

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:05 pm

It's wins that keep you up as a small club not draws.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Sidney1st » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:05 pm

Andingle wrote:Have you done a thread on Where the season may go well ?
You've got more effin chance of finding the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Sidney1st » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:07 pm

ablueclaret wrote:It's wins that keep you up as a small club not draws.
Have you taken in the other factors?

Sunderland and Hull look shocking, Swansea could soon follow etc.

More established teams are below us and struggling to get going.....

You're correct that wins matter, but points at places like UTD will always be helpful.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Dyched » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:08 pm

ablueclaret wrote:It's wins that keep you up as a small club not draws.
Draw all our games from now and we are safe.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:09 pm

Win them all and we'll be in Europe.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Dyched » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:11 pm

ablueclaret wrote:Win them all and we'll be in Europe.
Thats more like it. Positivity!
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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:12 pm

It was a worthy draw but could easily have been a rout. Our defence is excellent but it does need periods of rest, traffic is just too one way at present we need to gain some measure of parity in midfield.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by dsr » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:13 pm

ablueclaret wrote:It's wins that keep you up as a small club not draws.
I think you'll find no club has ever survived in the Premier League without any draws. And I bet there's a heck of a lot who would have gone down if their draws hadn't given them those extra points.

[Edit] - every club from Chelsea in 10th down to Sunderland in 17th were kept up by their draws.
Last edited by dsr on Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ablueclaret
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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:14 pm

Positivity is seeing the best options not retreating into mantra methods.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:16 pm

Yes you should never sniff at draws but it is was what did for us last time. Bournemouth and Swansea showed us the blueprint for survival of smaller clubs

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Dyched » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:18 pm

ablueclaret wrote:It was a worthy draw but could easily have been a rout. Our defence is excellent but it does need periods of rest, traffic is just too one way at present we need to gain some measure of parity in midfield.
But it wasn't. We changed our system to one which has been successful for us so that we could accommodate our biggest goal threat. Just like any team would. We gained a point at United. Lovely.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:20 pm

We lose our cohesion playing two up front, we just don't have the personnel in midfield to enable us to play it. Much better to start with a strong formation and move to 4-4-2 as and when the match allows.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by claretdom » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:29 pm

ablueclaret wrote:Yes you should never sniff at draws but it is was what did for us last time. Bournemouth and Swansea showed us the blueprint for survival of smaller clubs

The vision of ablue draw-sniffing isn't 1 I wanted

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Leisure » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:32 pm

ablueclaret wrote: Let's hope SD doesn't retreat into his comfort zone.
Could you elaborate on just what SD's 'comfort zone' is?

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by bartons baggage » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:43 pm

ablueclaret wrote:Desperate attention seeking can only get you so far, you have to create another made up problem to put across an invalid point.
Wise words blue. :)

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Sidney1st » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:43 pm

ablueclaret wrote:Yes you should never sniff at draws but it is was what did for us last time. Bournemouth and Swansea showed us the blueprint for survival of smaller clubs

Bournemouth - bank rolled by a Billionaire.

Swansea - been following a successful blueprint for over a decade I think and it's seen them climb from the lower leagues into the PL without bankrupting the club.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by jurek » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:46 pm

Given who we've played (eight of the 10 teams are above us, I believe) then we're doing alright.
Even though we haven't really outplayed any of the teams we've beaten (apart from Watford)
we're on course to stay up. Our defence has been exceptional as of late although some may say we've
had more than out fair share of luck. Had we lost to both Everton and United then we
couldn't really have that much to complain about and we'd be in the bottom three.

I can't see us having a better defence than what we have at present so it's down to midfield and attack
to get us the wins/points to stay up.
5 or 6 more wins at home and a few away might just suffice.

We can't expect the defence to continue playing as they have over the last few games but if anything
is likely to affect our performances and chances of winning then it's injuries to one or more key players.
If we can stay relatively injury free over the next two months and bring in one or two decent players in January
then I believe we'll have as good a chance as anybody to stay up.

If we do it'll be more than a fantastic achievement.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Sidney1st » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:47 pm

ABC will be a little annoyed if we do stay up, but at least we get a 2nd season of them predicting where it will go wrong...

Every cloud has a blue lining.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Rick_Muller » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:51 pm

ablueclaret wrote:I think we've yet to get 50% possession in any game this season, which isn't important in itself as that was often the case in the Championship but over a season it will start to have an effect, you just need one big rout to undermine a side like ours.
Not one to normally p!ss on people's chips but last seasons Premier League Champions Leicester only managed >50% possession in a few games, in fact their style of play meant that possession wasn't an important stat to focus on - didn't do them any harm playing narrow and inviting pressure to beat teams on the break.

http://tinyurl.com/zeor4bp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

EDIT to fix URL

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by EarbyClaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:52 pm

We've played 7 of the top 9 plus defending champions Leicester - we've beaten Liverpool (3rd), Everton (6th) and Watford (7th) and drawn twice. We're already putting good distance between ourselves and the bottom 3 who all look in real trouble at the moment. Defour is nearing a return meaning we can play either 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 as suits.

Unless I'm missing something there's not a lot wrong with that.
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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by PutTheWheelieBinsOut » Wed Nov 02, 2016 4:57 pm

I think ABC has a point about reverting back to 4-4-2, however after returning to 4-4-2 for just one game, it's too quick to judge if that's the plan moving forward. We also need to keep rotating some of the squad, it may have been forced on Dyche due to injuries and suspension but i think its actually worked to our advantage.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Dark Cloud » Wed Nov 02, 2016 5:27 pm

I also think that there is a fair point in the OP. We have HAD to surrender 70/80% possession to the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton, Chelsea and United and by desperate and brilliant defending we have eked points out of a number of those games, but that won't happen week in week out. I was however, glad to see that against less illustrious opposition such as Watford we had much more of the ball, carried the game to them, posed a real threat and looked no way out of place in this league. Where the season would/could go wrong is games like the one coming up on Saturday. These will be the barometer of our fortunes and already Swansea and Hull have nicked points off us at our ground. I agree that 4-5-1 did look like the way forward, even though I felt SD stumbled onto it accidentally because of Gray's ban. I'd be happy to carry on with it, even at home as it seemed to make us harder to score against whilst allowing our "runners" to join in from midfield making us rather less predictable.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by bartons baggage » Wed Nov 02, 2016 5:35 pm

Possession has never ever won a game of football,just saying.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by ablueclaret » Wed Nov 02, 2016 5:51 pm

As I said possession is not the be all but over a season a defence working at 100% capacity will at some point falter. All successful systems have tolerance levels built in, at present we are stretching our resources to their absolute limits, making injuries or accidents very likely. That is why we need a more compact way of playing which takes some of the strain off the defence and gives them time to breathe.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by boatshed bill » Wed Nov 02, 2016 6:01 pm

Dyched wrote:We were never gonna dominate a game at old trafford ffs. I was a great point. Keep taking points off the bigger teams and there is far less presure on against the so called must wins.
It was a great point, we got hammered nil-nil!!! :D :D :D :D :D

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by evensteadiereddie » Wed Nov 02, 2016 6:02 pm

How many accounts is ablueclaret running on this board ? The other two nutters have kept their heads down after their, ahem, difficulties and, sure enough, he pops up.... :?
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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Spijed » Wed Nov 02, 2016 6:07 pm

Dark Cloud wrote:I also think that there is a fair point in the OP. We have HAD to surrender 70/80% possession to the likes of Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton, Chelsea and United and by desperate and brilliant defending we have eked points out of a number of those games, but that won't happen week in week out. I was however, glad to see that against less illustrious opposition such as Watford we had much more of the ball, carried the game to them, posed a real threat and looked no way out of place in this league. Where the season would/could go wrong is games like the one coming up on Saturday. These will be the barometer of our fortunes and already Swansea and Hull have nicked points off us at our ground. I agree that 4-5-1 did look like the way forward, even though I felt SD stumbled onto it accidentally because of Gray's ban. I'd be happy to carry on with it, even at home as it seemed to make us harder to score against whilst allowing our "runners" to join in from midfield making us rather less predictable.
But Liverpool barely had a chance and our defence was hardly stretched in that game. As all the reports said, it was a fairly comfortable victory for us.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37067882" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And people need to stop going on about the Swansea defeat. We were playing our Championship side from last season. We didn't have Defour or Hendrick.

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Re: Where the season may go wrong.

Post by Dark Cloud » Wed Nov 02, 2016 6:17 pm

I do agree Spijed. I've been at all the games (except Soton), including the Liverpool one and we restricted them to barely any presentable chances it's true, although in other matches it really has been seat of the pants stuff. What I was trying to say is I'll be far more concerned if we end up giving 75% possession and find ourselves defending for our lives against the teams we really need to take points from such as Palace.

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