Was discussing the players we have missing with a friend yesterday, and must say that when you consider the importance of the players out then the run is little surprise. Hopefully we invest next season in more quality backup to prevent similar in the future. Never known a season like it.

Heaton - captain and England international. One of the leagues best keepers.
Tarkowski - our best centre half
Ward - our most experienced and consistent left back
Defour - our most talented midfielder, if not our best player overall!
Brady - our most talented, technically gifted and creative winger and second most expensive player
Wood - our record signing and biggest goal threat
Walters - while not the same level as he was, I suspect his experience and know how would have been very handy. Our most experienced prem player.

For example with the same type of players missing Spurs would have something like the following out:

Lloris
Rose
Vertonghen
Alli
Erikssen
Kane
Llorente

Chelsea would be missing:

Courtois
Rudiger
Alonso
Kante
Hazard
Morata
Moses

Utd:

De Gea
Smalling
Young
Matic
Pogba
Lukaku
Zlatan

City:

Ederson
Danillo
Stones
De Bruyne
Sterling
Aguero
Silva

Looking at that I genuinely don't think many of them would do any better with such problems. With that in mind, I suppose any criticism from any of us is unwarranted and unjustified. Frustration and disappointment probably. But Dyche has earnt the right for us to be patient anyway, but in the circumstances perhaps tomorrow we should get behind them more than ever!?

Dread to think who would be missing from down the road. Cant name any of their players nowadays

When you look at those other clubs it makes it even harder to believe we compete in the same League as them.

Differences is their key players are a lot better than ours so the losses would be greater for them.

cricketfieldclarets wrote:Was discussing the players we have missing with a friend yesterday, and must say that when you consider the importance of the players out then the run is little surprise. Hopefully we invest next season in more quality backup to prevent similar in the future. Never known a season like it.

Heaton - captain and England international. One of the leagues best keepers.
Tarkowski - our best centre half
Ward - our most experienced and consistent left back
Defour - our most talented midfielder, if not our best player overall!
Brady - our most talented, technically gifted and creative winger and second most expensive player
Wood - our record signing and biggest goal threat
Walters - while not the same level as he was, I suspect his experience and know how would have been very handy. Our most experienced prem player.

For example with the same type of players missing Spurs would have something like the following out:

Lloris
Rose
Vertonghen
Alli
Erikssen
Kane
Llorente

Chelsea would be missing:

Courtois
Rudiger
Alonso
Kante
Hazard
Morata
Moses

Utd:

De Gea
Smalling
Young
Matic
Pogba
Lukaku
Zlatan

City:

Ederson
Danillo
Stones
De Bruyne
Sterling
Aguero
Silva

Looking at that I genuinely don't think many of them would do any better with such problems. With that in mind, I suppose any criticism from any of us is unwarranted and unjustified. Frustration and disappointment probably. But Dyche has earnt the right for us to be patient anyway, but in the circumstances perhaps tomorrow we should get behind them more than ever!?

Spot on CC, a very good point. Should add Lowton to the list too. I know he's back now but i think we really missed him when he was out.

great post CC

DYCHE OUT!!!

It just shows how embarrassing the girls blousery is from some posters on here after matches in the last few weeks.

superdimitri wrote:Differences is their key players are a lot better than ours so the losses would be greater for them.

So are their back up players though

superdimitri wrote:Differences is their key players are a lot better than ours so the losses would be greater for them.

Not really.
They can afford to have far better replacements in their squads.
For example, City had Yaya Toure and Laporte (57million quid) on
their bench last night, among others.

So it probably evens out proportionately.

ElectroClaret wrote:Not really.
They can afford to have far better replacements in their squads.
For example, City had Yaya Toure and Laporte (57million quid) on
their bench last night, among others.

So it probably evens out proportionately.

They were also ready to put up 40+ mil for Mahrez - as back up.

Its a fair point, but we have still cocked up with trying to play 4411 without a recognised nr 10. Still dont understand the type of stikers we signed although wood is a good player. Totally bewildered that we did nothing about it in January.

Good post. Difference is the quality of players the quoted teams can bring in which is exactly why we need to strengthen big time in the summer

summitclaret wrote:Its a fair point, but we have still cocked up with trying to play 4411 without a recognised nr 10. Still dont understand the type of stikers we signed although wood is a good player. Totally bewildered that we did nothing about it in January.

Perhaps email the club since you know better than Dyche on who to sign!

springsteenisaclaret wrote:Spot on CC, a very good point. Should add Lowton to the list too. I know he's back now but i think we really missed him when he was out.

Good point. Forgot he was out. Big miss

Spijed wrote:Perhaps email the club since you know better than Dyche on who to sign!

I'm sure he wouldn't be the first

The OP has a good point. I was having a discussion on similar lines with a Gooner recently who was surprised at our dip in form. I explained that we had basically lost the spine of our team in Heaton, Tarks, Defour and Wood and compared it to them losing Cech, Koscelny, Ramsey and Giroud. OK Giroud has since left but he was quite surprised at how many key players we had out. I can't recall as many internationals being injured from our squad.
Heaton, Ward, Defour, Brady, Wood, Walters

Would love to have them all fully fit next year coupled with 3 or 4 top signings.

cricketfieldclarets wrote:Would love to have them all fully fit next year coupled with 3 or 4 top signings.

Too right. Hopefully see Brady back for pre season although that might be a push?

Really strong squad when all are fully fit. Add a quality number 10, a nippier striker and another centre half and we will be safe as houses.

summitclaret wrote:Its a fair point, but we have still cocked up with trying to play 4411 without a recognised nr 10. Still dont understand the type of stikers we signed although wood is a good player. Totally bewildered that we did nothing about it in January.

This.

summitclaret wrote:Its a fair point, but we have still cocked up with trying to play 4411 without a recognised nr 10. Still dont understand the type of stikers we signed although wood is a good player. Totally bewildered that we did nothing about it in January.

Depends on your point of view. We've played all season 4-4-1-1, so are you suggesting that the whole season has been a cock-up from start to finish? I think you're a bit harsh.

summitclaret wrote:Its a fair point, but we have still cocked up with trying to play 4411 without a recognised nr 10. Still dont understand the type of stikers we signed although wood is a good player. Totally bewildered that we did nothing about it in January.

Massive cock up isn't it, only getting us to seventh in the Premier League. Amazing comment.

ClaretTony wrote:Massive cock up isn't it, only getting us to seventh in the Premier League. Amazing comment.

It would be an amazing comment, until you look at who posted it.

fidelcastro wrote:It would be an amazing comment, until you look at who posted it.

Paid-up member of the throbbers club.

Tarkys fit int he

It`s an excellent point, however, when Team 2 isn`t quite working (as it certainly hasn`t been against the `lesser lights` in the last 12 games) then I think fans deserve to see the possibility of Team 3 making a better fist of it, i.e. a start for Nkoudou and Wells allied to experimenting with Gudmundsson as the `no.10`. There is nothing wrong with `tried and tested` against the big boys who come onto us (on the whole it has been a huge success!) but it isn`t proving fruitful as we can hardly score against the bottom half teams recently.

HiroshimaClaret wrote:It`s an excellent point, however, when Team 2 isn`t quite working (as it certainly hasn`t been against the `lesser lights` in the last 12 games) then I think fans deserve to see the possibility of Team 3 making a better fist of it, i.e. a start for Nkoudou and Wells allied to experimenting with Gudmundsson as the `no.10`.

Interesting that during this terrible run and playing against the 'lesser lights' in the last 12 games we have plunged down the table from 6th to 7th place and were even 8th after the loss to Man United. We were there for one week before moving back up to 7th and maintaining that for the last 4 weeks.

Our worst run came between 23 December and 20 January when we played 6 matches against Man United x 2, Spurs, Liverpool, Huddersfield and Crystal Palace. We lost 4 of those matches but it was only Palace that we did not really perform. We were denied a stonewall penalty against Huddersfield which could have seen us winning that game. Both the United games we competed well and picked up a draw at OT and didn't have any luck in the home game and then we conceded very late to Liverpool whenwe could have come away with a point.

We still have not achieved the 40 points mark, which many consider to be the benchmark number for staying up, therefore, it is unlikely that experimentation will take place until that it achieved.

As demonstrated with the above results, it is, as SD often says, about small margins. This has definitely been the case with these fixtures, particularly with the players available and changes being made. Team 3 work with the players on a daily basis and know their good points and, more importantly, their frame of mind which can be affected by any off field problems, therefore, their decisions are ones which I will accept, although I may not always agree with. Such is proper football away from Football Manager on a PC.

summitclaret wrote:Its a fair point, but we have still cocked up with trying to play 4411 without a recognised nr 10. Still dont understand the type of stikers we signed although wood is a good player. Totally bewildered that we did nothing about it in January.

You don’t know what the club tried to do in January. It’s a tough window, and just because you want someone in a particular position doesn’t mean you are able to sign him. You can’t fault the club for effort unless you know for certain that we really ‘did nothing in January’.

Ashingtonclaret46 wrote:Interesting that during this terrible run and playing against the 'lesser lights' in the last 12 games we have plunged down the table from 6th to 7th place and were even 8th after the loss to Man United. We were there for one week before moving back up to 7th and maintaining that for the last 4 weeks.

Our worst run came between 23 December and 20 January when we played 6 matches against Man United x 2, Spurs, Liverpool, Huddersfield and Crystal Palace. We lost 4 of those matches but it was only Palace that we did not really perform. We were denied a stonewall penalty against Huddersfield which could have seen us winning that game. Both the United games we competed well and picked up a draw at OT and didn't have any luck in the home game and then we conceded very late to Liverpool whenwe could have come away with a point.

We still have not achieved the 40 points mark, which many consider to be the benchmark number for staying up, therefore, it is unlikely that experimentation will take place until that it achieved.

As demonstrated with the above results, it is, as SD often says, about small margins. This has definitely been the case with these fixtures, particularly with the players available and changes being made. Team 3 work with the players on a daily basis and know their good points and, more importantly, their frame of mind which can be affected by any off field problems, therefore, their decisions are ones which I will accept, although I may not always agree with. Such is proper football away from Football Manager on a PC.

It is small margins but this is now becoming semantics. What do we mean by small margins? Let`s use Swansea away as an example. We lost by the smallest of margins, however, the performance was dire. Another, Man Utd away. We were moments away from an INCREDIBLE victory. That`s a small margin a reasonable fan can accept but the `small margin` loss of points against the likes of Palace and Brighton, were again, IN MY OPINION, the performances were not good at all, will always result in what I believe to be constructive criticism.

After 29 games last season, West Brom were in 8th position and on 43 points, went on `vacation`, rested on their laurels and look where they are now (and I bet a few on here were berating them at the time).

Anyway, let` hope we can come out of our shell today and deliver a performance against a team a club that is, on the surface, in turmoil.

CaptJohn wrote:The OP has a good point. I was having a discussion on similar lines with a Gooner recently who was surprised at our dip in form. I explained that we had basically lost the spine of our team in Heaton, Tarks, Defour and Wood and compared it to them losing Cech, Koscelny, Ramsey and Giroud. OK Giroud has since left but he was quite surprised at how many key players we had out. I can't recall as many internationals being injured from our squad.
Heaton, Ward, Defour, Brady, Wood, Walters

We certainly missed Ward (until Taylor got into his stride), have definitely missed Brady and since his injury, Defour too. I don`t think we have missed Heaton at all (on the pitch) and Wood`s form post-WC qualification failure was poor in my opinion.

Biggest miss for me is Brady. When we had Brady on one side and Joey on the other, we weren’t just winning matches, we were playing some lovely football also.
It’s a credit to the management and players that we still managed to pick up points with all these players missing.
That being said, there have still been matches recently that we should and could have done better in. Last week being a prime example.
Hopefully get back to winning ways today, but either way it has still been a fantastic season.

Fantastic today. As were the fans. Especially in the conditions.