MANY WONT AGREE WITH ME

Luke no one has a divine right to beat anyone however as fans can we expect to at least have a go at winning games, especially against teams in our mini league, especially when a game pans out as it did last night, to not even try and win it was the most dissapointing thing for me.

It wasnt like we were hanging on for a point.

Luke no one has a divine right to beat anyone however as fans can we expect to at least have a go at winning games, especially against teams in our mini league, especially when a game pans out as it did last night, to not even try and win it was the most dissapointing thing for me.

It wasnt like we were hanging on for a point.

exactly.


You would think the players themselves would have realised the game was there for the taking half way through the second half! but they seem to lack any sort of confidence to go for it. Its actually easier to do against the likes of man united and arsenal where the stakes arent as high, not so easy to do when the pressure is on against teams in our mini league

Luke no one has a divine right to beat anyone however as fans can we expect to at least have a go at winning games, especially against teams in our mini league, especially when a game pans out as it did last night, to not even try and win it was the most dissapointing thing for me.

It wasnt like we were hanging on for a point.

exactly.


You would think the players themselves would have realised the game was there for the taking half way through the second half! but they seem to lack any sort of confidence to go for it. Its actually easier to do against the likes of man united and arsenal where the stakes arent as high, not so easy to do when the pressure is on against teams in our mini league

After Noones last two cameos I cant believe he wasnt given the last 15 minutes tbh.

I hardly think it would have opened us up to a coutner attack, Stoke were as clueless as us going forward.

noone should have been an option. Corneilius should have got 15 minutes as well, as his presence offers something completely different to campbell/odemwinge and might have, at the very least, given the defenders something to think about.

It comes to something when your only (half) chance from open play has to come from your 18 year old left back on his weaker foot!

Terrible performance, Malky set up very defensively again against a very poor Stoke side . If we have any ambition of staying in this league Malky needs to be more positive in his selection and tactical process. Ok set up defensively against the top sides but we really should be trying to win against the teams in our mini league. Just 4 wins from our last 21 games tells the story. I'm sorry but Malky is now walking on thin ice. Nothing less than a victory and a massive improvement in performance will do against Palace this weekend.

Campbell was our best player by a mile yet malky brought on another 5ft f**k all target man in odemwingie- I found this unbelievable.Very disappointed with the performance

Stoke are so shit !!! They are above us FFS

I thought Vincent Tan had joined the forum when I read we should be taking 3 points off Stoke, who the fcuk do you think we are Arsenal ????

We play 5 central midfield players and come away with a point and rise two places = Result

We have moved Whitts into a central midfield player for 3 seasons, but for tactical reason play him on the left.

We are not good enough to play with:

A- 2 strikers
B- 2 genuine Wingers

Especially away......

I haven't read most of the messages in thread but I'd guess it's the usual.

It's our first season in one of the top leagues in the world, playing some of the best players in world football with clubs that have just every facility available. The top clubs have several cameras at each individual player linked to computer systems that track their every move, live in real time. Behind that are a whole load of backroom staff monitoring everything you can think of and a shite load of other stuff that you'd never think of. All relayed to someone who then relays to manager and coaches at pitch level who make the decisions.

WE are not at that level yet, thank f**k. I'm old school footy, let the talent prevail of which we are blessed with some very, very useful young players rather than technology.

We are the new boys on the block, our target, aim, PI or whatever you want to call it is to stay up! Then next season we can consolidate, look towards a comfortable mid table position then build on. I think Malcky is doing fine and one of the best British managers at the moment. Fully agree that the football, or lack of, is abysmal at times but his primary goal is to keep us in the Premier.

Its ironic that some on here are calling supporters who are pointing out the faults with last night as being too negative about our manager and the team and in the same breath point out that we have no divine right to win these games, "who are we to expect 3 points from such games=Arsenal" "Stoke have only conceded 3 goals at home" blah, blah, blah. Surely its the appologists that are being too negative?
Its not asking too much to have a real go when the game dictates to try and win these games against teams of a similar ability??

Its ironic that some on here are calling supporters who are pointing out the faults with last night as being too negative about our manager and the team and in the same breath point out that we have no divine right to win these games, "who are we to expect 3 points from such games=Arsenal" "Stoke have only conceded 3 goals at home" blah, blah, blah. Surely its the appologists that are being too negative?
Its not asking too much to have a real go when the game dictates to try and win these games against teams of a similar ability??

We "opened up" and went for it against Arsenal middle to late second half, they cut us to peaces. Good mate of mine an Arsenal supporter of long standing and knows his football thought we did very well until we went for it. We were texting during the game, neither of us were there, he's in London I'm in Turkey. At one stage he said they only we'll (Arsenal) will win this is if you start to attack as the team is set up for counter attack. More or less what happened LB.

Stoke are not on the same planet as Arsenal but do have players that could and should have scored a few last night. I can't count the number of times where one of their players had a good nay great shooting chance only for it not narrowly miss but miss by silly money.

Its ironic that some on here are calling supporters who are pointing out the faults with last night as being too negative about our manager and the team and in the same breath point out that we have no divine right to win these games, "who are we to expect 3 points from such games=Arsenal" "Stoke have only conceded 3 goals at home" blah, blah, blah. Surely its the appologists that are being too negative?
Its not asking too much to have a real go when the game dictates to try and win these games against teams of a similar ability??

We "opened up" and went for it against Arsenal middle to late second half, they cut us to peaces. Good mate of mine an Arsenal supporter of long standing and knows his football thought we did very well until we went for it. We were texting during the game, neither of us were there, he's in London I'm in Turkey. At one stage he said they only we'll (Arsenal) will win this is if you start to attack as the team is set up for counter attack. More or less what happened LB.

Stoke are not on the same planet as Arsenal but do have players that could and should have scored a few last night. I can't count the number of times where one of their players had a good nay great shooting chance only for it not narrowly miss but miss by silly money.

You said it, Arsenal are on a different planet to us or Stoke. We opened up at the back against Arsenal, because we were chasing the game, what else would you expect a team losing to do? keep defensive and lose 1-0
We stayed tight last night, yet you say that you can't count how many times stoke had great shooting chances! Thats hardly keeping it tight, more like Stoke were absolutely garbage which is why we should have attacked them more and gone for the win. You don't get many opportunities to win games in this league, last night was one of those opportunities, that Malky decided to decline.

A point is a point earned away from home, no medals for playing well and losing.

Were Stoke there for the taking last night? Yes. Was Malky's sole substitution a shocker? It certainly was. Did Whitt's have his worst game of the season? He sure did.

But f**k it, we've been a Premier League team for 14 games now, and I'll take a point at Stoke. You listen to some fans, they probably think we'll be the one team who go to the Etihad and beat Man City this season. We aren't bottom three, and if that's the case at the end of the season, that's great and we'll have another £30m to spend on players to help our starting 11 get that much better.

Malky is being stubborn in regard to his tactics and selections, I'll give you that. Cowie is not offering us anything, I don't care what anyone says. Whitt's is having some shockers when he plays out on the left too, but I suspect Malky will bring in someone in January to fill that position so Whitt's can move in alongside Medel.

If Malky is going to stick with his variation of 4-5-1, then I'd like to see Campbell drop back in the number 10 role that Mutch has kind of been playing, and then Cornelius go up top. I think Campbell would thrive in that position, and in all honesty I think Mutch is exhausted and as such is not influencing games how we'd like. Anyone at that game last night could see that Mutch was dead on his feet - the guy was literally in no rush to get back onside after making runs forward, etc.

Cowie out for Noone, Cornelius in for Mutch and going up top whilst Campbell drops slightly back. If Malky does that, we'll kill off teams like Stoke in the return fixtures.

Does it make any difference how long they have been in the prem? I don't think so, if we worry about the longevity of teams in the prem them the three who came up will come back down.
After 15 years in the prem is stokes squad better than ours? I wouldn't swap personally.

Malky needs to sort himself out, he can't find a balance against teams other than the big boys at the moment.

I like malky but results will determine if he can keep us up and so far so good but we need to start winning games or we will find ourself in the bottom three with very fixtures to come.

Just watched the highlights again - how the heck did Charlie Adam stay on the pitch! And we should have had a penalty... Could have been a very different game... Good to see Stoke reverting to Rugby tactics again, as they will not stay up playing like that.