Oscar Garcia - Is he what we hoped he would be?

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

If you'd like to add some facts to this debate.

Boring and negative? Compared to who?

Let's compare our average number of shots per game to the top two.

Leicester 17 shots
Burnley average 14.

Guess how many we average per game? FOURTEEN!!!

Oh wait how about the one's on target? Leicester and Burnley both average 5 on target per game.... we average FOUR.

So we DO create chances, we're just not very good at putting the chances away.

All in all, not doing so bad really considering the appalling injury crisis to our goal scorers.

BTW all this guff about spending most of our time passing it around at the back... 43% of our possession is in the middle third with around 30% in the final third... In case you're wondering that's not too dissimilar to Leicester and Burnley......

I've put what I think the problem is in BOLD

A pool in a desert of bigotry. Thank you.

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

Lovely stuff

You think my response was inappropriate as a reply to a comment that was pointless and offensive?

 

[Silkster365]

You think my response was inappropriate as a reply to a comment that was pointless and offensive?

Not particularly, more that I couldn't give a toss. Mine was simply pointing out in an ironic way that oscars press conferences tell us little other than this week after week

If you wish to take it to heart that is entirely up to you

 

[Cheeky Monkey]

Maybe some of you doom mongers should read some of the Poyet threads on Sunderland forum readytogo.net. It might make you feel better about things.

 

[HawkTheSeagull]

Maybe some of you doom mongers should read some of the Poyet threads on Sunderland forum readytogo.net. It might make you feel better about things.

But Poyet was the greatest manager on earth who could do no wrong and that all other managers will forever be in Poyet's shadow.......according to NSC anyway. How could he ever do wrong ?

Oh, and Id rather we were more threatening and attacking, but ill wait until the end of the season before making my mind up.

 

[GT49er]

All this talk of things being better after Oscar has had a summer clear out worries me - 'Summer Clearout' sounds horribly like a euphemism for 'All of our best players leaving'.

 

[perseus]

I think he's doing about as well as he can with the players he has in the squad. It is important to remember that the club have been very clear that he is the coach, not the manager, so whereas previous managers have been responsible for everything, his job is to get the most out of what he's given. When you look at the squad, there are several gaping holes in it, and I don't see that as his fault whatsoever. Therefore, would anyone get this squad much higher than 8th, without being able to have complete control over signings? I don't think so.

He has an ageing defence (I cannot believe we employ a man to focus specifically on player recruitment yet still allow our defence to reach the age of 33/34 at the same time with no replacements in place), only one player capable of scoring goals and a weak midfield that lacks any fight or presence (Ince aside). We're just not good enough. You can dress it up however you want, but the likes of Forster-Caskey, Lopez, Andrews and Greer wouldn't get near other top sides in this division. So until we stop carrying passengers and invest in every position on the pitch we will continue to be a team that looks good on its day but is too inconsistent to achieve its goal.

Our style is better than last year. He has the defence well drilled and we definitely move the ball quicker than we did under Poyet. When it works it looks great. But it will never work as often as it needs to with some of the weaker players we continue to select. And when things go wrong, we have absolutely no fight in that team. Going down to ten men should not be a disaster, especially at home, but yesterday we capitulated as soon as the red card was shown and just allowed Reading to dominate every blade of grass. Where was our leadership? Andrews is a joke, Upson is a good player but not a leader and most of the others couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag. The same thing happened at Hull when we were under pressure and nobody stood up to see us through.

I don't think Leicester or Burnley are better football teams than us, but they're more clinical, more decisive and are ready to win the physical battle when required.

Give Oscar the squad required to compete at the top end of the division (cover in all areas, of the right age, skill mixed with flair, and plenty of athleticism) and I'm fairly confident he would do the business. I have one or two issues with him, mainly the fact even I can see we don't look like scoring a goal without pace in the team, and that means having LuaLua, Buckley and March on the pitch as much as possible. Starting with NONE of them is unforgivable. But generally I find myself pointing my finger in his direction a lot less than I did Poyet.

This season has been a let-down and I am not even entertaining the idea we could reach the play-offs, but I'm blaming certain players, not Oscar.

Well, I think differently. We have the players. We l believe in TOTAL FOOTBALL. Which means the players adapt rather than being precious specialists.

I don't think it is happening as quickly as everybody, fans, pundits, journos hoped for. This means other clubs will catch up.

But after seeing the inadequate attempts of Sunderland and Man City today ....

PS: It does seem that Oscar Garcia is not getting the message across quite quickly enough. Or something, we cannot really see if the players have the nous to engineer to the move that wins a play-off final?

 

[London Irish]

It's very telling that people spend so much time on excuses like injuries and no pre season rather than present a positive case arguing in favour of the tactics/formations and the quality of our play.

 

[Commander]

It's very telling that people spend so much time on excuses like injuries and no pre season rather than present a positive case arguing in favour of the tactics/formations and the quality of our play.

Very harsh. I don't think we can judge him until the end of his second season. Until then, of he keeps us within touching distance of the play-offs then he's doing a reasonable job.

 

[perseus]

Unless we beat QPR and even if we beat them, we will be playing Fulham and Palace in the Championship next season. And it might be QPR as well.

And one out of and possibly both Orient and Brentford.

Instead of visits to Lancashire. I just hope we keep our better players and get the misfits playing together as a team.

 

[perseus]

Maybe some of you doom mongers should read some of the Poyet threads on Sunderland forum readytogo.net. It might make you feel better about things.

I saw the game. It was awful; for Sunderland.

I though Bruce has changed his style of play and chose some good players and did not even need to put the boot in. I thought Hull were good when they played us and we nearly beat them. Still it was easy in the second half for Hull after looking like Sunderland might edge it in the first half, depending on set pieces.

Sunderland, Palace or WBA to go down with Cardiff and Fulham?

AS WBA stitched up their Manager, I hope they go down. Really, I won't mind if Cardiff escape and Palace go down as well. And Malky did not get a good deal from Malaysia, so I don't really are a shit anyway.

 

[mona]

The injuries excuse has been shown up for what it always was, bearing in mind we have now been relatively injury-free for a couple of months and we're not doing any better than we were before Christmas.

There are huge flaws in this squad, and they will exist regardless of who is in charge. You CANNOT employ just one player capable of putting the ball in the net and expect to go up. It's absolutely ludicrous that we are even contemplating the possibility of promotion with such a squad. Similarly, you cannot sign the likes of Keith Andrews and claim promotion is the aim, because those two events do not tally.

rrrrr do not disagree with you. But football is a simple game and when home games revolve around every player tracking back for his marker ( Lingard and Ulloa in defence several times in the first half ), it stands to reason that we aren't gonna score many goals. There aren't enough players in the box at home games and that's down to Oscar's tactics. But I agree the squad is a bit short.

 

[Baldseagull]

Not read the whole thread so apologies if I state something already said.
Original post claimed we are under achieving, and the most under achieving side in the division. Utter bollocks.
Have a look at the table and see how many of the sides above us are either receiving parachute payments or are blatantly ignoring FFP with their spending. Leicester are overspending, Burnley have parachute payments, QPR have parachute payments and are overspending, Forest are overspending, Wigan and Reading both have first year parachute payments. Derby, are the only side above us that I reckon are not getting parachute payments and are not overspending
Now have a look at the 5 just behind us, none of them are sides you would be surprised to see in the top six and 2 or 3 of them are going to have problems complying with FFP as well. Bolton are far and away the biggest underachievers of this season so far.

I can't tell you why we had March, Lua Lua and Buckley on the bench, but I wasn't at training, didn't review video of Reading, talk to the club doctor or do anything that a manager needs to do to pick the right side.

Finishing is a problem for us, we create enough opportunity, but either shoot wide or hit the woodwork, I believe we have hit the frame of the goal more than any other side this season. I don't see how OG can be held accountable for that.
I hope he is here for the next 10 years.

 

[Kalimantan Gull]

Is OG what we hoped he would be? It rather depends on what you hoped he would be. There were clearly many Gus-haters on here that were willing OG to be instantly brilliant in order to justify the sacking of Gus. Now that this hasn't happened the same people seem to be turning on him.

Surely the sensible opinion, regardless of whether you loved Gus, hated Gus, or were simply 'meh', was to recognise that Oscar has had one season in management in an uncompetitive, low-profile 14-team league; and must be given time to develop his style of play and assemble his team. That does require a full pre-season and a lot of patience. Top-ten finish is a realistic target.

You don't need to be getting results to be seen to be developing a style; a style that is apparent through the team put on the pitch; the signings that are made and the pronouncements to the press. And its here that there seems to be a problem. Its being blamed on injuries, but a style should show through that; or missing out on transfer targets, which may have some impact. But he still should be given time.

If, however, it is true that the players think that Jones is the defacto manager, not OG, then he should be sacked.

 

[Miami Seagull]

Is OG what we hoped he would be? It rather depends on what you hoped he would be. There were clearly many Gus-haters on here that were willing OG to be instantly brilliant in order to justify the sacking of Gus. Now that this hasn't happened the same people seem to be turning on him.

Surely the sensible opinion, regardless of whether you loved Gus, hated Gus, or were simply 'meh', was to recognise that Oscar has had one season in management in an uncompetitive, low-profile 14-team league; and must be given time to develop his style of play and assemble his team. That does require a full pre-season and a lot of patience. Top-ten finish is a realistic target.

You don't need to be getting results to be seen to be developing a style; a style that is apparent through the team put on the pitch; the signings that are made and the pronouncements to the press. And its here that there seems to be a problem. Its being blamed on injuries, but a style should show through that; or missing out on transfer targets, which may have some impact. But he still should be given time.

If, however, it is true that the players think that Jones is the defacto manager, not OG, then he should be sacked.

Sorry KG, but this has nothing to do with Poyet. OG came in promising attacking football. Yet we set up so defensively each time we play, home or away. He should be assessed on his own merits and, imho, needs to develop a more attacking ethos, especially at home.

 

[APACHE]

As I posted earlier on this thread and others have stated, it's not the manager people should be looking at as he can only do so much with the players he has. Have a good look at the squad, of the 11 on Sat. IMHO only the goalie, l/back, Ince and c/f are going to take us to where we want to be.The rest are coming to the end of their careers at this level, are on loan, are just starting out, are injury-prone or just not of the standard needed.There comes a time when the management will have to make a decision about some of these, do they carry on with those that are always injuried or inconsistant when their contacts end or do they clear the decks and start again. The coming close season will probably show which direction the club will take, if I had to guess it would be that a good number of the present 1st team squad won't be here in August.

 

[Goldstone1976]

it's not the manager people should be looking at as he can only do so much with the players he has.

This is surely the crux of the whole thing? For me, if the manager (coach) goes on record at the start of his tenure saying that he is "obsessed" with attacking football, it's not unreasonable to expect him to play an attacking team selected from those players who are available. Taking the Reading game, it is very clear that he didn't choose close to the most attacking line-up he could have done from fit players (look at the bench!).

It is this inconsistency that disappoints me about Oscar - his actions often do not correspond with what he said his whole philosophy is.

No doubt, time will allow him to build his own squad and develop the style. However, I do now doubt that he truly is "obsessed" with attacking football. Which is a shame - both because it brings into doubt how much I can trust his pronouncements (perhaps because he's not as self aware as he could be) and because I would much rather see us genuinely obsessed with attack, even if we did lose more games (though I accept this is a personal opinion).

 

[n1 gull]

I am getting a bit fed up, 3 wingers on the bench at home was f***ing madness

 

[JBenno]

I like Oscar, and i'm convinced that he and we will continue to improve together. I am 100% behind him.

Although, I will admit, for the first time on saturday I was disappointed with the seemingly defensive team selection.
To have no pace on the field from the start at all with our 3 speedsters all sitting on the bench did seem bizarre.

However, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that the cetral midfield selection was strangled by injuries and Oscar was maybe hoping from more in the attacking third from young Jessie.