[Albion] We are 4th in the Premier League (behind Liverpool, Man City & Chelsea)

[Guinness Boy]

I get the stat doomsayers won’t like this but it more than proves the methods are ‘working’ it’s the on pitch execution that isn’t.

TB will therefore still back GP and anyone hoping otherwise is blinkered to the realities of modern foo




Said similar to someone else this week. Who would you get in?

On another thread I went through the top ten goal scorers in the division. DCL is in there but also Bamford. Bielsa seems to have coached him and the team into goal scorers. They are the two bargains. You then have others way out of our league - Son, Kane, Vardy, Salah. And then you have Watkins and Callum Wilson. Either would have improved us immensely and weren't bank breaking on transfer fee (wages, of course, could be an issue). So I fear the ship has sailed. A panic buy in January won't necessarily work.

 

[Barham's tash]

On another thread I went through the top ten goal scorers in the division. DCL is in there but also Bamford. Bielsa seems to have coached him and the team into goal scorers. They are the two bargains. You then have others way out of our league - Son, Kane, Vardy, Salah. And then you have Watkins and Callum Wilson. Either would have improved us immensely and weren't bank breaking on transfer fee (wages, of course, could be an issue). So I fear the ship has sailed. A panic buy in January won't necessarily work.

Sorry I wasn’t clear enough I meant who to coach them. Murray is an option... (potentially could that influence have contributed to Maupay and to a degree Connolly’s form last year? I don’t know)

If it was me given the diminutive nature of our front players (Welbeck and Zequiri aside) I’d get Kevin Phillips in as a finishing coach.

Hitting the ball early, variety of finishes, dark arts against defenders, how to draw keepers/defenders into taking the wrong option are all skills he excelled at and I really think that could help.

 

[moggy]

I'm not sure everyone will be jumping on that gravy train.

You need to take stock of what’s going on

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Points mean prizes. And we haven't got enough.

If this post is supposed to point out what we could/should/expected to get compared to what we have got, that just makes our actual performances and the coaching look even worse.

We are faliures.

 

[um bongo molongo]

We have been incredibly unlucky..

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Not addressing our biggest failing from last season by signing decent attackers capable of putting the ball in the net is not unlucky.

 

[zefarelly]

Not addressing our biggest failing from last season by signing decent attackers capable of putting the ball in the net is not unlucky.

Exactly . . . Burnley have 2 proven strikers, who have had a bad patch but proved them selves last night. A massive failure by the club, has been since 2018 frankly.

 

[vagabond]

We’d be in first place with Liverpool’s front 3, there is no doubt about that at all.

Thankfully, Bloom has a lot more cerebral integrity than the majority of our supporters and Potter will be going nowhere. Like the academy, it’s a long term project. So many of our simpler fans will just not be able to understand this concept.

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Very heartwarming that there’s a big part of our fan base that are astute enough to see what Tony is doing long term.

Not like some knee jerk fans here, “we didn’t beat x today, therefore that Potter bloke is an idiot, he don’t even know his own best team. Bring in Eddie Howe or Mark Hughes”.

 

[vagabond]

We are 4th in the Premier League (behind Liverpool, Man City & Chelsea)

We're number 1 in the league for draws.
6 in total.

Guess who is 2nd?
Man City, with 5 draws.

What's changed for Man City? Very short break AND Aguero and Jesus were injured.
Both are back now but lacking match fitness/sharpness.

It would suggest to me we are pretty good at controlling games but lack the players who can put it in the back of the net.

Not new news.
The question is whether you think this is Potter's fault or a severe lack of quality up front.

Precisely.

That’s the crux of the matter. Is it Potters fault we’re lacking clinical forwards.

Thus my regular question, is it the manager or recruitment who’s at fault?

 

[schmunk]

The stats actually show that we're equally poor / "unlucky" at both scoring and conceding - we should have scored 5 goals more than we have, but also we should have conceded 6 fewer than we have. These two combined make us by far the most 'out of place' club in the league:



Oddly, almost all of this problem, at both ends of the pitch, has come at home:



Away from home we're actually almost exactly where we 'should' be, based on our play: