Alan Shearer has called out a few individuals on Match of the Day, but the problem during Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Norwich was Steve Bruce’s tactics – simple.
Alan Shearer called out Joelinton, Saint-Maximin and Almiron on Match of the Day. He made a few good points, but it’s a cop out to suggest they are the big problem here when we set up SO negatively at home against the league’s poorest side.
We are sitting comfortably above the drop zone and at home to the side currently bottom of the Premier League, making this the perfect game for us to get on the front foot and make things happen, but we didn’t.
We sat deep and showed no interest in committing bodies forward, with Bruce’s post-match comments (saying “we didn’t get beat”) summing up his negative approach.
We have players in our club to be a decent footballing side. We have ball-playing centre-halves in Lejuene, Fernandez and Schar, wing-backs like Rose, Ritchie and Lazaro who are comfortable on the ball and capable of getting forward – yet Ritchie was rarely allowed to get into the opposition half on Saturday, leaving Saint-Maximin to do it all on his own.
Midfield players like Shelvey, the Longstaff brothers and Bentaleb can play a pass and keep possession well – but they’re too deep and set to protect a ‘5-man defence’, not get forward and support our isolated striker.
Going forward, Saint-Maximin and Almiron have pace to burn and love to drive forward – so it baffles me why we consistently play awful, hoofball and negative football that comes across as “Let’s just sit back and hope for a lucky roll of the dice.”
We may be sitting 12th in the table (we were somehow in the top 10 after Saturdays’ draw!) and 7 points clear of the drop zone, but that says more about the current state of the Premier League than anything else – think how bad the likes of Bournemouth and West Ham must be!
Without Martin Dubravka’s performances, some decent fighting spirit and a HUGE dose of luck we would be sitting in that bottom 3 alongside Norwich – and that’s a fact.
We are where we are in the League purely through lots of luck . we have won and drawn matches that we had no right to get anything from the play and tactics on Saturday was nothing short of woefull and I am still not convinced that we wont end up in yet another relegation battle .And as for Joelinton words just fail me as to why he is played week in and week out..
fj1200xxx(Quote)
When Rafa was manager I thought his tactics atrocious and so negative yet here we are in the same position with Bruce. Are the players told to play this way or is the manager asking them to play like this? It’s all very strange. We have some good players who can win games yet they do nothing. Something needs to change and quickly
Danny(Quote)