Have to disagree.

We can field a starting 11, when fit, that is better than the starting 11 of 12 other premier League teams in my opinion. Perhaps it's true that we have only Zaha and AWB who are top 4 quality, but that's 2 more than Watford, Brighton, Burnley, Newcastle etc, and one more than WHU, Liecester, Everton. I think we should be realistically competing for top 8 and would consider Luka, Kouyate, Sakho, Tomkins, Townshend of being worthy of that quality.

Squad depth is a problem, but that's true of at least ten other teams: who do Bournemouth, Everton, Watford have on the bench? When injuries hit you look for the incoming players to be 20% better then they actually are as they're playing for a place and the rest of the team to come together so that the machine as a whole can be better than the sum of its parts. Do you honestly believe Dann, Ward, Kelly are that far off the standard when they have to deputise occasionally against the likes of Brighton or Huddersfield? I don't.
We're where we are because of poor management. Corners at both ends are a massive problem, yet we have proven capability. This is coaching. We have fit strikers since January and choices of positive central mids like Kouyate and Meyer or defensive options like Macca and Schlupp which can be used as subs or to start. They are usually negative options: This is poor management.

PVA has been very bad for a while and is capable of better. He should have been dropped for Schlupp after Bournemouth away. We wasn't. This is bad management.

I'll end by saying that I wouldn't consider Craig Foster an authority on the matter. He was on high wages and reportedly refused to leave when we were in financial difficulty. He was a waste of a shirt, not even bang average on his day. If we applied his attitude and ability across the squad we'd already be relegated.

Bloody hell. i find myself agreeing with you, a good summery especial the comment about Craig Foster.

Edited by ChrisGC (18 Mar 2019 7.36am)

Edited by ChrisGC (18 Mar 2019 7.48am)

The ability of some of our players to pass to another who is only about four feet away is down to Mr Hodgson then is it?

Whilst I find your view point an interesting take, and would agree it's a better option than how we take them (which is just giving possession back to the opponent) I think every corner is the chance of a goal. Even moreso now referees are looking to give penalties for any kind of contact.

The improvement of defending and attacking of corners would be the number one priority of any incoming manager.

What's the point of having all that defensive structure if you're bound to concede a goal to a corner every game? It doesn't make sense to me. Nor does having scored maybe one goal all season from corners when we play wide and get at least 4 a game. That's a return of 1 goal for 120 attempts. That's criminal!

Edited by ChrisGC (18 Mar 2019 8.37am)

Roy Hodgson has a brilliant record in coaching players and getting the best out of them, his record over Europe is second to none so why should his performances with this suddenly be awful with our players, makes no sense to even bring it up.

If I'm proved to be wrong then fair enough.