Player Ratings v Stevenage (A) FA Cup

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Think some of the ratings are high, as a 6 means that they are just below what I would expect which is a 7. I thought everyone was dreadful and think more marks like Smith would be right across the board. We lost every ball, created nothing, went longball and hardly strung any passes togethor. I agree Barton was man of the match and scored a stunner, but a 7 is a no to me, his and everybody passing was dreadful, and I would say it was one of the worst performances I have seen in a longtime, if you take into account who we played.

They played really well and had more passion and desire and fully deserved the victory, and I never say that I want a team who beats us to do well but I hope they get past the next round

we just had too many duffers on at once, for me. smith, perch, routledge, and i'm afraid after they both did well on wednseday, the two strikers were poor, too. this is too much for the rest of the team to overcome, even against a team from so far down the league.
onwards and upwards, tiote's suspension aside i'm putting this game to the back of my mind. the feel good factor of last week has been dented, but not destroyed. bring on the makems!

This will be forgotton by us if we beat the mackems, and maybe it may do the lads some good as they will want to restoy some pride

with a bit of luck it will convince pardew that smith has no business on the pitch next weekend, if tiote stays suspended.

did you see the ball he tried to control, which bounced of him into the feet of a stevenage player nearly 5 meters away? he's a joke.

I agree with TTID that some of the ratings were generous. I'd only have given Smith 1.

As for the players who have been waiting for their chance to impress, they didn't.
All they showed me was that they are not ready for the Premier League.

Joey Barton deserved to be Man Of The Match mostly for the cracking goal.

Thanks Wasim for again doing the ratings.

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This game was crying out for the kids and the fringe players, as they would have been more up for it, and then it would give the first teamers a rest especially when you take into account who we have next

Smith was awful and should never wear the shirt again

Thing is we sent 3 kids out on loan this week, a good move but perhaps it should have waited until the end of the window when we had more 1st team players fit

Not sure I would have rated anyone other than Barton and maybe Krul over 5. Smith was awful and I don't understand why he keeps getting picked. I'd start Guthrie and even Vuckic over him in an important league game. Nolan, however, was not much better.

Oh, wait a minute. Just heard AP's post-game interview. Oh, the lads were too tired. So I retract my previous, clearly overly harsh statement.

Better to say nothing. We got thumped, and at least half the squad didn't look like they gave a @#$%& one way or the other.

I am bloody sick when managers says that players are tired and play to many games, just train less. They earn good money so there is no excuse especially when this is there job.

What about the normal people who have jobs and graft there @rse off and they earn more in a week than what I earn in a year.

Total b@llsh@t

there must be a limit to how often they can perform to their best, physically, in any given period though. there is a truth in what he said on that score. the problems with pardews statement though, include:
A)it was stevenage ffs
half the team hadnt played the festive games he talked about
C)those who did play lots of games at xmas were the better players in the stevenage game

he couldnt exactly come out and say it like it is though, which for me is that - given that the players dropped for this match were all said to be unfit - the players who came in werent good enough. we have a decentish first eleven, and one or two ok-ish beyond that who can do a job, then we have a poor reserve pool. pardews job is to address that, but he cant dump that @#$%& on the squad after losing, can he? if we take anything from this it will hopefully be that the manager will now know how bad smith et al are as alternatives to our better players.
over to you, alan pardew.

His selection is what gets me. It's not just him. All these managers who keep picking Smith-what do they expect other than poor vision, giving away possession, no threat going forward and late tackles? I don't get it. As I said-would have preferred to see Vuckic in there, would have preferred Ferguson at LB. Also, if Barton isn't going to play on the right or in the middle why not rest him? The squad isn't as deep as it needs to be but there's a lack of vision on the part of the manager(s), too. And then to send on Tiote, always in danger of a booking, when the game is gone-looks like amateur hour.

agreed on tiote - a desperate gamble which backfired terribly.
even if it had saved the day, we beat stevenage, for what? the right to be knocked out next round, or the one after? ok, thats a poor attitude towards the cup, but he risked our most important player (one of three, anyway) in a nothing match.

oh, and the smiley with the sungegs above, was just meant to be a B then a ), in case anyone wondered what i was grinning at

Nah, I've posted that inadvertent smiley before, and I know you're not arty about your expression like that!

Even if you leave your "bad attitude" aside-the entire team was listless at that point. What is Tiote going to do to turn a 2-0 game on his own when we had Ranger and Airey up top?!

Quote:

tunyc
Even if you leave your "bad attitude" aside-the entire team was listless at that point. What is Tiote going to do to turn a 2-0 game on his own when we had Ranger and Airey up top?!

The Taylors are more likely to create a goal than Tiote is. Hell, Steven Taylor was tied with Ameobi for 3rd highest scorer in our Relegation season (A telling sign that we were doomed).

Thats one thing i really liked about Saylor's game he has a good goal rate which is something we've lacked for years from our central defenders

you see, i thought tiote was sent on to create a platform for us to attack coherently with the players we had on. allow barton to create something, by having 'the wall' behind him. if that was a premier league game, and tiote was only fit enough for the bench, coming on at that point would have been the correct thing to do. the point, though, is that it wasnt and it wasnt!

I can't see how players can't play twice or 3 teams in a week, as any decent manager would train them less, have them in watch DVD's of the next game and maybe just do light training. What about the lower league teams in the blue square they play the same amount and may hold down a job, and they still perform, why because they love the game and don't use an extra game as an excuse

I agree with you LMK that hopefully AP will know that Smith should never wear the shirt again.

its about performing to their best, ttid. 90pc is not good enough if the other guy is fully fit, the margiuns are that tight. its now an endurance sport, though with explosive moments of effort required throughout. the human body cant do this as often as these footballers are reqiured to do without some reduction in performance. rest is as important as training to any athlete. also, the mental side suffers, as tired players make poorer decisions when they are reacting to split second events. the schedule is suited to a slower paced game, but we simply dont have that. its a legitimate reason for getting less from the same players. its meaningless when you change 6 players bewteen games!

The margins are that tight against non-league opposition? This performance was not about fatigue, I don't buy that. I've played two pub league games in a weekend with no drop in fitness between games. It's a lame excuse.

no tunyc, i said it was lame in this instance. but responding to ttid in the post before mine, the fatigue thing is real, generally speaking, when games come thick and fast. its also true that the team for stevenage had several players who should have been fully fit and fresh, as they hadnt been involved in the first team much in the week or two up to this match.
bad excuse for pardew after stevenage, but a worthwhile discussion when teams play up to 5 games in 11 or 12 dats.

Yeah, you're right. AP just shouldn't have said it/should have picked the ressies & kids.