The sign of a great team

[cymrococh]

I'm sick of this sh*t.

 

Great teams still win on the rare occasions when they play badly.

 

It's a f*cking nonsense when applied to us at the moment.

[Guest GrandpaSimpson]

A total nonsense. A made up Sky phrase to justify s*** football played by the top teams in the greatest league in the world.

[Stevie H]

i always thought that the sign of a great team was playing beautifully and winning. kind of how brasil got the image etc.

[cymrococh]

i always thought that the sign of a great team was playing beautifully and winning. kind of how brasil got the image etc.

cf. The Magnificent Magyars.

[fyds]

i always thought that the sign of a great team was playing beautifully and winning. kind of how brasil got the image etc.

Except they forget the 'winning' bit sometimes for decades at a time.

[Guest Scot]

There's a difference between playing below your usual level and getting a win ( = great teams) and playing at a mediocre level consistently and getting wins ( = mediocre teams). Second set get caught up with eventually.

[Stevie H]

the sentence seems to have become corrupted thanks to overuse by crap pundits. i'm pretty sure it started out as something like 'and that's the sign of champions, being able to grind out a win when not playing all that well'. somewhere along the line that became 'great team' and 'badly'. which makes no sense at all.

[fyds]

the sentence seems to have become corrupted thanks to overuse by crap pundits. i'm pretty sure it started out as something like 'and that's the sign of champions, being able to grind out a win when not playing all that well'. somewhere along the line that became 'great team' and 'badly'. which makes no sense at all.

Yep - distorted via over use.

[cymrococh]

the sentence seems to have become corrupted thanks to overuse by crap pundits. i'm pretty sure it started out as something like 'and that's the sign of champions, being able to grind out a win when not playing all that well'. somewhere along the line that became 'great team' and 'badly'. which makes no sense at all.

I'm getting sick of people taking the fact we were rubbish as a positive on here.

 

"we were rubbish but we still won, that's a sign of champions".

 

We have been truly bobbins and if we continue like this, we'll win f*ck all.

[Maldini]

Like every other nonsensical fallacy related to football it's Richard Keys' fault.

[Bootle Buck]

winning ugly occasionally may be OK but not every game.

[Stevie H]

I'm getting sick of people taking the fact we were rubbish as a positive on here.

 

"we were rubbish but we still won, that's a sign of champions".

 

We have been truly bobbins and if we continue like this, we'll win f*ck all.

 

 

winning ugly occasionally may be OK but not every game.

exactly. this sentence was coined for teams who were playing consistently well and who when they blipped and played crap, still won. not for teams that were consistently crap for a spell and didn't play to their potential at all.

[John am Rhein]

i always thought that the sign of a great team was playing beautifully and winning. kind of how brasil got the image etc.

 

They never played on a wet Tuesday in Krasnoyarsk

[John am Rhein]

winning ugly occasionally may be OK but not every game.

 

No. It's ok for EVERY game.

[John am Rhein]

We have been truly bobbins and if we continue like this, we'll win f*ck all.

 

except for loads of games and trophies and stuff

[cymrococh]

except for loads of games and trophies and stuff

John, I've got no problem with direct or defensive football. My point is that either the players we have got are not good enough, or they are not playing well enough at the moment.

 

We look sloppy and bereft of ideas and individual performances are woeful in the most part.

[John am Rhein]

The're not playing well enough - so they need to play better

[surf]

cf. The Magnificent Magyars.

 

The Delicious Dutch

[John am Rhein]

Bobby Robson's Ipswich - this is the list of all time greatest losing teams, right?

[alias75]

I think the way Rafa sets the team up, the times we go out and dominate games the way Arsenal can or Man Utd can isn't going to be often. When we're at our best we play a high tempo pressing game that restricts the oppositions chances but we're not going to play this great posession game that Real or Arsenal do even at our best.

 

If there weren't some obvious reasons for the poor form id be worried but at the moment there are some obvious reasons...

 

1. Us more than any other team in the PL had more players involved in the latter stages of the Euros and Olympics, so we have the Spanish players that have come back late to pre-season and 3 key players away at the Olympics. Add Gerrard another key player thats misses a few weeks of pre-season and thats more than half the starting 11 that have had a shorter pre-season than usual so will take longer to get fully match sharp.

 

2. We have 2 or 3 new signings that need time to settle in.

 

3. We're missing key players that really influence the way Rafa sets the team up. Mascherano is the obvious one but you can also add Babel too since hes probably the only real attacking left player we have. Without Mascherano especially the balance of the team has been effected.

 

So yes the performances have been pretty dire this season, but we also have to understand that the same applies to every PL team, we were poor against Sunderland but still probably deserved the win, against Boro we were poor but they weren't any better, Arsenal have lost to Fulham, Utd have dropped points at home and Chelsea struggled against Wigan, Spurs have lost 2 from 2, Villa lost to Stoke.

 

It takes every team time to get into a groove with players that are match sharp and the right team decided upon, that can happen sooner for some compared to others. But the obvious plus points are we've won 2 from 2 in the league, qualified from a very tough CL game and have most of our players back fit, plus the possibility of 1 or more signing. Im hoping we managed to scrape a result against Villa (id take a draw at the moment) then hopefully after the international break the players will come back fitter and sharper and ready to play.

Edited August 28, 2008 by alias75

[billybunter]

maybe my expectations are too high, but it seems that we having been playing in a tide of mediocrity for far too long. I dont think we do the simple things well enough - simple passes and moving. Not much beautiful play to us at the moment.

[Beardsley]

To me, it looks like we dont have a pattern, a system of how to play. So, when we don't click as a team, we look truly clueless how to break teams down. It's been like this for years.

[Stevie H]

To me, it looks like we dont have a pattern, a system of how to play. So, when we don't click as a team, we look truly clueless how to break teams down. It's been like this for years.

that applies to every team in the world though.

[Knox_Harrington]

We look a mile away. The shape is atrocious - it hurts to watch us.

[fred milne]

We look a mile away. The shape is atrocious - it hurts to watch us.

The sooner we can get back to Masch & Xabi in midfield with Gerrard behind Torres the better. Where that leaves Keane I don't know - perhaps on the right in Kuyt's position.