So we shouldn't expect to beat one of the worst away teams in this league in the last four years, including teams that have been relegated?
I don't buy all this "realism" rubbish, in fact the real realism is that if you don't beat teams like Fulham at home you get relegated, simples.
I agree with you Lloydy on this. Of course higher expectation is a factor but as 17GD says, what should our expectations be? We are now into our fourth attempt at the premier league (yes, it is different to the old first division) and it is about time we established ourselves here now. My expectation this year isnt top half but it is to stay up.
People say we have put in a few sub par performances but ive already listed the reasons im worried. I accepted the Man Utd and Chelsea tactics of sitting back, allowing the other team the ball and hoping to nick something because playing those 2 sides, that is all you can really hope for. What has happened since though is that the tactics havent altered from those 2 games despite us playing sides who will be no higher than 7 and most likely in a relegation scrap this season.
We have sat very deep with a heavy emphasis on defending, we have surrendered possession to every top flight side we played played this season apart from Stoke (who statistically dont play with the ball anyway). Our players look fatigued and are struggling to adapt to the new tactics, everything looks rigid as players seem unable to express them selves and are no longer being allowed to be fluid. Our midfield are no longer involved in games and the team selections hint at the midfield being an extension of defence. We have scored 4 goals in 7 goes against premier league opposition and all of them have came from defensive mistakes that our strikers have capitalised on with the one exception being Chris Brunt's penalty (which means their defence made a mistake in giving away a penalty anyway). We are still to score a goal that we have created for ourselves and our midfield are having a worrying lack of involvement in our attacking moves.
Id like to think my views haven't came about because I got carried away with last seasons position. I do admit though a worry that our performances arent just about the players being out of form and in fact a lot down to the way we are trying to play. When we took Hodgson on, while others were very pleased I wasnt THAT excited because his time at Liverpool had shown him to be a bit one dimensional and he was too conservative even with a team of players easily good enough for top 7. He surprised me because our football didnt change as much as expected and it all worked through a bit of fine tuning. I was hoping the fine tuning would continue over the summer but what has happened is that Hodgson has decided to change everything around and the early showings scream out of a side being told to function as a machine which goes totally against what worked for us last year. Everything the Liverpool fans were saying last season is now being repeated by our fans and that cant be ignored surely? It turns my mind away from "temporary blip" and more to managerial inflexibility and conscious playing style.
It is very early on and you hope Hodgson will look at the early performances and go back to the drawing board because he did well at Fulham and didnt just play boring football but im worried that when things do go wrong Hodgson isnt the sort of manager who is going to be able to react and change everything, He has had 30 odd years of managing teams his way and im worried that he wont change things because he thinks he has got it right. Things need to change quickly because bad results in the derby added to our poor start to the season and the calls for his head will come early than we would have thought at the start of the season.
