Who’s feeling confident then? The game at Anfield was one I actually feared beforehand. It’s been a while since I’ve actually feared that the opposition were so far ahead of us that the scoreline was destined to be ridiculously high one, writes Stephen Goldsmith.
Then, around mid afternoon, rumours filtered through that Gus was planning on mixing it up a little. There’s a piece in The Journal today by Mark Douglas suggesting that Gus needs to stop tinkering with team selections and formations. There’s a good point in there, but I’d argue that this particular change was entirely necessary. Furthermore, it added the first glimmer of excitement in relation to actually watching the game. Opposing manager Brendan Rodgers has tinkered and tweaked formations until something has successfully stuck, and unlike the very good Douglas, I don’t sense it’s all panic motivated. Poyet has constantly said that things would click yet the performance at Norwich appeared to expose his hopes as blind optimism. The starting eleven that were turned over at Carrow Road were also the same guys who rampaged to a 3-0 win at St James’.
Personnel does change too much in the middle of the park, of course, and that’s something we regularly discuss on the podcast. I call it the “revolving door” scenario. That isn’t unique to this manager though and the players’ ineptitude and inability to perform consistently is the primary reason for this.
We speak about all this kinda stuff with Richard Mason from the Northern Echo and assistant editor of A Love Supreme , Chris Thompson – look out for their upcoming 25 year anniversary special. We also chat to Nigel Kahn about the upcoming West Ham game. 0-0/0-1 anyone? He hates Allardyce, does Nigel. After the former Sunderland defender’s comments and gestures at the end of the Hull game it’s hardly surprising if that’s a fair reflection of his behaviour there.
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