Things are going from bad to verse. Rob Hutchison resorts to poetry before awarding his one-word verdicts …
Another game, another draw.
Why on earth, just can’t we score ?
We are so weak in front of goal.
We’re almost in a great big hole.
Pantillimon – 6 quiet
Reeva – 6 composed
JoS – 7 everywhere
Wes Brown – 6 tidy
Vergini – 6 alreet
Cattermole – 6 back
Larsson – 6 industrious
Johnson – 5 sterile
Alvarez – 5 wasteful
Graham – 5 pedestrian
Defoe – 6 – worker
SUbs
Wickham – 6 troublesome
Fletcher 5 – anon
Van Aanholt – 5 brief
Those who’ve been pinning their hope on Alvarez turning out to be some sort of game changer (myself included for a short time), have been doing so out of hope, as opposed to any sort of evidence whatsoever.
He’s the new Marangoni. He clearly has some talent, but is doing his level best to hide it. At Sunderland we will never see it. Alvarez seems unsuited to the rigor of the English game. The reports which were warning us ahead of his arrival appear to be very accurate at this juncture.
Vergini was dreadful and so was Alvarez. I don’t understand how anyone can play football stood as upright as Vergini always is.
Alvarez has brought nothing to us. He promised a lot when he arrived but apart from the goal against Fulham, there’s been little to remember in terms of his contribution.
Yet another failure against relegation rivals with three successive games in which we haven’t scored. This is relegation form without a doubt. Say what you want about Graham putting a shift in (and it’s a fair point), but putting the ball in the back of the net on at least one occasion before his contract’s up would be more than welcome. He wouldn’t be dangerous with Semtex.
There’s a horrific rumour doing the rounds that if we stop up we’re contractually obliged to buy Alvarez , for around £8,000 000 .Get the lawyers on that one now ! Still if we do go down that’s one small silver lining ….
PvA started the season poor defensively but improved. He appeared dreadful against QPR and many observers slated him but, in my opinion, it was not possible to defend on his own against 2 attackers as he was forced to due to the immobile Gomez standing still in front of him and offering no assistance. It was also obvious from pretty early that West Brom weren’t interested in attacking so defensive strength wasn’t what was needed. Incidentally, if you want to look at defensively weak, you cannot look beyond Vergini versus QPR. I just don’t get why he keeps getting a game and costing us games.
I know it is all opinions but Rob must sit in a different part of the stadium to me, presumably one that doesn’t face the pitch. Vergini was utterly awful. Constantly slowing down attacks, losing the ball and missing our best chance in the second half.
Graham put a good shift in. Actually winning headers, making runs into space, etc. Finally, to give Johnson the same mark as Alvarez beggars belief. We carried a threat down the left and absolutely none down the right where Alvarez never once attempted to go outside his man.
While Poyet set us up a bit more positively, I cannot understand why Vergini just has to play. Why move the excellent Reveillere to left back so Vergini can play right, meaning that neither full back could cross. Our set up is designed to get the full backs attacking and neither could yesterday. Decisions like that cost us wins and could cause relegation.
Take your point about the fullbacks Dave but PvA has been weak defensively and the Vergini Reveillere pairing at least means the forward players can stay higher up the pitch.
With PvA in the side we’d probably need Rodwell or Gomez in midfield. It just seems to me that strengthening one area of the side weakens another. Good to see Catts back though as he and Seb get through an enormous amount of work between them.
Dogged performance that apart from yet another officialdom blooper in the ruled out goal would have resulted in a deserved win for us . Something to build on , we’re still in there fighting . Where’s Smoggie by the way ?
GRAHAM….????????? Why oh why oh why does he get a game!
Simple …. he’s putting in a darn sight better shift than either Fletcher OR Whickham – which actually says everything you need to know about the overall quality of our squad.
Agreed George. He got a good round of applause when he was substituted and we looked no more threatening when he was substituted.
One word for me Rob. Bored.
I wasn’t – can’t say I was over excited either but I’ve endured worse games than this one. At least we showed some attacking intent and though the actual goal threats were few and far between at least we took the game to West Brom and didn’t spend the game encamped in our own half.