In the first half, I was sat in WS4 with quite a smug grin on thinking to myself ‘you know what-it’s working, this Martinez revolution’. And it does at times. Diame sitting deep to break up the play, McCarthy getting the ball and keeping it simple, Zoggy tearing their right back to bits. And it does work. We were unplayable first half – same against Birmingham.
Just when I’m starting to get comfortable, we hit self-destruct. Scharner started to wander like a headless chicken meaning midfield goes walkies and we started giving the ball away far too easily. With no out ball to a striker when we’re under pressure, the defence can’t come out and we sit deeper and deeper. It was inevitable that Stoke were going to score (yet another header conceded by the way).
So the Bob plan does work but he needs to stop filling round holes with square pegs-Scharner is not an attacking midfielder. And I wish he would hold his hands up and admit that Gomez simply aint upto it. He should have been taken off for Moreno – not Diame (who was having his best game for us in my view).
If Bob tweaks these problems we’ll be fine. If he’s a stubborn get we’re going down. Simple as.
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Fairly accurate that, imo. I think Bob is stubborn and as you say, if his tactics were working at the start of the game, then that is some evidence that it can work and some justification for his being stubborn.
However, he does need to find a plan B. That said, I am certain that he doesn’t say to the players at half-time: “Right lads, that was great. Now, they are going to come at us all guns blazing so make sure you go back out there, forget everything we did in the first half, stop concentrating, stop tackling and start misplacing a few passes. I’ll do my bit by bringing on Jordi in about 20 minutes time to f*** it all up big time.”
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As much as it pains me to say it Bob does have a plan B, unfortunately it has cost us points against Everton and Stoke. On both occasions, his substitutions turned the game against us. As much as i try, I cannot understand his thinking and my heart sank when I saw who was going off and who was coming on.
In the heat of battle (as both games undoubtedly were) you dont bring gladiators off and replace them with poets and philosophers (speaking metaphorically and Thomas excepted). Bramble, Scharner et al must have felt like crying after all the effort they had expended and I do feel Bob let them down.
