A (possible) theory on why Sami is still here...

[TWOCHOICEStom]

One question I would love to know....Toko, looked very good in his videos, looked the sort to put in a tackle and mess up play. WHY has he never had a chance, why have we just continued to stick with 2 in the middle who are so far out of there depth that it is embarrassing. We have we not gone with an Ince and a Toko just to try something different. Kemy looked very good against Leeds, yet never played since...........just all strange to me.

This is the part I don't understand. It really can't get much worse, so why not give them a go. Toko looked like a beast in his (albeit heavily biased) youtube video. If we'd been playing the best players we have and still lost I think the OPs point might be more relevant.

But Sami has made so many very basic errors in team selection and formations/tactics. They're blindingly obvious to everyone too and yet he's persisting. It would be much easier to show support for him if he'd been doing the right things tactically but seemed to lack motivational skills.. but he doesn't.

But he DOES have one hell of a jawline.

 

[Rookie]

Seems as if your friend is not alone in his thinking

http://www.theargus.co.uk/sport/11670277.Talking_Point__Hyypia_hampered_by_Albion_squad_decline/

It would be better if the vast majority of the signings that replaced those mentioned had not come in from the top flight in their respective leagues (albeit some on loans).
The fact Hyypia is seemingly going to have a war chest to buy 'better' players worries me. He had a champions league squad in Germany and couldn't get them winning and so far the signings he has had a big say in (Tex has been good in patches and he had McCourt on trial before handing him a deal) haven't set the world on fire.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

So much this. Our best performance of the season was at Leeds. The team that day:

Stockdale
Calderon Greer Dunk Chicksen
Bruno Holla JFC
Teixeira Kemy
CMS

So a proper 5 in midfield away from home. Since then we have only seen that in the next game against Bolton, which we also won. So Sami found a winning formula and was too stupid to realise it.

Kemy has not even come off the bench since. Bruno has not played in midfield since that Bolton game. Holla at the point of the season looked like a real player, now he hasn't had a single minute for six games, in all of which we have lost the midfield battle.

The other league game we have won? Wigan? 5 in midfield again, yet virtually every other game Sami has picked two or three of Baldock, CMS, Colunga, Lua Lua and Bent. I'm counting Lua Lua as a forward for this as he does not have the tactical discipline to defend properly.

Exactly right, Hyypia is clueless, and I'm afraid the whole thing is a shambles, and he, together with Burke and Bloom have to take the blame.

Burke for getting in players that are either not good enough (COG, Toko etc.) or have a crap attitude (Kemy)

Bloom for not realising his mistake (it was obvious after a few games - Kaz in the middle, full backs playing as wingers - but we all wanted Sami to succeed, but it's gone on far too long now)

Hyypia for simply not being up to it. He doesn't know his best team, his tactics are a joke, his team selection baffling, he clearly cannot inspire anyone.

It appears that the majority of the players (as well as most of the fans) have given up on him.

Back to the OP - I sat in on a meeting where both Barber and Bloom were in attendance. It was just before the Brentford game. Bloom was adamant we had a competitive squad, and that he didn't like doing business in January.

I still think with one, maybe two additions our squad is OK

It's the Manager that's the problem.

 

[biddles911]

But what do I know?

We have developed a passing style and to throw it all away now to employ a Manager with a different style and outlook would be counter-productive. Rational rather than the emotional (=hysterical) way of looking at it.

We are still the second best passing side in the Championship, high up in the possession stakes, high up in shots per game and average in most statistics.

We do not even lose possession more than average, just at important times when we are over elaborate playing the ball out of defence.

Our tactics are not inferior. Team selection might seem not suited to the opposition. Recruitment is patchy at best and not really building a team but more like employing players with technical ability and trying, unsuccessfully so far, to mould them into a unit. Pre-season has been disrupted for the last two seasons.

A passing "style" is all very well but it's goals wot win games and we've not managed that easily for more than a season, even when Ulloa was fit last season. I think most would agree that Sami was not given much of a hand to play with and that the current squad is nowhere near good enough to challenge for the play-offs but I also don't think it's a relegation squad either.

We're pretty clueless once we get past the halfway line and it's got to be poor management when you see the team arguing over who takes throw-ins and free kicks which invariably end up ballooning over the bar? Also has nobody explained to them that chucking balls in the box is pointless if there's nobody there or we've got one of our pint-sized forwards being marked by a couple of 6 foot plus defenders!? Seems to me that we've got far too few players who want to get in the box and hit the target.

I think Bent will make a difference if he stays AND is given someone to play off. Too often he's on his own while our midfield is passing the ball around miles from the box and then losing it..........

So let's see what Sami brings in in the next transfer window. If it's more summer lookalikes then send for Pulis (unless Mourinho fancies a real challenge?).