[Albion] It's Just Sunk In...

[Commander]

That's all they could do 'dream' with that team formation its not like it was the first time Poyet got things wrong is it or are in the 'Poyet can do no wrong brigade'?

I'm in the 'Poyet got a hell of a lot more right than he got wrong' brigade. Would you disagree with that? Because if you do I think you'll be in for a bit of a shock this season.

To suggest Poyet didn't want to win that game is absolutely absurd. He wanted out, and the best way out would have been to get us promoted. He would have been the stand out candidate for just about any job from 8th place in the Premier League downwards. As it happens, he got it wrong and we lost. Or the players got it wrong. Everyone has bad days at the office sometimes.

 

[Turkey]

I don't think we'll be top 6 this season. I thought that before the Leeds game. Nothing to do with losing our first two games of the season, not at all a panic and not actually that bothered about it. It's a tough league.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

I think we peaked as a club at 7.40 pm, 13/5/13. I don't believe we will ever get to the position and opportunity for a few years again. A Golden opportunity, we should have gone up in 2nd place last season.

I FIRMLY believe that and will never EVER EVER hear an argument against it, to me its blah blah blah. Player for player we were better than Hull. "We" ****ed up. Players, manager, Barber and his clackers.

 

[Justice]

Wow, way to miss the point. Poyet may well have made a tactical mistake, but to say he deliberately sabotaged the home leg is ludicrous. That is wilful ignorance, it services a desire to write him off and discredit him because it suits an anti-poyet agenda. You don't have to be a 'poyet licker' to see that suggestion is complete bollards and anyone taking it seriously should seek help crossing the road.[/QUOTE A one of game a must win game and we play a defensive formation mmm?, manager suspended soon after, Its only an opinion would you bet your house on it being wrong?

 

[Mellotron]

Of course he did. He wanted to leave, so rather than send his stock absolutely sky high and getting a plum job by taking a team from the bottom of League 1 to the Premier League in 4 seasons, he thought he'd deliberately lose in the play-offs. Because that would help him. And of course, although the players dreamed of playing in the Premier League with all the riches that comes with it, they thought they'd not try either because their outgoing boss told them not to. The final criminal act of course was leaving Vicente out of the side when he openly said he wasn't fit and couldn't play.

Sometimes I actually wonder how a large proportion of football fans make it through the day. It's a wonder they don't forget to breathe or something.

Spot on. It's genuinely breath-taking.

 

[brightonrock]

Wow, way to miss the point. Poyet may well have made a tactical mistake, but to say he deliberately sabotaged the home leg is ludicrous. That is wilful ignorance, it services a desire to write him off and discredit him because it suits an anti-poyet agenda. You don't have to be a 'poyet licker' to see that suggestion is complete bollards and anyone taking it seriously should seek help crossing the road.[/QUOTE A one of game a must win game and we play a defensive formation mmm?, manager suspended soon after, Its only an opinion would you bet your house on it being wrong?

Yes, yes I would. If we had won the playoffs then Poyet would have been attractive to half the Premier League or more, serving his desire to leave. IT WAS IN HIS INTEREST TO GET PROMOTED. I'll happily discuss whether he made a mistake, but if you GENUINELY think he threw the game deliberately, then we're done here. That is so monumentally stupid a suggestion I genuinely don't know where to start.

 

[Charlies Shinpad]

I think we might finish top six this season if we are lucky as we are a few players short and Oscar has to get his idea of football into the players in a very short time , which may go against us early season.
If we aren't in touch with the top six by December then I will look at it as a bedding in season for Oscar and then would expect a top two finish the following season

 

[saafend_seagull]

We were so close to 2nd. Those who were at Hull on the opening day will remember we should have won the game, and this alone would have secured 2nd spot. There were a lot of late goals conceded from us as well. A bit churlish to put it all down to luck, especially considering that the shoe was very firmly on the other foot the previous season, but we were so bloody close last year.

Well we shoud have lost at home to hull, got completely out played.

 

[Dave the OAP]

I know it is stating the bleeding obvious, but I think derby on sati will be a very good benchmark on where we are and i will be interested to see the crowd also and chatting to people who do not frequent this organ.

There is a huge amount of negativity on here and to be honest after the euphoria of last season before the playoffs this was always going to be a difficult season. we have an untried manager in England and a CEO who seems to want to slash and burn everything to get us into a position where we are best placed to survive in this division.

One question re FFP....if a rich Russian bought a club in the championship and bankrolled that club over and above the FFP limit, then Shirley that is up to him isn't it?

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

I'm in the 'Poyet got a hell of a lot more right than he got wrong' brigade. Would you disagree with that? Because if you do I think you'll be in for a bit of a shock this season.

To suggest Poyet didn't want to win that game is absolutely absurd. He wanted out, and the best way out would have been to get us promoted. He would have been the stand out candidate for just about any job from 8th place in the Premier League downwards. As it happens, he got it wrong and we lost. Or the players got it wrong. Everyone has bad days at the office sometimes.

As normal just about right. However, I would throw a couple of things into this.....

Firstly Poyet apparently spotted arriving at 7pm for the Palace game - hardly ideal preparation.
Secondly, his lack lustre approach during the game, stayed sat down, did not try to change tactics etc....
Thirdly, Vicente, not that much of fan personally (bloody sick-note!), but it cannot be deny he was a game-changer. Surely he should have been on the bench.

The last point is just opinion admittedly, but the first two require some consideration.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

Not so much the Palace game but the 15 open goals he missed during the season.

For me the most ridiculous post this summer.

How on earth can one player be to blame. CMS missed a lot more than 15. Greer lost players who scored against us. Casper blunders, Kuszcz blunders, AEA mistakes, failure to buy centre-forward last year, Lopez and Orlandi missing in games, Bruno mistake at Hull, Buckley and KLL failing to get decent crosses in, Hammond missing easy chance (v Derby A), Upson's poor performance Sheff Wed (A).

It is a collective responsibility not just one player!!!

 

[Springal]

I know it is stating the bleeding obvious, but I think derby on sati will be a very good benchmark on where we are and i will be interested to see the crowd also and chatting to people who do not frequent this organ.

Agreed, Derby are an solid mid-table Championship team, that have tightened their belts considerably in the last few seasons, but have a handy squad. Playing them at our place, will be a good acid test for us. They are no mugs, but we've stuffed them the last 2 games at the Amex (in terms of how we played, rather than score lines.)

Gus was an incredibly frustrating manager, and I was first in line at times to question the caution, the lack of variety in our play and the persistence with some players. But we've all (myself included) taken for granted that he actually got an awful lot of basic elements of football absolutely spot on, and up and down this country there are football teams without those. I'm talking about simply being able to defend, to have a style and a belief, to play with commitment, to have technical quality like almost no other team in this league. Apart from the utter disaster of 13/05/13, you can count on one hand the number of times we badly let ourselves down under Gus. I think we've all come to expect a certain level as though it is the norm, when actually it was incredibly high class.

Now, we're left with a manager who has no experience of England, a weakened squad at his disposal, and what looks alarmingly like a lack of money to spend. I'm not enough of an idiot to genuinely question him after two matches, we need two or three months to form any sort of definite opinion of him. But my early impression is that he doesn't fill me with any confidence, and that he has a lot of circumstances going against him that will make this a tough job this season. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm fully expecting a bottom half finish.

The best post you've ever made.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Nobody knows for sure how Oscar and his team will do but we have to accept that uncertainty. What we had under Gus was good, competitive, assured if a tad negative and, ultimately, short of the bulldog spirit.

So we go again. We were very unlucky to lose at Leeds. A point there would have been a great start, but then these things happen over the course of a season. I agree that there will be 4 or 5 standout sides this season and that last season WAS an opportunity missed, although it probably came one year too early.

 

[countryman]

Christ no wonder The Amex is so quiet compared to some other grounds, yep 8,000 the other night but Newport fans made it sound as though they were at home. Two seats away from sat a WBA fan down to see some relatives and he remarked about the lack of noise by Albion fans, why I ask myself. The only time we did make some noise was when the red was shown to Calderon.

I take it you sang for the whole game then?

 

[One Love]

Well I thought that parachute payments were supposed to be used to ease a relegated club financially from the lucrative Premiership to the Championship bearing in mind they would have the burden of players on big money salaries.

Instead it seems to me it is being used to bankroll a rapid return.

 

[Mellotron]

But we've all (myself included) taken for granted that he actually got an awful lot of basic elements of football absolutely spot on, and up and down this country there are football teams without those. I'm talking about simply being able to defend, to have a style and a belief, to play with commitment, to have technical quality like almost no other team in this league. Apart from the utter disaster of 13/05/13, you can count on one hand the number of times we badly let ourselves down under Gus. I think we've all come to expect a certain level as though it is the norm, when actually it was incredibly high class.

No, you don't speak for all of us. I, and many others, never took for granted how superb Gus and his team were. We were exceptionally well organised under him.

 

[Commander]

A one of game a must win game and we play a defensive formation mmm?, manager suspended soon after, Its only an opinion would you bet your house on it being wrong?

Yes I would, because I'm not a complete retard.

Sorry, can you just clarify for me, you can only win games by playing attacking formations, and if you set out with a defensive formation it means you will lose?

Why do you think it was a defensive formation? Let me guess, because we only had one striker up front (the same as we'd had all season and in the last two home games where we'd scored 7 and conceded 1).

 

[kevtherev]

This is something I am really annoyed about. We pay top money to watch our football, we got 24,000 or what ever it is season ticket holders and we are given. Kemy and Chicksen on top of what we already had last season...I'm not slagging either player, but I expected more for my money tbh. Not impressed at all.

 

[5Ways Gull]

And to make it worse Palace will come down next season with a swelled bank balance, having got lucky last year with a pretty average squad (barring obviously Zaha).

Have they not siad that they will need to invest that into their infrastructure - eg improvements to Selhurst etc?

We have a great stadium with a fantastic new Training facility on the way. The last 2 seasons have proved we have amazing fan base potential. If all of those things can be properly harnessed, and I agree that is a big if, we have a great future.