Was at work but it sounded a drab game, maybe hyper critical but i'm not too sure that he should be saying he's happy with a goaless draw against Cardiff regardless of the conditions, maybe we should raise the bar and say were far from happy with a 0-0 away to a side a division below us and raise the bar by saying its not good enough and we'll do something about it, send the message out that we have belief in ourselves, give the players a point to look to that says thats our par and anything below that is unaceptable, not its ok to be the same as Cardiff.

How was Defoes face when he went off for Keano? i know it was late in the game but he must be thinking ohh here we go again?

Anyway, onwards and upwards, in Jol we trust.

O well, Jol, always the realist. That's what I like most about him, his handling of the press is exemplary.

In the context of our season so far and with particular focus on away form, a goalless draw against a promotion-pushing Championship outfit, with a fierce home support and in those conditions, I think we would all be berating BMJ for having inflated expectations had he come out saying anything less positive than he did.

Cardiff looked a good side, not "lower division battlers", but a good footballing side with realistic aspirations for promotion. Their midfield and defence looked more than decent, but they lacked class in attack, or they would have scored. Thompson in particular had a "couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo" day. Chopra did all the right things, but looked less than confident in front of goal.

They also had a rabid home crowd behind them and the conditions were just excruciating - their grounds-keeper wants a medal just for getting the pitch playable, but it was a swamp.

In the circumstances, the priority was to keep a clean sheet, which we did nervously in the first half, more confidently in the second half. It's a pity we didn't score, but it was virtually impossible to play stylish football out there.

Not a fan of Keane are we?

In the context of the match, Defoe had about 80mins of which to find the back of the net and failed (although not entirely his fault).

Thus since we had options on the bench, it was time to give Keane a chance to see whether he could do what Defoe could not do on the day

and anyway, Keane needed a run out to continue his recovery and gain match fitness. based on the way the match was going, Defoe was the only candidate to be taken off for Keane

So if Defoe had that look of "Here we go again", i would be very unhappy with him. The team is more important than an individual and all that

We were absolute dog shit from the off. After all that crap about not wanting to go out like last year and let down the fans, here they were trying to do exactly that!

Jol didn't help matters by waiting so long to sub Murphy. He should have subbed Tanio too! Our midfield was rubbish. It was embarrassing. I am a Huddlestone fan, but the kid was slow and predictable.

Thank the lord we hung on at the end and have a replay at the Lane. We will do them convincingly at home I'm sure, but our away form this season is a fucking sham!

Our midfield really was truely aweful - even Malbranque was rather poor for most of the game.

Tainio whilst working really hard as usual, didn't show much class that I have previously seen from him.

Huddlestone did plenty of good things and equally poor things. Not so good when a team harrys like fucking mad.

Murphy, too slow and lethargic and never looks interested to me.

Personally I would have had Zokora playing but it doesnt matter because with the 4 we did choose it should have been plenty good enuf to battle and out class Cardiff.

Tough game but not good enough - at least we didn't lose.

Yet again, yesterday we did ourselves no favours by playing four central midfielders. This is not good enough and contributed to us creating about two or three chances. We had Lennon on the bench, ok maybe he wasn't fully fit but Ziegler can do a job on the left, give him a chance for the love of God. Murphy is useless there, he is a good player but not there. It seems Jol just plays his percieved four best midfielders regardless of their best position ( and for me regardless of the fact that Zokora is better than Tainio). We shouldn't be after the likes of Darren Bent or Anton Ferdinand, we need width it has been so obvious. The fact is many people feel guilty about criticising Jol because of the wonders he has done for us but when Pleat played the likes of Poyet and Rednapp om the left or right, we rightly were pissed off. This is no different. It is worse than Chelsea's diamond which they have now abandoned. Jol- Murphy is not a left sided player. And with Lee behind him, what chance have we of creating anything from the left. And what the fuck is going on with Robbo?

ah yes, another case of 'we should have played the players Jol didn't choose' again. We have someone saying this after every match that we don't win. Of course Jol's an idiot and you're the expert. Why doesn't everyone else see it?

0-0 was a very acceptable result under the circumstances.

If you are referring to me Jenko, you are misrepresenting what I said. Of course Jol isn't an idiot he gets 90% of team selection right in my eyes, but I cannot understand his picking of four central midfielders when we have one fully fit enthusiastic youngster and a half fit immensely talented Lennon. It makes no sense and I believe we have played badly whenever we have had such an unbalanced team. You can blame the pitch, fans, weather, Iraq war, global warming but what it came down to yesterday was a cumbersome midfield with players on top of each other and an isolated attack. If Zokora was in the mood to make his surging runs, then that wouldn't have been as bad. Also, Lee's ineffectual runs forward and Chimbonda's relative timidity in comparison to earlier this season exposed this deficiency even more. Chelsea have the same problem but it was compensated or hidden by Geremi and A Cole. We need width for our strikers and for my sanity.

If you weren't referring to me Jenko, have a nice day.

It appears - from what has been reported about yesterdays game - that our team had a problem with the player on our left wing...Danny Murphy. This was apparently resolved at half time, after which, Murphy player wider until he was substituted.
I have one or two questions here:
Firstly, how can a 29 year-old professional footballer NOT UNDERSTAND the coach's instructions given to him - presumably - before the start of the game?
And, if he did understand them, why did he spend the majority of the first half playing out of position?
From the coach's viewpoint I have questions as well: Mr. Jol, you watched a player of yours play out of position for 45 MINUTES from your technical area. Why were you not able to communicate with that player sooner than half time? And, if you had to give him a rollocking at half time to make him play as you wanted what does this say about the attitude - or intelligence maybe - of that player?
I live out here in North America where - I know - the type of sports operate on a much more tightly organized 'coached' system, (bsketball, hockey etc.), but 'soccer' (as it is known out here), also has tactics as well. How can our team coach plan any sort of tactics when players seem to ognore instruyctions?
My last point here is admittedly very speculative, but could it be that some players on the team just don't like playing on the left side? If that is the case, well F***ing tough!!
You are professional athletes on a TEAM and as such you are required to do anyting - within reason - to improve the performance of YOUR TEAM. Michael Carrick scored only twice (if my memory serves me correctly) for our team. He could have grabbed the glory with more goals at times probably, but he played the position that he was asked to play...faithfully, and as such he is valued as - not only a player with ability - but a very coachable player.
If some of our players and the coach are not on the same page, no wonder we have problems at times.

Eek
er... calm down?
:wink:

I'll try to answers some of your questions, though English is not my first language and it's not one or two questions, but six.

I can't imagine Murphy doesn't understand Jol's instructions. They've both been on the trainingground working together each day, so no doubt Murphy does understand very good about Jol intentions.
There's different types of players, and as we're lacking a true leader on the pitch atm (in which I thought Murphy could be one) I think he thought to take his responsability to play more compact, while others thought they should play more wide.
That could only be a few meters, cause a squad (playing 442 or 433/343) always plays with 5 or 6 lines and a space in between from about 8-9 meters. Murphy thought to make the game more defensive at THAT moment and apparently thats what it was all about when Keane(was it him?) was shouting to him to make the pitch more wide.

It's all small details that makes a team looking decent ... or not.
And in particular because each player has an average of 3 (!) proper minutes of ballpossession per game it's not all about what he's doing WITH the ball; the question is what's he doing WITHOUT it!!
So in my vision a player can hardly touch a ball and still play an excellent game; what really matters is his positional playing!! Or lacking of it!

Atm I feel we lack a true leader on the pitch, one who reads the game, controlls the pace, gives the signal to pressure the ball or not and putting the right players on their right positions, like a man we had last year.
Huddlestone is a very very young and promising lad and could be a leader in the future aswhere Carrick already had proven to be one last year, but he's not the highest in the peckingorder atm, though he's playing in a vital role in our team.
It takes time, and a team has to grow slow but sure and at the same time a leader has to command as well giving his mates the impression he can take that role. Will he (Huddlestone) be given that time? Will his fellowplayers give him that confidence? I truly hope so.

Maybe Murphy thought he could be the leader and took his responsibilities to show his coach..... maybe not; I can't see it from here.
Fact is he's an experienced player as are Keane, King, Steed and Berbatov, though not all experienced players are (excepted as) a leader or have the qualities to be one. I know what I'm talking about as being a youthcoach for my hometownteam.

Football and it's problems is the same as everywhere.
Football is a game of mistakes; the team making less mistakes wins the game, or at least gets a draw.
Like we did yesterday.