HeinzGuderianOld Boy Blue I'm in the out camp or if he stays Stam has to very much raise his game this season.
His first mistake was a very much understated pre-season with his behind closed doors games, only one public friendly and in my view he was 2 or 3 games short in bring fully prepared. This was confirmed with a lousy performance at QPR and we have been playing catch up ever since. The loss of Steven Reid was also very concrrning, why didn't Stam give him a new contract when handing them out to his Dutch pals?
Secondly recruitment and forming a well balanced squad has been appalling. Everyone knows we are desperatly short of a goalscorer but we also have no adequate cover/competition for Gunter or Obita. Of the 25 senior players 8 are midfielders and 6 wingers competing for only 5 places between them. If all were fit you would have 9 players peed off with not playing, not good for group morale!
Stam needs to ship 4 of these out in January get 2 full backs and a striker in and loan Mendes out if he is ever fit.
This misbalance in the group has led to confusion in Stams own mind as he chops and changes every game and does not appear to have a clue what his best side is or even which formation to play.
The obsession with possession has led to a team more concerned with not giving the ball away then going out and winning football matches.
Stam has not helped his cause by not playing a striker at all lately despite awful results and has compouned it all by stupid remarks in the press.
It does appear he is safe for now but i hope he uses the International break to have a long hard look at himself and comeback with at least a very spirited performance at Leeds.
Great post in my opinion. Exactly my thoughts. The squad building in the summer was poor. Not needed at all. We needed 3-4 proper first teamers not the amount of players we actually signed.
Agreed too. We should have signed a like for like replacement for Williams. Bacuna was fine as would have been Joe Ledley. But Bacuna doesn't really play...
We needed to sign proper back up to Gunter (what's happened to Tennai Watson?)
If we were struggling to sign a forward, why did we let Samuel go? I know his ability was limited but he'd be ok in this system I think.
Our midfield is unbalanced and over subscribed and are short in important areas. We needed 5-6 quality signings not 7 squad fillers. The team was there and it's somehow been decimated despite maybe £20m invested. Money well wasted