It's not the losing to the top teams that's annoying, it's the manner of the loss. We shouldn't be losing 5-0 at home to any team. We shouldn't be capitulating to a relatively weak Arsenal and Liverpool side.

Stoke were able to draw with Man Utd. Sunderland and Stoke took points off Liverpool. Blackburn and Newcastle have taken points from Arsenal.

Yet when it rolls around to us, we can't even muster a fighting performance and a goal against these teams. There's no reason we should be writing any game off, before we play it.

I still think we're going to be more than ok, but there are warning signs. We are hanging our hopes on one player coming back, which is worrying.

Five reply there, CC

comment by Petrov er (U4574)

2. We are awful away from home. Problem as well is Wigan away is soo crucial for everyone people's opinions and player confidence. We have not won away for nearly 12 months. this is really worrying.
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Except for first game of this season against QPR

and I guess you can count Tuesday in the Carling cup as well...................

If I thought the CC result had any relevance on this season in the Prem, I'd be beggin' OC to put the same team out against Chelsea

Thank God we played QPR when we did ...if it was next week ..I'd be worried

I didn't see the Villa game but from the match reports we knocked it about nicely and kept possession..... Saturday when KD came on we started the good ol' hoof again.....
This next game more than likely we have SKD against John Terry.....or have a Tunguy/Eggnog trying to go around him. Well that's OC's job to decide.

Having read the comments most supporters seem generally to accept what I said in my article. However there is one issue and that is many of you appear to expect the team to be beaten by the big clubs. This is precisely the attitude the players seem to have and in my opinion is wrong. In any sport if you go into a game and expect to be beaten, you probably will be. This season our results against the big clubs have been even worse than last. In some games we have not only lost but have been thrashed. Yes, whatever the attitude we shall probably lose more games than win against the top clubs but we do hot have to lose EVERY match. Realistically the top clubs with plenty of cash to spare are of course going to have the best players.

I am not calling for the departure of Coyle, at least not yet. In the end he will be judged by results, not excuses. I am also being positive about next weekend's home fixture against Chelsea hoping for at least a draw. If the players go into the match feeling at least a draw is possible rather than a certain defeat, then their performance will almost certainly be better.

many of you appear to expect the team to be beaten by the big clubs. This is precisely the attitude the players seem to have
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..and that's the problem..what WE think doesn't matter ..but if the players can't be motivated to put up at least a fight for the points - that will translate into more than just the games against the big clubs. It's OC's job to be able to raise the players spirits after a bad defeat .. and so far, he's been found wanting in that dept .... I hope he can change that ASAP, or we're in trouble.

No the issue is, in order for us to get something off the big boys we need two things..

1. We need our strongest team available. We are missing key players ATM and when we have players such as this out the team we are jot performing at 100%.

2. You need the team your facing to have abit of an offday. Not to the extend that they cannot pass to eachother, but enough to cause themselves problems.

3. You need abut of luck, Stoke drew 1-1 with United last night, and why? Because there was no Rooney at all, Hernandez got Injured early on when United should have won a clear penalty and Stoke would lose a man. See how everything had slightly swung into Stoke favour after 15 mins? You need luck like that to help you out.

Notice when Hernandez and Rooney played against us United scored 5.. Yet united struggled to control the game without these two players present.

Our good form and bad form happens to coincide with Ricketys injury and we've conceded slot kore goals since he was injured.

He's a much better allroun player than Steinsson and you won't find many people who disagree. He makes the defence slot stronger.. I hope he hasn't lost what pace he did have..

If Ricketts missing is the key to our season...God help us ......

...and Stoke are able to take points off the big clubs because they play with a bit of ballzzz ..... Simples ... a bit like we used to under BSA ...same formulae, same outcome ....

I disagree with the point made about Rooney and Hernandez being out. United were still on fire at the beginning of the season with Welbeck in the team. We were that poor, I could probably have scored 3 against us.

There's no doubt that there was a total different in the fluency of united without Rooney. Having Hernandez was bareable, but when e went off injured united had Owen an berbatov up front who both lack pace and movement and united didn't look like a title winning side at all, very sloppy.

If we had faced that line up it would have been a draw for certain.

f we had faced that line up it would have been a draw for certain.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqyixwqiCag

Holden your starting to sound desperate. Your honestly saying that a 5-0 drubbing against united is acceptable. And if they had not had Rooney and Sam rickets had played it would have been different. Have you ever watched rickets play? He is an average PL defender. He is not vidic. He won't make one bit of difference to us. Steinsson can't be blamed for united defeat he was not playing. Here is something to think about. Everyone is going on about quality of opponents. We played exactly the same against Norwich as we did against united. As united are better they put 5 in and Norwich pit in two. Therefore if we play like we are against anyone currently we will struggle. Add to that the sides and injuries Hand on heart only Holden, Lee and poss ngog would have played if they had been fit. Simple fact is regardless of opponents at the moment we are playing poor. Not that itcant get better cause god I hope holden is back soon. We have only won three games without him. No denying coyle has a job on to turn things round. Now I like everyone else knew this was a difficult run but we have leaked goals for fun and the players look beaten from the word go. Only at city and for 15 mins against norwich have I seen any spirit or passion. Coyle always looks for positives but at the moment there are none. Forget the opponents and focus on our game. If weakens thisweek saying oh we will get beat then what do you expect. I want to see us have a go from the start vs Chelsea. Not at 3-0.

Holden your comment about a draw is laughable. It's a childish comment. You think that we would have drawn against united without Rooney and hernandez. Even I could have scored their goals Nani destroyed us or did you not watch the game. This ain't champ man on your comP. Get real!!

I'm getting sick of some of our so called fans.

I don't know what expectations you have, but realistically out of the fixtures we have, Norwich is the only genuinely disappointing result. I don't know what Coyle has to do to please some of you people. We don't want 4-4-2, he changes the system. We call for him to drop SKD, he drops him. It isn't his fault that Ngog was injured and Wheater was sent off. Even so, did you actually expect him to get a win at the Emirates? Get a grip and get behind your team, this behaviour is embarrasing.

It's not a childish comment, did you watch United last night? They were honestly as bad awful, they looked like a different team, hoofing it forward, open at the back, sloppy passing. Had it not been for de Gea making two or three workd class saves and crouch'
poor finishing United would have lost.

It was very much like watching Bolton play. But my point is, united lost all shape and fluidity just from missing Rooney. Stoke played well, but nothing more than well. It was United' poorness which led to a draw.

Now if that United team had faced Bolton, nothing would have happened, United had no creativity in their team and it took a super goal by nano to score. But united missed two Sitters aswell, courtesy o Giggs and Nani.

But my previous points stand, you need the other team to not perform, just as United last night, in order to get a draw or a win.

If united had played as they did last night against us then I can see no conceivable reason why we wouldn't have got a draw..

There was no movement from their forwards like the troubles we faced.. If you saw United last night you would understand how bad they were, it was like watching a different team.

It shows how much difference one player can make.

So you are never genuinely disappointed with a 5-0 defeat to anyone? Not even at Wembley? Your never genuinely disappointed that your team has not won away for nearly a year? What do I expect? Well my team to turn up for a game regardless of the opponents? To suggest that I am not supporting my team is plainly stupid? You can support yet criticise. You can support yet be disappointed. I went to Wembley. I was genuinely disappointed yet was away at the following game cheering on bwfc.

Your never genuinely disappointed that your team has not won away for nearly a year?

QPR and Aston Villa were away. How long is a year in your universe?

I was at Wembley, and the at the subsequent away game at Fulham as well. Nothing wrong with being disappointed, but Wembley was a long time ago, let it go, it's time to move on.

Sorry got my stats wrong on that one you get my point. Wembley was a while ago but united was not and you are still allowed to be genuinely disappointed with that

Holden is it also not just the case Stoke are a far superior team to ours and stopped united playing

I dint just look at a 5-0 defeat and say god were rubbish, I analysed it and looked in more depth at it.
Stoke did not do anything special, they should have conceded a penalty and had both Woodgate and Whelan sent off within first 8 minutes, those decisions went in their favour.

I can criticise and I know our replacements for Holden etc are not as good as Holden himself. Course it's not acceptable to lose 5-0, but it's not as black and White as that, their are many factors that decide the result in a football game.

That would be a fair enough point, however without Rooney dropping deep and therefore allowing Nani and Young to roam, Theyveere very static, couldn't put a few passes together, no-one was moving into space and it was very much like watching Bolton. Now had United performed that badly against us, there is no reason we could have not got a similar result.

Stoke played well, but they lost 4-0 to Sunderland last weekend.. Are Sunderland that much better than United? No. But Hnited had an offday yesterday, something we were not fortunate enough to receive.

Before we carry on Holden I just wanted to state I do not want any nasty feeling or comments. We just disagree but in the end we both want what's best for bwfc.

For the benefit of posters that have not seen the other thread

These whispers about 'Coyle out' from BWFC fans or otherwise are absolutely ludicrous. Here are a few comparisons in the same fixtures last season. For the newly promoted teams, replace QPR with Newcastle and Norwich with Blackpool

2010-2011 season:

City at home - lost
United at home - drew
Arsenal away - lost
Liverpool away - lost
Blackpool at home - drew
Newcastle at home - won

Now, compare that with this season:

City home - lost
United home - lost
Arsenal away - lost
Liverpool away - lost
QPR away - won
Norwich home - lost

You will see that if you add up the points for each game BWFC are actually only performing 2 points below last seasons tally against the same/equivalent teams. It is a fair arguement to also suggest that United, City and Liverpool are certainly better teams this year than they were last, the only difference is that last year the matches vs these teams were more spread out, rather than this year we played them all in a row.

I have no doubt that Chelsea will batter us on Sunday as they did last year so there is no change now.

The only thing that let us down this year in the defeat to Norwich. We performed better against the newly promoted teams last year (although some may argue that this year crop of promoted teams isn't as good as previous years).

We now need to go on a decent unbeaten run after the Chelsea game and that will get our season back on track.

The fixtures really has played havoc with our start this year, but it ain't anything to worry about

Much to simplistic in my opinion Rowbot.

If you are saying we will get the same results from the matches we still have to play as we did last season, then I assume you will also take into account that Elmander (when he was scoring for fun!) and Sturridge are no longer here to score the goals to win those games.

Will Ngog and Tuncay get the goals instead – maybe but some how I doubt it.

As for we were expecting to lose to the likes of United and Arsenal – true, most of us did think we would not win – but it was how poorly we performed that worried people like myself far more than the results themselves.

We have seemed to play in just one style (4-4-2) until the last couple of games – so much so that we have become predictable for the opposition who plan how to deal with us and exploit our weaknesses – hence why are results have been so poor since the beginning of the year (long before the Stoke semi-final!). Mr Coyle must take some of the blame for not varying his tactics or the players he picked during this period of time.

He did finally try something different against Villa (4-5-1) and Arsenal.

The problem with the Arsenal game was that Mr Coyle seemed to do nothing when Ngog was injured other than to replace him with Davies.

The team was set up to attack with the pace of Ngog – clearly Davies is not fast enough or mobile to play that way. So Coyle needed to change the team around to account for that – the most obvious thing to do was push a midfielder more forward to support him in a sort of Nolan role – ie 4-4-1-1 sort of formation.

The fact that Coyle did not change the team meant that to all intense and purposes that we were unlikely to trouble their defence enough to score from open play. Thus Mr Wenger was allowed to push his team up the pitch to pen us in our own half and pressure us into mistakes – which is precisely what happened.

To play Davies as a lone striker within the team as it was set up was pure stupidity – we would have been better just packing the midfield and play 4-6-0.

I don’t know about other people but I’m not into this blind faith that once we have got the Chelsea game out of the way we will start to win games again.

It’s not that easy to say well we beat these teams last year so we will beat them again this year too.

I would be more encouraged if Mr Coyle showed some cunning and savvy with his tactics and team selections – but to me he seems to be making one school boy error after another.

I am mainly to be found on the Burnden Aces Forum if you would like to read more about my opinions and thoughts on the game.