Reaching our Ceiling?

[guancheblade]

How the fuck can we expect to compete with Liverpool in our first season back?! It's ridiculous.

Half our team were league one players two years ago yet here we are, sitting 8th in the premier league and only lost 2 nil to the best 2 teams in the prem.

I think a lot of fans are overreacting right now and should just shut the fuck up.

I get where you are coming from, but we can't have our cake and eat it.

When the going is good, we are banging on about how we are a premier league quality team on merit and not just a well organised team of lower league over achievers.

Lose, and we are banging on about over achieving with a set of lower league players playing well above their level, but now hitting a ceiling etc.

So which one is it?

I think Wilder has been genius in building a squad of PL quality players, that just never had the belief in their own abilities. John Fleck and Enda prime examples. When they have the confidence in themselves they look just as good as anything I've seen in the Prem this season. IMO we need to move as far away from any associations with the lower divisions and truly instil a belief in this squad that they are good enough to be amongst the big boys and that they haven't got anywhere near this ceiling yet.

 

[IdLiketoRogerMoore]

No shame in saying it that we have reached our ceiling, in so many way's at Anfield against the Champions of Europe and barring a disaster, the Premier League Champions. Liverpool were far and away better than any other side we've played this season. Outclassed, Outfought, Out thought. But i'm actually ok with that.

When we were in the Championship and lost to Boro and Cardiff I did wonder how we would recover. Then when we faded during the later parts of that season I had a few moments to wonder again how we would come back. Last season, we got the hammer blow at the end of the Millwall game, we were almost done. At least so it seemed.

This season, VAR setbacks, defeats at home and now two away against the top two sides in the league. I didn't need to worry back then and I don't think we need to worry now. At least not too much.

Last night told me, despite it also being an offday for us, we've reached our ceiling. The current one.

I've been sat here at work listening to the Wilder Podcast and just also flicked our tunnel music on, Comeback Kid by Kasabian. How appropriate. This club is learning from mistakes and setbacks. The character is there for all to see.

The major difference between this side and the other two United sides that got promoted to the top division in the last 30 years is that we're not at our limit. We're constantly evolving, Wilder, Knill and the backroom staff haven't run out of ideas. We'll be back against West Ham at home, Comeback Kid turned up to the max in the tunnel.

And these players know that whilst we've reached the ceiling, its just a ceiling, we can build again and test ourselves against the top teams. We won't play a more intimidating side again this season, we won't be dominated again like that.

Smash the ceiling and take us to the next level.

Absolutely. One thing that goes unnoticed about Tufty's reign has been the quiet evolution he's managed to develop and keep the side moving forward with a constant stream of new players.

A lots made of us having the same core team/players etc, but each window Tufty has brought in 3 or 4 players to keep us evolving and there's only JoC, fleck and Basham from the League One season - although it feels like it's the same bunch.

He's a ruthless fucker, and I've got no doubt he'll have looked at the first half of the season and seen the areas where he needs to be upgrading what we have.

So although we have reached a ceiling, r'Chris will be looking at how we can keep evolving.

 

[Bennyand the Blades]

(It's funny how all these teams seem to have their worst game of the season against us )
Where have I heard that before ?
Let wait till the team can walk before we expect to run with giants eh …...

 

[BushBlade]

I get where you are coming from, but we can't have our cake and eat it.

When the going is good, we are banging on about how we are a premier league quality team on merit and not just a well organised team of lower league over achievers.

Lose, and we are banging on about over achieving with a set of lower league players playing well above their level, but now hitting a ceiling etc.

So which is it?

Neither and both. We’ve just lost to the best club in Europe, at their place. Anyone who doesn’t appreciate the difference between playing a team like Villa at home and Liverpool away doesn’t really get football.
Of course we’re going to ‘hit a ceiling’, just like almost every team does, if our ceiling is losing away to Man City and Liverpool then it’s not exactly catastrophic, unless we’re expecting to be better than Man City, who’ve also had a couple of bad games this season.

 

[John Street West Terrace]

Last night reminded me of the Wolves match in our first season back in the championship. We were beaten by a team of far better players. Even Wilder said in his interview how much he admires what Liverpool have been doing.

We've just lost two on the bounce, one to the best club team in the world & Europe in Liverpool, and one of the best in Europe in City. There's no shame in that. Leicester got turned over by both teams far easier than us and they didn't have a sniff of the ball in each match. At least we can say we may have got something from the City game with better finishing and well, we'll not got there.

We move onto Friday, we bounce back. Surely everyone's expectations this season was to try and stay up? We've got 29 points and need another 10-11 for safety in 17 games. Unless we have a catastrophic downturn in form, I'm certain we'll get that total before the end of the season. We've shown we can bounce back from defeats before, so why can't we do it again.

Then we build on this success like we did in the championship and go again next season.

I said the same last night Moosie it’s the first time since that Wolves game 2 years ago that we weren’t in the game , something that we learned , strengthened & evolved from the following season . As we’ve all said we’ve just played 2 of the best teams in Europe away back to back so absolutely no shame in defeat . If anything it will offer a barometer to messrs CWAK of where we need to build on to to the next step forward .

 

[Rochdaleblade]

I would be quite happy if 8th in the Premier League was our ceiling. It definitely beats losing to Crawley, Fleetwood etc. I read in the paper this morning that Liverpool are going to rest some players for their FA cup tie with Everton at the weekend. It says a lot about how far we have come that Herr Klopp would rather send out his first team against us in a competition that they have pretty much won already, than for the Merseyside derby.

 

[Bennyand the Blades]

Liverpool beat 2nd in the league Leicester 4 - 0, so is Leicester a poorer team than us or are we just twice as good ?,...….