Sliding doors

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FallowfieldBlade said:


Pretty much nails why we are where we are
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Have to agree. If Lundstram scores that penalty I think we go on to win that game.

The following week he misses an absolute sitter against Leeds & we lose again. Again, if he scores that then we probably hang on. We were great at holding onto leads last season.

We'd then lost our first 3 & were staring at 3 of the top 4 in our next 3 games. It immediately put us in a relegation frame of mind that we never recovered from. The confidence hasn't returned since.
 
I reckon we can pinpoint our capitulation to those first few games of the season. As soon as the fixtures were released and we saw that run of 5 or 6 games against the big hitters we knew we had to get a decent return from those first 4 games against Wolves, Villa, Leeds and Fulham.

I’m not saying it was the be all and end all as I wouldn’t have been surprised to see us in a relegation battle this season anyway but you could feel the pressure building every week to get that first win. I think we’d have been in a dog fight but even a scrappy 1-0 victory in those first few games might just have been enough to give us a bit more belief and kick on. The manner of the defeats against Villa and Leeds didn’t help either I don’t think.

There are other factors at play, of course, but I think those opening games were the catalyst for the utterly abysmal season we have had.
 
BettingBlade said:
I reckon we can pinpoint our capitulation to those first few games of the season. As soon as the fixtures were released and we saw that run of 5 or 6 games against the big hitters we knew we had to get a decent return from those first 4 games against Wolves, Villa, Leeds and Fulham.

I’m not saying it was the be all and end all as I wouldn’t have been surprised to see us in a relegation battle this season anyway but you could feel the pressure building every week to get that first win. I think we’d have been in a dog fight but even a scrappy 1-0 victory in those first few games might just have been enough to give us a bit more belief and kick on. The manner of the defeats against Villa and Leeds didn’t help either I don’t think.

There are other factors at play, of course, but I think those opening games were the catalyst for the utterly abysmal season we have had.
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You're probably right
 
FMBlade1 said:
Why didn't we sign Martinez?
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Two reasons. Firstly, Martinez was 28 when Villa signed him so a four year contract takes him to 32. Keepers have longer careers (generally) than outfielders but at 32 he'd have a ceiling of £8-£10m meaning no long term gain; Ramsdale will be 25 so coming into his prime at the end of his contract. Secondly, Martinez wasn't signed by Villa until September 16th - far too big a risk for us to go into the season hoping to sign him but running a significant risk of ending with Moore and Foderingham as the keepers for the season. People think it's bad with Ramsdale - with either of those we'd have conceded more than West Brom.
 
A much more significant sliding door moment was last season, when some dozy plank forgot to turn Haweye on.

They could very likely have gone down without that point.

It still winds me up how they got away with it.
 
There's an argument to be made that last season's ghost goal was just as big a sliding doors moment. They stayed up. And, deep down, have United got over it? (Not wanting to rake all that up again...but doing so!)
 
Stretch said:
A much more significant sliding door moment was last season, when some dozy plank forgot to turn Haweye on.

They could very likely have gone down without that point.

It still winds me up how they got away with it.
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You beat me to it by seconds. Great minds and all that ;)
 



Aganarama said:
There's an argument to be made that last season's ghost goal was just as big a sliding doors moment. They stayed up. And, deep down, have United got over it? (Not wanting to rake all that up again...but doing so!)
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I’d be disappointed if we hadn’t got over it. It’s not really all that relevant to us, Villa got the benefit of it rather than it affecting us negatively apart from in that game. We struggled to get back up to speed at the end of last season but we still had some positive results once we did.

The real problems started for us in the summer after the end of last season.
 
guancheblade said:
But crucially Ramsdale aint anywhere near Martinez's salary
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or ability............

I know he had a blinder against Liverpool, but, in what must be his 30th game for us this season, he has had one very good performance. however we can probably point to about 10 goals that he, as a EPL GK, should do better with
Also, I dont think the defence feels anywhere near as confident in him as they did Hendo, whereas before they would bomb on knowing if they got caught on the break there was a fair chance it wouldn't lead to a goal, now they daren't go forward as much as they know they need to protect Ramsdale, this has affected our whole playing style. look at the overloads, dont happen, OLCB, no.

I know hindsight has been referenced in this thread already, so i am going to try to use the facts as they were then, not as they are now
We were loosing a big personality and an amazing goalkeeper, as we head into 2nd season on the back of the (couple of results aside) a bad run to the end of the season.

we had several options as i see it

Ramsdale - young, upcoming, English, resale value good - but low on confidence, young, just been relegated, bit of a emotive reunion?
Martinez - proven, won cups with Arsenal, right age, commanding personality - lower resale, foreign, higher salary
Foster - good pro, experience, free, coach? - short termism, relegated, past it?
foreign keeper - value for money, experience, salary? - EPL ability? cultural fit?

i would say, and this isnt hindsight, that Martinez, then Foster then Ramsdale would have been the preferred option
 
steve26272 said:
Ramsdale - young, upcoming, English, resale value good - but low on confidence, young, just been relegated, bit of a emotive reunion?
Martinez - proven, won cups with Arsenal, right age, commanding personality - lower resale, foreign, higher salary
Foster - good pro, experience, free, coach? - short termism, relegated, past it?
foreign keeper - value for money, experience, salary? - EPL ability? cultural fit?

i would say, and this isnt hindsight, that Martinez, then Foster then Ramsdale would have been the preferred option
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Foster for one season on a free would have allowed us to pay use the Ramsdale money towards wages on someone like Watkins.
 
Silent Blade said:
It is very very easy to say in hindsight that we should have signed him. I do rate him the best PL keeper but how many of us thought that last August?
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Maybe we enquired about him and he wasn’t interested. Same with Foster. Not every player is that bothered about playing for us. I think because Villa have been shit for the last ten years people forget they’re a big club. The mismanagement under the latter days of Lerner has cost them dearly, they really should be at about the same level as Everton and Spurs, which they were when I was growing up.
 
BushBlade said:
......... been shit for the last ten years people forget they’re a big club. The mismanagement ..... has cost them dearly, ....... should be at about the same level as Everton and Spurs, which they were when I was growing up.
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Somebody from da S6 massivvveee took over Bushy for a minute?!
 
I think you could see heads drop after the early goal in the 1st game v wolves ... as for the goalkeeper no one had any reservations about signing Ramsdale at the time !
Martinez is on 47k a week and Foster on 33k a week if google is to be believed
 



The biggest sliding doors moment in recent history was somebody phoning Chris Wilder as he he was about to sign a contract at Charlton Athletic.

We'd still be thrashing around in the 3rd tier.

I'm guessing Charlton message boards will have a different take on events since that fateful day.
 
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