It's not Brendan's fault that Suarez and Sturridge aren't available. It's Brendan's fault that the team was built around getting the best out of them and the defence and midfield were sorely neglected and its Brendan's fault that a goalkeeper who kept 16 league clean sheets in his last season was replaced by someone who's failed to do so in 50 league games. It's Brendan's fault that despite being 3 months into a new season there's still no discernible structure or pattern of play within the team after he spent £120M. It's Brendan's fault that players who played with one another last season now look like complete strangers. It's Brendan's fault that the team aren't arsed about the results and they aren't fighting for him or each other. Suarez staying wouldn't have solved our defensive frailties or our inability to compete in midfield or Brendan's inexplicable stubbornness in terms of team selection. It would have merely masked the issues temporarily but at the end of the day they'd still be there.
Here's another fun fact when Villas-Boas was sacked after our 5-0 win at White Hart Lane on the 15th of December. Spurs had lost 5 league matches in mid December. It took Brendan until the third week of November to lead us to 6 league defeats. At this point we're not only "doing a Tottenham" we're beating Tottenham at "doing a Tottenham".
I wouldn't be so quick to absolve the players from blame, Brendan didn't tell our defenders to ball watch and not bother attacking the ball, Mignolet came to us with a good reputation, Pepe made just as many mistakes that cost us games anyway.
Like I said everyone thinks they know best, but if the players aren't even doing the basics right, how can we trust them to carry out Brendan's instructions properly? At the moment we have no focal point for an attack, which is why we are seeing Sterling struggling, he can run with the ball all day, but unless he shoots himself, there is no outlet for him. The ball is getting bogged down in midfield, where we either lose position are play it forward to a striker that isn't going to do anything meaningful with it.
When we have Sturridge back it will take the pressure off the midfield, which in turn will take the pressure off the defence.
Don't underestimate the difference a quality attacker or 2 would make.
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