Philippe Senderos

[pauliewalnuts]

If it's during a period of under par/poor form, maybe. 

When that poor form goes on for the majority of the season it becomes harder to ignore. 

That's a fair point, but it does show how perception plays a large part. Just for one small example, you could say that we were unlucky to lose to stoppage-time goals against Palace and Newcastle, and that diabolical refereeing cost us at Liverpool and Chelsea. That's arguably five extra points which would have seen us safe with a dozen games to go. 

Isn't that sort of thing just par for the course, though? Bad luck, good luck, I mean?

You could say we were lucky we didn't get totally buried by half time at home to Man City and then profited from some poor defending, that we were lucky to get at least one of the penalties at Arsenal on the first day of the season, and that we were totally under the cosh at southampton but managed to win?

I think the "luck" part of it can have a bigger effect some seasons, but the last three years, we've finished 15th, 15th and 16th - that doesn't suggest much other than we've not been very good for three years.

Then there's the whole question of where our expectations are at these days - it's very sad that these days our ambitions stretch no further than being able to avoid relegation by a slightly improved margin.

[dave.woodhall]

If it's during a period of under par/poor form, maybe. 

When that poor form goes on for the majority of the season it becomes harder to ignore. 

That's a fair point, but it does show how perception plays a large part. Just for one small example, you could say that we were unlucky to lose to stoppage-time goals against Palace and Newcastle, and that diabolical refereeing cost us at Liverpool and Chelsea. That's arguably five extra points which would have seen us safe with a dozen games to go. 

Isn't that sort of thing just par for the course, though? Bad luck, good luck, I mean?

You could say we were lucky we didn't get totally buried by half time at home to Man City and then profited from some poor defending, that we were lucky to get at least one of the penalties at Arsenal on the first day of the season, and that we were totally under the cosh at southampton but managed to win?

I think the "luck" part of it can have a bigger effect some seasons, but the last three years, we've finished 15th, 15th and 16th - that doesn't suggest much other than we've not been very good for three years.

Then there's the whole question of where our expectations are at these days - it's very sad that these days our ambitions stretch no further than being able to avoid relegation by a slightly improved margin.

I've always said that we finish where we deserve, as does every club but equally there's a perception amongst some that every win is in some way fortunate and every defeat proves how bad we are. The reality is that these things probably even themselves out over the course of the season.

[Monty]

We were lucky to get our wins, but the sides who finished below us were even luckier to get theirs. At the bottom, whoever has the least luck finishes the highest (without wanting to sound like Confucius).

[Pat McMahon]

There's no  possibly about the Chelsea game for me, we were screwed over by 2 really poor decisions in that game.

I think there's a fair few games where we can probably consider ourselves a tad unlucky, the Palace game around Christmas for example, did anyone really expect a finish like that so late in the game.  It was a quality goal but you have to admit that game had 0-0 written all over it.  There's a few others that are similar.

paul e I was at that Palace game on Boxing Day and I definitely saw the defeat coming, though not the quality of their goal. We were outplayed by the team (then bottom of the table) with more desire and flair, and Mr Bannan had a very good game for them. They had several chances to wrap the game up before they actually did, and you cold sense the growing belief from their fans. A point that day would have been welcome but undeserved.

We were just as shit at their place too. I have never enjoyed playing Palace.

[Surrey Villain]

What have all these posts got to do with Philippe Senderos?

[pauliewalnuts]

There's no  possibly about the Chelsea game for me, we were screwed over by 2 really poor decisions in that game.

I think there's a fair few games where we can probably consider ourselves a tad unlucky, the Palace game around Christmas for example, did anyone really expect a finish like that so late in the game.  It was a quality goal but you have to admit that game had 0-0 written all over it.  There's a few others that are similar.

paul e I was at that Palace game on Boxing Day and I definitely saw the defeat coming, though not the quality of their goal. We were outplayed by the team (then bottom of the table) with more desire and flair, and Mr Bannan had a very good game for them. They had several chances to wrap the game up before they actually did, and you cold sense the growing belief from their fans. A point that day would have been welcome but undeserved.

We were just as shit at their place too. I have never enjoyed playing Palace.

I agree, it was clearly coming, they were much the better team.

What worried me most last season wasn't so much that we lost to "poor" teams, but the degree to which they frequently made us look second best and like we didn't actually deserve to get anything from the games.

EDIT - and thinking about it, that's one difference between Lambert's second year and his first.

In the first year, we lost a lot of games but frequently looked like we deserved more than we got. Which is one reason people were so supportive come the end of the season.

In the second year, we lost a lot of games and generally looked second best far, far more frequently.

[Chris Jameson]

Back to Senderos. Wonder if Switzerland were resting him last night in preparation for facing Messi?

[paul_e]

There's a difference between finding a way to win even when you play badly and only winning by luck because you always play badly. Last season had quite a bit too much of the latter, although we had quite a bit of bad luck as well (especially against the Sky teams).

Our bad luck wasn't in terms of results/performances it was injuries, Losing Okore for the season in the 4th game was a big blow, losing Kozak for the rest of the season in January similarly so and losing Benteke for 6weeks early in the season and then about the same at the end of the season was worse still.  Add in the nzog missed the entire season and we really did have shitty luck with injuries, we were in the top 5 for injured players for pretty much the entire season, when funds are tight it's always going to be difficult to absorb that.

[RussellC]

There's no  possibly about the Chelsea game for me, we were screwed over by 2 really poor decisions in that game.

I think there's a fair few games where we can probably consider ourselves a tad unlucky, the Palace game around Christmas for example, did anyone really expect a finish like that so late in the game.  It was a quality goal but you have to admit that game had 0-0 written all over it.  There's a few others that are similar.

paul e I was at that Palace game on Boxing Day and I definitely saw the defeat coming, though not the quality of their goal. We were outplayed by the team (then bottom of the table) with more desire and flair, and Mr Bannan had a very good game for them. They had several chances to wrap the game up before they actually did, and you cold sense the growing belief from their fans. A point that day would have been welcome but undeserved.

We were just as shit at their place too. I have never enjoyed playing Palace.

I agree, it was clearly coming, they were much the better team.

Thirded. And then a few days later we were lucky to get a point at home to Swansea, who had about 99.8% possession if my memory serves me correctly. We ended-up with 1 point from what had initially looked like a very kind set of Christmas fixtures.

[KevinGage]

Whilst there is a degree of truth in that, we didn't look particularly dynamic with either Kozak or Benteke in the side.

We went from being quite bad up until Benteke's injury to absolutely woeful from that point onwards.

[RussellC]

Losing Okore for the season in the 4th game was a big blow

My fear with this is that we don't really know this. Yes he had a promising pre-season, but then so did Tonev and Helenius.  I worry that Lambert will go into next season putting a lot of faith in an untested, young defender who hardly kicked a ball next year.
























Or Philippe Senderos.

[paul_e]

Losing Okore for the season in the 4th game was a big blow

My fear with this is that we don't really know this. Yes he had a promising pre-season, but then so did Tonev and Helenius.  I worry that Lambert will go into next season putting a lot of faith in an untested, young defender who hardly kicked a ball next year.

All we know for sure is that in the 257 minutes he played for us he looked more than capable of being a very good premier league defender.  It might be a risk to rely on him, but it's a bigger risk to not try and have him waste on the bench and leave having never been given a run of games.  Sometimes you have to just look at a young player and decide to put some faith in them to do the business, Okore, Robinson and Grealish are 3 that I think we should put that faith in over the next 6months (and then Donacien after that).

[dave.woodhall]

Whilst there is a degree of truth in that, we didn't look particularly dynamic with either Kozak or Benteke in the side.

We went from being quite bad up until Benteke's injury to absolutely woeful from that point onwards.

We were mid-table and coping quite comfortably.

[brian green]

Wishing to sound like Confucius there is luck and there is luck. Were we lucky to sign Senderos or lucky not to sign Lescott? Were we unlucky that CB ruptured his Achilles tendon because he will not be sold in the summer? Bad luck and good luck lie side by side in the same bed. To get good luck you have to risk getting bad luck. The alternative is the inertia of lucklessness.

[ADVILLAFAN]

Back to Senderos. Wonder if Switzerland were resting him last night in preparation for facing Messi?

*chortle*