Davefevs

I thought we were decent enough first half v Forest. Second half I thought we’d weathered their “passing” storm, and were creating ourselves (Scott pen, Wells post)….but we couldn’t keep the ball to see the game out…and boy did we get punished.

Why not have a go at replying to one of my posts? Tell me on each point why your view is different to mine. The thing is I completely get why you have your view. You seem to have little inclination to understand why others have a different view to yours. For info, I didn’t want to get rid of Dean. Do I have followers? Whoohoo….how exciting. Maybe it’s because I articulate my thoughts into posts that allow discussion, rather than think anyone with a different opinion is wrong. I wait for @Hampshire redsto write a constructive reply to a post where I’ve replied to him / her.

I’m on about James and Massengo, not the CBs. We’re you referring to the CBs, if so, then strikers offside. I’m more worried about their midfielders bearing down on our CBs, as their strikers get their arses back onside ???

When he starts training with the first team he’ll then be up for selection, if warranted. As it stands he’s not, although someone did inform me he recently passed Rennie’s beep test….so his fitness / stamina must be getting better.

Yes, they could absolutely be doing that….but they could also see the ball go back over their head too and be wrong side. At the end of the day it’s all about risk and reward. There are definitely situations where (I think) you are better off being wrong-side, but that depends on lots of other things. As a centre-half I occasionally played as a holding midfielder. Sometimes I’d have a midfield opponent who wanted to play in the gap between me and my fellow CBs. If we we going long from our keeper, I would happily go wrong-side of him, reckoning that if a opponent header came back near me, it wasn’t gonna get to the player I’m meant to be marking, and I could move into a bit of space with the ball. Had I marked goal-side, my opponent would get to the ball first….and I’d also be right on top of my fellow defenders. So, swings and roundabouts and very dependent on other things. Lots of stuff about CBs splitting wide, but unless you’re really good at it (Man City / Liverpool), all you do is negate the ability to get your full-backs on the ball. Lots of play I see like a rubber band or several linked together, sometimes you can stretch it to effect, other times doing that affects another rubber band.

Yep unless it’s a kid’s ticket and you’re not a kid….but even then I doubt anyone will notice.

I couldn’t be arsed to look that closely ???

The only defence of the ref i can give us that it’s a slight studs up lunge, and as the striker is through on goal it’s denying a chance and therefore a red. But it’s a shocker imho.

It’s one of those scenarios where the you need to see where the rest of the players are. You’re not just eliminating their 2 or 3 players who are pressing the centre backs and keeper, but whether you eliminate other players that then give you a numerical advantage….versus the risk of a header coming back into a position that leaves them with numerical advantage over you. Not easy to explain in words. Pros and cons, but bear in mind the stats will tell us the opponent will win more headers from a long kick than we will. Possession off the loose ball is key. So I drew some pics. Bentley kicks to Martin. James and Massengo stay goalside of their midfield markers. Ball win by Helik, drops into a position where Barnsley have 3 players close to it, Wells our closest. They probably get position in a good situation to launch a quick attack. James and Massengo gamble by making sure they are ahead of their men. In this situation James and Wells likely get the dropping ball rather than Barnsley LWB. But what if Bentley scuffs his kick. The CM is in front of James and it’s 3 v 2. In the scenario above v Barnsley 343 what we really need is Kalas to suck his man closer and leave a chip ball to Tanner, who then overloads their LWB with Weimann. All very easy on paper / screen! Hope the pics makes sense. Very crude, but they sort of explain it.

Yep, exactly that. In a post a while ago, I likened us to Bristol Rovers. Everything was fine and dandy selling Stewart, Taylor, Ellington, Hayley’s, etc, etc….and over time they stopped finding their replacements….and out of the league they eventually went. In fact when I first started looking at the finances best part of 4 seasons ago, my thought was, it’s fine selling players if you replace them well, hopefully use to money to fund 2 or 3 each time, but when you don’t you’re snookered. That is what we’ve become, speeded up in part by covid. There are other clubs, Derby, Wednesday, Reading, etc….all who’ve sold their ground, Birmingham who took a points penalty, Cardiff struggling now they can’t loan the likes of Ojo and Wilson. The PP clubs are fine, the small efficient clubs like Cov and Luton are fine….it’s clubs like us and those running out of PPs that are struggling….the cumbersome, inefficient juggernauts (or juggernauts in their own minds).

Nope, physical data is impossible to get without £s!! My eyes tell me he is effortlessly quick. Atkinson is meant to be quick too, albeit takes a little while to get into his slightly peculiar stride. In a very simplified manner, if you play high and predict you’re gonna have to chase back, you’re half a yard ahead in your head anyway. If you play high, your midfield and forward can probably put more pressure on the passer of the ball, looking to go over the top. In the 90s a lot of games were played out in the 10 yards either side of the half way line. Was a bit boring at times, but I think it would suit us to play high.

@ray savino agree too. I don’t think Keinan Davis is perfect, but he’s got a bit of several things in his armoury. If he was attainable in January (now he’s back from injury), I’d make that move….obviously might be other targets too, but he’s the one that crops up a bit.

I doubt he can really be given any assurances at this point….but if it makes him feel better thinking it’ll be ok, then let him carry on.

Unfortunately we are more screwed than several other clubs, because we are trying to cut costs from a stupidly high cost base, out of kilter for the club revenues, at a time when we cannot rely on transfer profit to bail out our arses. Thats the simple maths. If we’d not wasted so much money, we could be as competitive as a number of smaller clubs are….and they are making us look bad (Coventry, Luton for example). Plenty of other threads where me and others go into deeper explanations. Just like the world outside of football….some companies in a given industry are thriving, others are going bust.

1. Don’t know…would require Richard Gould to show his skills over and above SL/JL…and I’ve got nothing to go on in that respect yet. 2. It needs clarity, it has been mixed for a while. Hoping the current regime have the plan. I’d like to see a return to signing young players in the main. More Tanner and Atkinson type signings please. 3. A good young, modern manager, backed up by a wily old, experienced one. Not sure of the personal dynamics, but LJ needed a Nige-type, not Mark Ashton who both allowed each other to suck their own cocks and each other’s! Excuse the language.

Tell me about it!

I suspect Wayne doesn’t really understand it all. Running before he can walk I’d suggest.

The summary of this is that there is more than one way to play the game and get results. If we are gonna play direct / forced by our opponents to play more direct, we need to execute it better, so we become more West Brom, than Barnsley! God, that’s a dodgy thing to say ahead of tomorrow! Eeeeek! ?

Shows how badly executed it was, because he didn’t always find touch, and certainly not deep in their half ?

This is the levels of fitness Nige is trying to get to. He’s said he doesn’t really believe in rotation / rest, all about competition for the shirt. What also needs bearing in mind is intensity v distance. Much easier to press intently over 5m than 25m. Was the beauty of that 17/18 period. Hunt in packs over short distances, don’t get passed around one-off pressers. When you get it back, keep it. We did that well in 17/18, tight units, working together. Weimann and O’Dowda (you won’t like this) sometimes (not always) press on their own and just get played around. They never quite get there. Some of that is because we are too stretched as a team, but not always.

That’s not strictly true….that’s just trotted out to look like it was meant that way. The reason was 1) take advantage of height / aerial ability of Bryan / Mags 2) losing the ball there is less impacting (so yes I agree in part in what you say) than losing it in the centre of the pitch, 3) winning it there gets you up the pitch quickly. But he didn’t purposely kick it into touch. But unfortunately, poorly executed by FF. the margin for error small and FF not accurate enough.

Got you. Ta.

Scenario one - you develop the ground with all the money you make in the PL. think SL might’ve questioned whether h did it the wrong way around.