Atkinson

[formerly known as ivan]

I have missed something? One of the stand out performers at the start of season. Appreciate he got injured but at the saying goes, if you are fit enough to be on the bench then you are fit enough to start. So why isn’t he?

[Monkeh]

Just now, formerly known as ivan said:

I have missed something? One of the stand out performers at the start of season. Appreciate he got injured but at the saying goes, if you are fit enough to be on the bench then you are fit enough to start. So why isn’t he?

Lost his place in the side and others are performing so needs to work harder to get it back,

That's all

[bcfc01]

Just now, formerly known as ivan said:

I have missed something? One of the stand out performers at the start of season. Appreciate he got injured but at the saying goes, if you are fit enough to be on the bench then you are fit enough to start. So why isn’t he?

Been woefully out of form, played ok last time out though.

 

[Davefevs]

Just now, formerly known as ivan said:

I have missed something? One of the stand out performers at the start of season. Appreciate he got injured but at the saying goes, if you are fit enough to be on the bench then you are fit enough to start. So why isn’t he?

Because Nige feels others are playing better in general.  He said in the week (paraphrased) that fans probably have bigger expectations of Rob than he does.  He knows how hard the jump up from Lg1, and that the champ is incessant.

[city1983]

6 minutes ago, formerly known as ivan said:

I have missed something? One of the stand out performers at the start of season. Appreciate he got injured but at the saying goes, if you are fit enough to be on the bench then you are fit enough to start. So why isn’t he?

I’ve never heard that saying before

[GrahamC]

7 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Because Nige feels others are playing better in general.  He said in the week (paraphrased) that fans probably have bigger expectations of Rob than he does.  He knows how hard the jump up from Lg1, and that the champ is incessant.

Exactly.

Kalas is vital to us, Pring was said to be our stand out performer last week & Vyner had one of his best games of the season v Millwall, so always likely he would drop back out.

[formerly known as ivan]

11 minutes ago, city1983 said:

I’ve never heard that saying before

First time for everything 

7 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

Exactly.

Kalas is vital to us, Pring was said to be our stand out performer last week & Vyner had one of his best games of the season v Millwall, so always likely he would drop back out.

Each to there own. Don’t think Kalas has been very consistent for a while now

[Gillies Downs Leeds]

27 minutes ago, formerly known as ivan said:

I have missed something? One of the stand out performers at the start of season. Appreciate he got injured but at the saying goes, if you are fit enough to be on the bench then you are fit enough to start. So why isn’t he?

Better bringing the ball out of defence than actually defending for me. Has some flaws that he needs to work on in his defensive side of the game.

[cidered abroad]

Atkinson will be back soon enough. Anyone who expected him, with only one season of League football, was too optimistic. He's a young and relatively inexperienced, so be patient.

Edited January 15, 2022 by cidered abroad

[BCFCGav]

Well we’re defending so well without him… not sure what we’re missing but he seems better than what we are being served!

[frenchred]

He'd be a massive step up from vyner who I must say is absolute dog shit

[formerly known as ivan]

1 hour ago, cidered abroad said:

Atkinson will be back soon enough. Anyone who expected him, with only one season of League football, was too optimistic. He's a young and relatively inexperienced, so be patient.

The sooner the better by the looks of it!

[GrahamC]

7 minutes ago, BCFCGav said:

Well we’re defending so well without him… not sure what we’re missing but he seems better than what we are being served!

Pretty sure Mitrovic has done this to everyone in the Championship & it might be a good one for him to miss.

[BCFCGav]

Just now, GrahamC said:

Pretty sure Mitrovic has done this to everyone in the Championship & it might be a good one for him to miss.

One person I saw Mitrovic get absolutely no change from was…  Atkinson last weekend. But it sounds like Mitro is ‘in the mood’ today so I’d imagine Van Dijk would have a shift.

[dREDful]

Atkinson, whoever... Anyone but Vyner. 

[INCRED]

And that’s number 6 

[chinapig]

3 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Because Nige feels others are playing better in general.  He said in the week (paraphrased) that fans probably have bigger expectations of Rob than he does.  He knows how hard the jump up from Lg1, and that the champ is incessant.

He probably shouldn't have said he was going to play in the Premier League when he signed him then. Unnecessary pressure I would think.

[Davefevs]

I like Vyner, and what I mean is I think he's okay for a team in the bottom half of the Champ, and doesn't deserve some of the criticism he gets on here.  Having said that, when I saw from kick off that Kalas was RCB3 and Zak was CB3 I was shocked.  Mitrovic just played on Zak and poor old Zak cannot impose himself physicality on a player like that.

I blame that on Nige.  He saw the same not work v Brum (a) v Deeney.

Hopefully Atkinson did enough last week v Fulham (against Mitro for some of it) and today for 40 minutes to realise that he can play Kalas | Atkinson | Pring going forward.  Zak is okay as a RCB3 or RB.  Just not central.

[richyy66]

Just hope that Vyner doesn't mark Kieffer Moore next week. If he's fit that is.

[eardun]

I thought I heard in one of the interviews that Atkinson had had covid and was struggling to get back to his peak. Hopefully will come through it shortly though. It is the defence that we need to improve. 

[Super]

Considering the threat from Cardiff in the air he surely has to start next week.

[eardun]

 

[WECANDO]

5 hours ago, GrahamC said:

Exactly.

Kalas is vital to us, Pring was said to be our stand out performer last week & Vyner had one of his best games of the season v Millwall, so always likely he would drop back out.

Not when he handked Mitrovic pretty well last week. Should of let him man mark the striker with Kalas as backup.

[TBW]

3 hours ago, eardun said:

 

Vyner got done for three of the six today. Good choice, Nige.

[Lrrr]

Personally think he’s been weak and too easily loses runners in behind 

[firstdivision]

5 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I like Vyner, and what I mean is I think he's okay for a team in the bottom half of the Champ, and doesn't deserve some of the criticism he gets on here.  Having said that, when I saw from kick off that Kalas was RCB3 and Zak was CB3 I was shocked.  Mitrovic just played on Zak and poor old Zak cannot impose himself physicality on a player like that.

I blame that on Nige.  He saw the same not work v Brum (a) v Deeney.

Hopefully Atkinson did enough last week v Fulham (against Mitro for some of it) and today for 40 minutes to realise that he can play Kalas | Atkinson | Pring going forward.  Zak is okay as a RCB3 or RB.  Just not central.

The same manager who played Riley Towler in a two v Millwall. Who played that midfield at Sheff Utd. Who didn't realise Andy King had been booked against QPR. Who has made little impact on us defensively in 11 months in charge. In Nige we trust...

[petehinton]

I don’t get this “needs to work hard to get back in” line from Nige about players. It’s very selective. 

King has been unbelievably average all season, gets injured and comes straight back in without a game for the 23s. Gets sent off stupidly……then is straight back in the side again no questions asked. That doesn’t strike me as having to work hard to get back in across the board, no favouritism etc.  

[grifty]

16 minutes ago, petehinton said:

I don’t get this “needs to work hard to get back in” line from Nige about players. It’s very selective. 

King has been unbelievably average all season, gets injured and comes straight back in without a game for the 23s. Gets sent off stupidly……then is straight back in the side again no questions asked. That doesn’t strike me as having to work hard to get back in across the board, no favouritism etc.  

Who do you want him to play in midfield? The injured Williams, the injured James, the crap Bakinson or a 17 year old? Unbelievably average would make a player probably in the top 3 performers for us this season.

[chinapig]

17 hours ago, eardun said:

 

Even if we accept that Zak has been outstanding it doesn't follow that he is the right choice to mark Mitrovic.

In fact any of us could have told Nigel he wasn't. Sometimes you have to pick horses for courses.

[petehinton]

14 hours ago, grifty said:

Who do you want him to play in midfield? The injured Williams, the injured James, the crap Bakinson or a 17 year old? Unbelievably average would make a player probably in the top 3 performers for us this season.

You can go 4231 for me, arguably still the best formation for what we have atm with the injuries in midfield. Did it against QPR at home and it was the best, quickest and most urgent performance of the season, even with 10 men for large majority.  Massengo and Scott as a two or even Massengo and Bakinson as a two with Benarous as the 10. Personally don’t see adamantly sticking with 352 is doing us a lot of favours. 

Edited January 16, 2022 by petehinton

[Davefevs]

6 minutes ago, petehinton said:

You can go 4231 for me, arguably still the best formation for what we have atm with the injuries in midfield. Did it against QPR at home and it was the best, quickest and most urgent performance of the season, even with 10 men for large majority.  Massengo and Scott as a two or even Massengo and Bakinson as a two with Benarous as the 10. Personally don’t see adamantly sticking with 352 is doing us a lot of favours. 

The important bit of that for me Pete is - I think Kalas and Atkinson prefer playing in a back 4, and are better in a 4 also.

We have a disjointed squad, but I see no reason why you couldn’t play Semenyo as the 1 with Weimann as the centre of the 3.  Choices then become who plays in the other 4.

King / James or

Massengo James

as the two, and then perm:

Scott, Massengo, O’Dowda and Benarous as the wide midfielders.

etc

etc

[Bodiesaffer]

1 hour ago, chinapig said:

Even if we accept that Zak has been outstanding it doesn't follow that he is the right choice to mark Mitrovic.

In fact any of us could have told Nigel he wasn't. Sometimes you have to pick horses for courses.

Agreed.  Mitrovic has and will make fools out of any CB in this division. He is a level above right now. Yes we could of defended better yesterday and we should of.  

[marmite]

Mitrovic is very good but he's also very clever. Twice yesterday he outjumped our defenders by knocking them off balance before the ball arrived. It was more obvious on replays but not during live play therefore not spotted by the officials. I think had there been VAR active yesterday, the scoreline may have been different. He won't get away with that in the prem. Having said that, we need to toughen up more and be more clever ourselves, and for God's sake let's stop making it so easy for the opposition to get crosses in. We always stand off. It boils my p$ss. All teams play the flanks against us cos they've sussed us out.

[Red-Robbo]

19 hours ago, eardun said:

 

 

If Carling did errors of judgement....

[Davefevs]

A bit more context to the post-match press comments.

[frenchred]

20 hours ago, Bodiesaffer said:

Agreed.  Mitrovic has and will make fools out of any CB in this division. He is a level above right now. Yes we could of defended better yesterday and we should of.  

Mitrovic made a fool of our manager who insists on making the same elementary mistakes game after game. If he continues more will make a fool of him before the season is over and it may cost us!

[Davefevs]

30 minutes ago, frenchred said:

Mitrovic made a fool of our manager who insists on making the same elementary mistakes game after game. If he continues more will make a fool of him before the season is over and it may cost us!

What other elementary mistakes has he made game after game…or is this an exaggeration?

[frenchred]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

What other elementary mistakes has he made game after game…or is this an exaggeration?

playing players out of position? o dowda, scott and more

persevering with Martin?

no set pattern or set up

allowing midfield to be over run continually

playing youngsters when clearly not ready, fowler last season and this one

as a very intelligent man once said the sign of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

[The Bard]

22 hours ago, petehinton said:

You can go 4231 for me, arguably still the best formation for what we have atm with the injuries in midfield. Did it against QPR at home and it was the best, quickest and most urgent performance of the season, even with 10 men for large majority.  Massengo and Scott as a two or even Massengo and Bakinson as a two with Benarous as the 10. Personally don’t see adamantly sticking with 352 is doing us a lot of favours. 

Respectfully disagree.

We struggle with balls into the box specifically set plays.  That's to do with personnel and doing jobs not formation.  We played with a 4 v Millwall and were comprehensively outplayed. We changed to a 3 and were miles better. 

 

Unless Tanner is fit we really don't have a proper RB as well.

[GrahamC]

10 minutes ago, The Bard said:

Respectfully disagree.

We struggle with balls into the box specifically set plays.  That's to do with personnel and doing jobs not formation.  We played with a 4 v Millwall and were comprehensively outplayed. We changed to a 3 and were miles better. 

 

Unless Tanner is fit we really don't have a proper RB as well.

This latter bit is our Achilles heel.

NP said in the summer that Vyner needed a settled position & so started him as RB in a 4, but after a poor display at Boro, I think, he was dropped (for Simpson) who got a couple of games, including the first win at Reading, before dropping back to the bench & then usually out of the squad completely.

Once Tanner was signed Vyner was shifted back to CB, where despite the haters on here, he has had some decent displays alongside some poor ones.

Tanner is now injured but even if he wasn’t, it would be an ask to expect him (with no prior experience above L2) to be first choice RB for the rest of the season.

I’m hoping NP’s decision to play Dasilva there (as suggested by some on here ) is a sign he recognises we are short there, so either we sign another RB, or a CB & Vyner goes back there to compete with Scott, who really needs to play further forward.

Edited January 17, 2022 by GrahamC

[Davefevs]

30 minutes ago, frenchred said:

playing players out of position? o dowda, scott and more

persevering with Martin?

no set pattern or set up

allowing midfield to be over run continually

playing youngsters when clearly not ready, fowler last season and this one

as a very intelligent man once said the sign of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

I could probably counter all of these points with a strong argument.  We sit on opposite sides of the fence re Nige so that’s fine.

Ill just take the top one as one to discuss / debate:

Re Martin, have you noticed that as a certain Antoine Semenyo has come back from injury and got his match fitness, Martin has become less involved.

Martin (top) Semenyo (bottom):

A gradual phasing out of the “old” in with the “new”.  To me that suggests that he’s kinda been forced to “flog” Martin because he wanted a physical presence in some shape or form up top.  Until Semenyo was back fit and firing he had to “over-use” Martin.  Wells has made token appearances from the bench but did start 4 on the trot without scoring (Forest L, West Brom L, Barnsley W, Brum L).

I didn’t think Martin should’ve played as much as he did, but maybe we are seeing why.  Antoine had a set-back when he first came back this season, perhaps had that not happened we’d have seen an earlier transition away from Martin.

 

I think your second and fifth points contradict each other by the way!

I think I accept that a manager won’t get it right all the time.  I think he made mistakes on Saturday, I think he was wrong to play Towler too, but I genuinely do not see mistakes week in week out.  You surely have to bare in mind where we are on a rebuild.  We don’t even have a squad to play any set system with some form of square peg somewhere.  That’s the reality imho.

Good to debate though.

 

[Robbored]

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

I could probably counter all of these points with a strong argument.  We sit on opposite sides of the fence re Nige so that’s fine.

Ill just take the top one as one to discuss / debate:

Re Martin, have you noticed that as a certain Antoine Semenyo has come back from injury and got his match fitness, Martin has become less involved.

Martin (top) Semenyo (bottom):

I think I accept that a manager won’t get it right all the time.  I think he made mistakes on Saturday, I think he was wrong to play Towler too, but I genuinely do not see mistakes week in week out.  You surely have to bare in mind where we are on a rebuild.  We don’t even have a squad to play any set system with some form of square peg somewhere.  That’s the reality imho.

Good to debate though.

 

Exactly right, a fact that’s lost on many City fans………It’s also worth remembering that Nige has had ongoing injury problems with several experienced players. Baker (who may not return) Williams, King and James all missing at various stages throughout the season so far. Add to that the youngster Tanner - it all adds up.

Bearing that in mind Nige is doing a reasonable job given the resources at hand.

If most of the injured players become available sooner rather than later - City will have a formidable midfield line up.