longmans really started to gain confidence last few games about the belief he can beat a man and he's got a fair bit of pace
Ernie is spot on. They gave us a lesson in '****ology'. A timely crafty nudge here that prevents a ball control. A sly 'timewaste' there. Hiding the towels when we have a throw in. Ball boys unable to locate the ball. Crowding the referee when he's given a free kick against you so you can slow the game down. Silly things, but they add up and DO make a difference. We are too nice. Not just the team. The Club. We make friends with everyone instead of making them uncomfortable. What happened to the 'six second' rule for Goalies? was it scrapped?
slater def stood out to me as an odd one out, def lacking that level of ability many others on the pitch had tonight
This rubbish about the ball boys is so strange, we got the ball back quickly when we had throw ins today, so no idea what you're on about. Every time they took us out they got booked so I'm quite happy we didn't have 8 players on yellow cards by following suit. For all they 'added up' Sheff U clung onto an early goal at home against a side sat 16th, so can't have helped them too much.
I think they're fine as rotation options against lower opposition but agree against the cream of the division we need better. Would have put Greaves back in there and started Elder, who looked good when he came on.
I'm on about you still not understanding about match fitness and injured players. It's comical at this point. The game plan was quite clearly to keep it tight for 60, throw our best players on and give it a real crack for the last 30, which we did.
Six second rule still applies once the keeper puts the ball in his hands. Not that you would think it.
They're certainly not the rubbish he's making them out to be.... you only have to look at out conceded stats since McLoughlin came back in...
This is it, I still think there's a bit of residual "yeah but they got us promoted and have done alright" from last season. It depends on what you want. Long term, players like Jones, Woods, Slater, McLoughlin, Elder and Coyle aren't going to deliver us promotion, so having them start games every week isn't going to do much except allow better teams to do what happened tonight. It's not that they don't try, they really do, but at their best they're only half as good as some of their opposition numbers. If we want to be up there near the top, we need to spend money and bring players in that are better. It looks like that's going to happen in the coming window, so we will have to see what Summer holds, but I think the players I mentioned above will be off and better players brought in over the next two windows. It'll be a big Summer, the recruitment has to be spot on and if it is, with the spine we have I think we can push on. This season is about getting a system and a core in place to achieve a bit of stability. Losing to teams that are pushing for automatic promotion aren't going to define our season when we can only manage a 1-1 draw against relegation threatened teams like Huddersfield and Blackpool. The process is ongoing, the improvement is there to see, we just have to keep improving and finish as high as we can with what we have for this season. Ebiowe looks like he'll make a fist of it (thanks Steve) and Connolly doesn't look bad for a player that's had bugger all playing time this season. M'Hand and Traore will hopefully emerge at some point and add to the creativity. I just worry about our defence and if it wasn't for the fact that he's pretty out of form at the moment, I'd have been looking at recalling Smith from Grimsby.
To me that showed we're not a million miles away. A few players clearly not quite up to it, but the foundations are there. Give Rosenior the freedom to build a squad in his vision and I feel we're well positioned for a serious challenge next season. Thought Tufan looked excellent in the deeper role next to Seri. Would like us to develop that partnership for the rest of the season.
Apart from the first 20 mins, when we were really dodgy at the back, I thought we played really well. They looked really rattled up to Tetteh getting sent off. Conceding so early and yet having them on the back foot showed a lot of resilience against one of the top two. However it was probably a lesson in the dark arts against those horrible blunt twats. They clearly targeted Connolly (whether they thought he’d react or saw him as a threat), three different players getting booked for assaulting him. Shame Tetteh didn’t show his discipline. Clearly Ros wants to keep it steady for an hour and then has options on the bench. No harm in that, with the number of subs allowed, you don’t start with your first XI. He doesn’t trust Ozan for 90 mins and was easing Tetteh back in. Problem is we keep giving early goals away. Now ****ing Tetteh’s out for 3 matches, just sums our season up.
And just like against Huddersfield and Sunderland, it was too little too late, only this time we couldn’t even claw back a point. Starting Slater over Tufan is nonsense because Slater, I’m sorry to say, isn’t half the player Tufan is and likely never will be. Again, it’s the English obsession of praising mediocre players who run around a lot to the detriment of technically-gifted players.
