I thought we played some nice football 1st half with Chair and Willock central to that, but there wasn't enough of it in dangerous areas. The final balls in were often not good enough and we didn't have enough players in their penalty area to take advantage of what did come, other than Dykes effort from Paal's cross very well saved. If that had gone in, Kakay hadn't made such a stupid tackle to give away the FK, if the Ref hadn't been on Cov's staff and we'd had a bit of luck, the result may have been different. But that's also 2 recent games now we've scored essentially own goals by Cook and today Kakay trying to block dangerous shots that Begovic would have comfortably saved but for their interventions. Something they need to look at, possibly lack of communication from Begovic.
A really disappointing result. We have put up some resilient defensive games in the last two but seem to have collapsed after the first (questionable?) goal to Cov. That’s a bit of the old team from last season. We really are **** up front. I can’t work out if we have crap forwards are useless at getting the ball into good opportunities or just don’t get the bodies into the box to make the best of our chances. Can’t help but feel the loss of Colback has made a huge difference, with him it seems Dozell is more forward and has more impact on the game too. If Colback is that important we need a back up player (developing youngster) to fill the gap - we have a couple of years to find and develop someone, do it now! So, we are finally where we all feared we would be, in the bottom three. My worry now is do we have the players with the stomach for a fight. But isn’t that where GA is supposed to excel in getting players motivated and up for it? If we’re not getting fight and motivation we will be right in the **** and might as well change manager or accept relegation. If we don’t get more than 5pts in October the board better make the change we all didn’t want to see. No time to waste.
The question I've been mulling this morning is, were we to be relegated, would we do an Ipswich or just waste away in the lower leagues?
Ainsworth: "But it's 3-1 at home and I'm not stupid. I'm a football manager. It's not good enough when people just look at the result and I'm sure the haters will be out there loving this one." Once again the ‘I’m not stupid’ line and more than a hint of paranoia. I think he’s looking over his shoulder. And despite a couple of crap reffing decisions, a loss was a fair result from where I sit. We didn’t play like a team at home.
I wish he would stop referring to some of our opponents as 'Premier league'. Sorry Gareth, but every team in our division is a fecking championship team. Otherwise they wouldn't be in this fecking dregs division.
Cov were only a place or two above us before the match. So we shouldn’t be losing 1-3 at home. Very poor result as was the Swansea one. Not good enough even with this team.
It was interesting in the stadium. Some groans when the goals went in and a bit of booing at the end, plus continual disgusting abuse of the ref and lino. But overall there is a resigned feeling of ‘it is what it is, we’re **** and we know we are’. The players are trying and that’s now all we ask. We all know Ainsworth is a less than great manager, but we can’t think of a decent alternative who would be stupid enough to come to this club in its current state, so we might as well keep the fool. If the players stop trying passive acceptance might turn into anger, but that seems some way off. The worst thing is I don’t expect any improvement. I hope I’m wrong. The main motivation in dragging myself down to matches is the company and the fear of missing out when we do finally beat someone at home. Whenever that might be. It’s too soon to say whether I can be bothered to go to the Blackburn game, Wednesday at the earliest for decision making on that.
Love Ainsworth as a player, not so much as a manager. It's a real shame because his reputation is has become tarnished. Sorry to say it but he has to go before the fans really turn against him. Problem with that is, as mentioned, who will come in to a club that is in such a mess? My hope is Warnock, but i don't expect it.
We basically play with one forward. Chair drops so deep to get involved in the game and Willock offers little to nothing, leaving either Dykes or Armstrong (depending who plays) totally isolated. It says it all that our left back is top scorer, Armstrong crossed for Paal to score, would love that to be the other way round. When we do manage to get players in support then Smyth, after doing the hard work usually pummels it into the stands or Chair twists and turns for so long that the opposition get players back in and our forwards have made 3 different runs before he decides to cross it. It's plain to see that Ainsworth sets up not to lose over actually trying to win. It ain't working. I'm actually starting to feel for Dozzell in midfield, constantly over run.
Christ. My first match since pre Covid is coming up in October. The fact it’s away from home is probably a blessing.
Is he overrun or is he just not very good? A 24-year-old midfielder with close to 200 career appearances should be capable of playing in a two. He’ll be living off that goal at Boro for a year.
Admittedly I wasn’t there so that’s good. I’ve been pretty unimpressed when seeing him live both in a two and a three.
Agree with Strolls he was quite disciplined and got stuck in. Like against Brum he seemed to be playing the true midfield anchor, behind Field, which I don’t really get. But these two playing centre mid is not enough, Colback and Field with Dozzell further forward seemed a bit better. Dozzell is ****ing brilliant compared to Willock, who doesn’t seem to want to play football anymore, at least not for QPR. He was ducking out of challenges, and unlike Chair and Smyth, who always have to beat the player in front of them even if there is a quick pass available, he no longer tries to beat anyone, just gets rid of the ball as quickly as possible. Such a shame.
Yet again the most important question is , where the **** are the goals gonna come from ? We can endlessly bemoan FFP rules and how skint we are, but not getting in another striker was just pathetic. There simply aren't enough goals in this squad to keep us competitive
And prey tell where was this mytical striker going to come from and how were we going to pay for him?
