You can be hyper-critical of results without resorting to these cliches. I'm hyper-critical of the wasted chances we've had to win games. I'm frustrated in the stand every time we throw away a good scoring opportunity. But I always defend the team/Rosenior against these repeated, tired accusations of being too negative or too slow. It's totally inaccurate. I'm not sure I can ever remember us playing a more progressive, attacking style, but for some reason a narrative has caught hold among our fanbase that playing it on the ground is defensive or risk-averse. At the same time though people also complain about the risk involved(!).
We need to focus on what the actual issues are. Majority of the time it's missing opportunities to score, whether it's a missed chance or a wasted final ball. Even at Ipswich where we had our worst performance, the stats on chances were very close between the two teams and according to Google we had 2 big chances to their 0. I know the statophobes will struggle to cope with reading those words but it gives some perspective. Even on our worst day and when we're playing a team who supposedly blew us out of the water and played so much more direct and fast, in reality, factually, they didn't actually create that much at all. Couple of brilliant finishes and you win a game comfortably. And that's where we fall down. If people who want to be critical focused more on criticising that clinicalness that we really do lack, and less on churning out the same cliches after every disappointing result regardless of how the game actually goes, there'd be less opposition to it.
That's your opinion. Fair enough.
But to me, and seemingly some others, trying to put in a way that avoids what you call 'same old tired cliches', there's much more to it than what you keep focussing on. Meaning, we are:
- poor still in our attacking phases (which yes, include actually putting away chances, but it's much more than just that). I see no pattern to it, no clever routines, just the flash of individual skill now and then from Philo & Delap. It's like we've been left to improvise when it comes to the final 3rd.
- too often looking backwards & sideways, recycling from even really from good positions right back to CB's or the keeper.
- more patient in our play than we should be, seemingly lacking any urgency until late on
- continuing to play square pegs in round holes. I don't get the arguments that we have no choice because of injuries, that is simply no longer true. As an example, there was no necessity whatsoever to play Coyle as a LB on Tuesday (something that Ipswich gave us a lesson on that is hopefully learnt).
I honestly can't see how anyone can dispute the 2nd, 3rd & 4th point as we've been seeing it every game since Rosenior took over, but I accept that, being uneducated, I might be missing something with the first point.
We aren't doing badly, but we could be doing even better if we can stop throwing points away. How long do we stay patient before we see signs of us being an attacking force given the players we've now got?