In isolation it looks like a good point, but it’s the performances that are a real concern. I am waiting to see it click. Martin keeps saying we will improve as we learn his system, but all I see is a squad capable of automatic promotion being hamstrung by a weird obsession with passing sideways and backwards.
As great as it feels picking up late points, I am starting to lose patience with Martin now. We are almost 1/3 through the season and he is throwing away our best chance of getting promoted. If we don't go up this season it's only going to get harder. Not getting promoted, or even competing for top 2, with this squad is genuinely embarrassing. KWP - best player in the league. Sulemana - clearly way too good for this level. Adams / Armstrong - each scored 20+ Armstrong, THB, Downes, Alcaraz all premier league quality. Manning was LB in TOTY last season. Smallbone won stoke POTY last season. Fraser has been promoted once before The majority of that lot won't be here next season. Any half decent manager would have us competing right at the top by now. We are 10 points off and the gap is widening.
A very sensible and reasonable summary. It has no place on this wingefest. We are not great when we win and we are not crap when we lose. We fans are just too emotional to see clearly. Well done the fans who trekked North/ South/West. Not many likely to have come East.
My season prediction remains the same as early on. Defeat in the play offs. No where near good enough to go up automatically but should get play offs fairly comfortably. Once there we'll be at the disadvantage of other sides knowing exactly what we do.
A draw away to a top 6 team - OK, we didn`t win, but then they didn`t get 3 points either. Important to back it up with a win v Brum though.
I'm beginning to run out of hope that we might try it. Once Stewart is available, the chances of it happening will be even less. I don't know the reason behind taking Che off at HT. But the answer really didn't need to be Mara.
Yeah I think the concern with Martin is that it's largely our quality showing through that has won us a lot of points rather than his tactics or changes.
We are seeing improvements but it won't be a smooth upward curve - there will be bumps like tonight. Leeds first half was fantastic. We scored two very well worked goals against Hull. Tonight was ****e, but we still got a draw so hey ho, be grateful for the point and move on.
Agree with all of this. As already said 4 pts in 3d on the road is good, but we’re not dominating teams. We’re riding our luck and making hard work of every point we earn. This team should be turning a good few teams over.
Yes and no. A point away to 4th in the league isn't a bad result. But, we keep getting very, very, very lucky with 90-something equalisers and winners that really are papering over the stuff that's terribly wrong. The issue for me is that we are turning good players bad with this style. I know Charles had a shocker, but I think this slow paced, total intensity-free zone football that we play doesn't focus the players' minds at all. They all look pretty slack, because we play in a very slow, measured, dull way. Charles is excellent when he plays for Northern Ireland. He's not a bad player. But we are making good players ponderous with our style. It's so, so lacking in aggression, intensity, progressive thinking. Our whole ethos is based around frustrating the opposition into pressing and creating space. So it's a "wait and react" style. We have the players to play quickly, and with the skill to play around teams in this league (which the likes of KWP, Stu, Sulemana do regardless). The reason Alcaraz gets in the Argentinian squad is that he's a good player. The reason Charles is NI's best player is that he's a good player. We have plenty of them. We're just playing this weird version of a hybrid Brighton/Man City without the pace and intensity. It's pretty awful fare to be honest. I thought Bree had a decent game tonight, and I prefer him to Manning based on this one game. I personally thought Mara did more than Adams, but that neither had any service at all, because we're far too busy arsing around. 73% possession, woohoo.
We were bad against Hull. KWP sprinkled some PL quality into the game and Fraser gave it a nice finish. But really we were poor for a long time. We have only looked like a very good team for 45mins against Leeds, and the Sheffield weds game when we still had a few more PL players. Apart from that we look like a poor championship team with players underperforming their natural abilities. We know che should be banging goals in this league. Why isn’t he? Why don’t any of our strikers get any chances? Why do we let opposition teams reset and get 11 men behind the ball before we decide to attack? poor, poor management. He is picking up points which is saving him, but we need to improve. I won’t hear this “lower your expectations” bollocks. We have a huge budget and a good squad. Club needs to sort it
The fact we're frankly not terribly good and still fifth, actually says to me that we should be 'doing a Leicester', or at least an Ipswich if we were playing these players properly.
I'm quick to point the finger at other teams that don't give a new manager time to make his mark on a squad, stamp a style in place and get them playing the way he wants them to. So I'm accusing myself of a similar knee jerk attitude here but I don't just dislike what I'm seeing, I dislike what it's leading towards and attempting to be. It's hipster football, follow the crowd football and will ultimately deliver the same results as it does for 95% of teams trying to emulate the elite squads that are able to play keepy keepy passy passy ball and then tear you apart with magic at the cutting edge. We don't possess that magic and if we want to go straight back up we need to be robust and then ruthless. Instead, we are flimsy and ineffectual and there's a strong argument to be made that the table flatters us. Considering the strength of the squad and our relative financial advantage, I'm thoroughly underwhelmed.
In this league we actually do possess that magic, but we're so busy cocking about with it in midfield, that by the time we remember we're meant to be moving forwards with the ball, it's too late and the opposition are totally set. What we also have in abundance is pace, and that just isn't getting used at all, because of the arsing around. We should be one of the best counter-attacking teams out there.
