Match Day Thread Preston vs Southampton, Wed, 25 Oct 19:45

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Le Tissier's Laces said:
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.
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I can't believe there are people out there who still think we have a shot of autos. Absolutely no chance this team under Martin is good enough for that.
 
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Ross Stewart won’t make a difference if we play like we did tonight.

You could put Erling Haaland up there and he still wouldn’t have got a touch. Our build up play is non-existent. We create nothing under this system
 
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Preston might be sitting 4th, but they are by no means the 4th best side in this league. Many sides have a nice run of results at some point during the course of the season (you'll often be relegated if you don't) - it just so happened that Preston's good run was right at the very start.

They've since picked up two points from five games (which after tonight is now three points from six games), and are at risk of up to half the league overtaking them in the coming weeks if they continue their current form.

Tonight's result isn't as bad as drawing Rotherham at home. But at least we played well against Rotherham. 10 points behind Ipswich, with a much worse GD and having played an extra game, is looking like a massive gap right now. Though I would still back us to finish top six.
 
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Le Tissier's Laces said:
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.
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Defending against us is too easy. Teams always have plenty of time to get organised after losing the ball as we have no urgency to attack. We are happy to control possession and slowly build.
 
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Le Tissier's Laces said:
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.
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And that’s exactly what happened vs Rotherham. 1-0 up, totally dominate but our slow, deliberate, death by, kills it. Can’t really see it improving. RM is RM, it’s on his CV, it’s already written previously. We might make play offs (by a sneak) but we won’t progress, thro or even on. Sorry, he’s a duffer.

RM, someone within SFC, read this stuff. It’s fairly intellectual fans posting sensible / logical stuff. We’re not Man City & RM isn’t Pep & never will be.

ps. Lovely bloke!
 
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I thought our main problem tonight was midfield. Pne pretty much got through it with ease far too often. Thought shea Charles was especially poor tonight. We also don't seem to know when to speed up play
 
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Le Tissier's Laces said:
This team do. Under Martin we don't (or at least if we persist with this claggy style of football, which we will...).
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Yeah I meant the combination really. We clearly have one of the most talented squads in this league.

And yet we've conceded the joint most amount of goals after more than a third of the season.

Let that sink in.
 
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Le Tissier's Laces said:
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.
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Charles was very, very bad. He was the very epitome of everything you are describing. He was the one most guilty of slowing things down, going sideways. When Stuie plays instead of him, we're much better. Charles' last two games for N. Ireland he got sent off in one, and played San Marino in the other, so it's hard to judge him off that.

I'm not RM's biggest fan either, but while we have some great players, we have a lot of mediocre ones too. And still a bit too much youth and inexperience. Charles, Mara, Charly, Sulemana; they all seem to struggle with Championship football, and I don't think blaming that on RM is necessarily fair.
 
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Che’s Godlike Thighs said:
Charles was very, very bad. He was the very epitome of everything you are describing. He was the one most guilty of slowing things down, going sideways. When Stuie plays instead of him, we're much better. Charles' last two games for N. Ireland he got sent off in one, and played San Marino in the other, so it's hard to judge him off that.

I'm not RM's biggest fan either, but while we have some great players, we have a lot of mediocre ones too. And still a bit too much youth and inexperience. Charles, Mara, Charly, Sulemana; they all seem to struggle with Championship football, and I don't think blaming that on RM is necessarily fair.
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Honestly, I think they struggle with this style more than Championship football.

Edit: Charles is a different case, but Mara, Charly, Sulemana are all 'turn and run' footballers. This style is the antithesis of that.
 
Ronnie Hotdog (MLsfc) said:
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.
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Or alternatively:
  • KWP - relegated last season
  • Sulemana - young but raw, starting his first full season in this country
  • Adams / Armstrong - haven't scored regularly for several years
  • Armstrong - nearing the end of his career, not able to play for full 90 last year
  • THB, Downes, Alcaraz, lots of potential but all 20/21 year olds
  • Manning - not sure how he was in TOTY last year
  • Smallbone - out on loan for the past 2 seasons
  • Fraser - hadn't played for 9 months before the start of this season
OK, I'm stretching on a few of them, but your summary is really rose-tinted in my opinion.
 
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hotbovril said:
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.
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Propoganda football. Great for the stats nerds to **** over possession numbers but not great for actually achieving anything
 
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SailorSaint said:
Or alternatively:
  • KWP - relegated last season
  • Sulemana - young but raw, starting his first full season in this country
  • Adams / Armstrong - haven't scored regularly for several years
  • Armstrong - nearing the end of his career, not able to play for full 90 last year
  • THB, Downes, Alcaraz, lots of potential but all 20/21 year olds
  • Manning - not sure how he was in TOTY last year
  • Smallbone - out on loan for the past 2 seasons
  • Fraser - hadn't played for 9 months before the start of this season
OK, I'm stretching on a few of them, but your summary is really rose-tinted in my opinion.
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I'll give you Fraser as he will take a while to get up to speed. But the others are all based on their playing experience either this or last season, hard to argue imo.
 
Libby said:
Yeah I meant the combination really. We clearly have one of the most talented squads in this league.

And yet we've conceded the joint most amount of goals after more than a third of the season.

Let that sink in.
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That to me is the bigger issue. While we seem turgid in attack, we're joint-fourth in goals scored, second in shots taken, second in shots on target, etc. We should probably be better, but it's our defending that is holding us back.
 
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