Match Day Thread Huddersfield Town v Sunderland AFC – Wednesday 14th February 2024 - KO 19:45

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Your Prediction:


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Evidently, that all depends on who you fall out with. Exile was called a child molester by the bloke he was always arguing with and that was conveniently missed by the mod of that posters mate. He never said anything remotely like that back to that poster and he has received a life ban from the board.

I have missed what has gone on, but if what you say is correct then it seems rather harsh.
 
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To assist in that it would be good to see a couple of players show for the pass.
There has to be space. Clarke has done his part by attracting 3 opposition players, there must be space for someone.

Exactly, if Clarke is drawing 2 or 3 toward him we should be attacking the spaces created.
 
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If there were 3 players marking Clarke then it MUST have left space somewhere else.
This often happens yet I can’t recall us finding this space.
It must also be very tiring treble marking Clarke so again, how can we use that in the last 20 minutes or so.

This has been said on here many times yet I don’t see anything being done about it on the field.

*Vinkel, just seen your post as I was putting mine up…..great minds…..
 
Not at all.

I don’t like to be over critical. It’s the manner of the defeat that angers me, not the result.

I accept that we will lose plenty of games, that’s football.

But to go from one of the most exciting team in the league, to one that struggles to string 2-3 passes together concerns me as a supporter, a supporter that often goes to matches and gives my full support.

Smug is a fantastic supporter that doesn’t like to criticise and that’s commendable. But people who give constructive criticism should be allowed to do so. Especially if it’s not personal.

I do criticise the team, look back through the thread.

What I don't like is being lectured especially within seconds of a demoralising defeat. We can all see what went wrong yesterday and we know the history of events at the club.

What irritates me and, let's be honest, other posters is having people come on who think we need to have things explained to us by people who know best.

As Bob Paisley once said, 'Speak softly and people will listen.'
 
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Like you I've slept on it because I was very annoyed with that after driving back. You sum things up pretty well a very lethargic performance. No battles won anywhere on the pitch all night. I also agree with you about ambling over to take corners same 1st half 1 minute of added time and we stroll across to take it no urgency at all same at the end with Clarke. A very poor night all round. On we go to Birmingham but we will have to play an awful lot better than that to get anything.

Sadly we all know we can play much better.

If they'd given everything and fought for every ball we could accept it more easily. I was particularly disappointed with Ekwah who always seems to bottle challenges against teams like this. And I've no idea why Clarke tried tge same move every time when it clearly wasn't working. Any other player would've been subbed imo.
 
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Disappointed with last night. It looks to me as though some of the players are dithering,uncertain of what to do,which comes across as lethargy,and often results in them making the wrong decision or playing the ball poorly. It could be that they are taking some time to adjust to the ideas MB is trying to introduce,and are a little unsure. I'd like to see them reintroduce the freedom they had last year,not worrying about failure or the consequences of getting it wrong,something which seems to have been lost.
 
Sadly we all know we can play much better.

If they'd given everything and fought for every ball we could accept it more easily. I was particularly disappointed with Ekwah who always seems to bottle challenges against teams like this. And I've no idea why Clarke tried tge same move every time when it clearly wasn't working. Any other player would've been subbed imo.
Clarke was woeful, yet we persisted with the same tactic, give him the ball and keep our fingers crossed. I said to my son switch him to the right and see if he has any joy against that fullback then make the decision to take him off. The kids going to have an off day but we done him no favours last night. We seemed to move everyone else around the pitch bar Clarke to try and wake them up, you are right about Ekwah though, he is a brick ****house and should be bullying people, huge contrast but look what Haaland done to that centre half on Sunday, he just threw him around like a rag doll, Ekwah is too timid and probably why we have him.
 
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One thing I've noticed slipping into our game is that when we pass the ball usually it's either directly to, or slightly behind a player meaning that they have to wait for the ball to arrive. It's safe but this allows a defender to get there as well. Can we not play a ball where our player moves onto it, in a forward direction?
Just a simple observation
 
We’ve obviously had a disaster because we’ve lost Paddy for the last ten minutes and that meant we had to play with ten men," Beale said.

yeah and we never used all our subs
 
Just a few months ago we were all saying this is a team who give their all, never give up, don't know when they're beaten etc.
What happened??
We now look like a team of mid table plodders :emoticon-0106-cryin

To be fair we were saying it last week when we fought back against Boro and Plymouth ...

... unlike Boro and Plymouth under Mowbray.

The rosy memories of the Mowbray era are becoming ridiculously exaggerated imo.
 
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We’ve obviously had a disaster because we’ve lost Paddy for the last ten minutes and that meant we had to play with ten men," Beale said.

yeah and we never used all our subs
And a chance for Mindel to step up to the plate and show his worth
Ba can’t do it
 
What has concerned me at times is a lack of looking up to see what's on (if you know what I mean) - good runs are not exploited - in the second half it was at one point I think Pembele in acres of space on the right - no one looks up we play it tight on the left and lose the ball. That may well be experience or we just haven't quite got that ability - either way we miss these opportunities to quicken up the game and exploit gaps.

We have on the whole become very pedestrian - was Amad that massive a difference - great that he was or is this a tactical switch that has made us far more predictable this year and certainly a significant less threat away from home
 
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Sadly we all know we can play much better.

If they'd given everything and fought for every ball we could accept it more easily. I was particularly disappointed with Ekwah who always seems to bottle challenges against teams like this. And I've no idea why Clarke tried tge same move every time when it clearly wasn't working. Any other player would've been subbed imo.
Yeah I agree when Clarke was failing other options should of been used
 
And a chance for Mindel to step up to the plate and show his worth
Ba can’t do it

To cheer myself up I've decided to put last night into a 'learning experience for the team and the manager'.

They must know, as well as any of us, that it was a shambles. It's just difficult to work out if the plan was the biggest problem or the individual performances. No tactic will ever work if half the team have a poor game. I expressed doubts about Hjelde, against Plymouth, and last night didn't quell my concerns tbh.
 
One thing I've noticed slipping into our game is that when we pass the ball usually it's either directly to, or slightly behind a player meaning that they have to wait for the ball to arrive. It's safe but this allows a defender to get there as well. Can we not play a ball where our player moves onto it, in a forward direction?
Just a simple observation
Mentioned this numerous times to the people I sit next to at the SOL it’s elementary and as a schoolboy you were always encouraged to pass the ball in front of the receiving player , Jobe in particular nearly always turns backward towards his own goal when he receives this type of pass and loses the ball too frequently as a consequence - very irritating that coaching staff do not pick up on it .
 
To cheer myself up I've decided to put last night into a 'learning experience for the team and the manager'.

They must know, as well as any of us, that it was a shambles. It's just difficult to work out if the plan was the biggest problem or the individual performances. No tactic will ever work if half the team have a poor game. I expressed doubts about Hjelde, against Plymouth, and last night didn't quell my concerns tbh.
I genuinely don't think the team is as good as some people expect. We over achieved last season for me and we are a mid table team who on our day can match top teams but are far too inconsistent, naive to consistently mount a challenge. We have Hume, o9, ballard, Neil and Clarke who are very good players at this level and also Roberts who can be but is sadly injured. Same for.cirkin.If you honestly think the likes of Ba, rusyn, ekwah, anouche, pembele etc are going to do it week in and week out against hardened and experienced championship players then we are all ****ing deluded. Seelt looks like someone who can step up but is up against our two of our best players. I don't know what is said at meetings between kld, speakman and beale but they can't honestly be banking on promotion this season.
 
What do we do on Saturday to improve ?
Mowbray is obviously welll aware of our strengths and weaknesses so should be well prepared for us.
I would sacrifice either Jobe or Ekwah and go with Hemir and Rusyn up top, get Mundel on the right and tell him to run at the fullback, tell him and Clarke to get early crosses in and start attacking the 6 yard box. There is still time to make a late surge into the play offs but we must try something else
 
That was a hard watch last night, that's the worst we've played in a long, long time. Cannot believe that so many of them played so badly and for so long in the match. I kept telling my son that it'll come good soon. Then it was the 90th minute. It was also embarrassing the amount of time wasting they were doing. Onwards to Saturday, we have to be up for this!!!! As Uncle Tony will have them up for it.
 
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Why sacrifice fluidity and put ba striker and rusyn on the right from the start of the match? Ba has many strengths but he's not very good at holding the ball up with his back up goal, often gets outmuscled. Rusyn was barely in the game on the right wing.

I am concerned that the the ekwah/jobe/neil midfield might be too similar. Need one of them to drift forward into a pocket of space in between the lines and receive the ball, which none of them do. Without that we are reliant on a forward pass to our front 3. Truth is that ba and rusyn don't protect a ball to feet well enough to sustain attacks.

No need to go overboard but lots to work on and very little training pitch time until Birmingham.