Great thread too Jonny, you arrived just at the right moment, and started off your unbeaten thread run with an absolute thriller! Another 11 in the same mould please!
It's a pity we have so many good options on the left but limited on the right. Even more frustrating when we stary A Armstrong on the left and brook's on the right as it limits our subs. Would be tempted to give solomana another run as thought he was solid against Liverpool. Just a bit selfish as he chased rhe wonder goal.
Wow, just watched their first goal again, and Manning's positioning. Called him out for this months ago. He gets sucked into the middle so easily. I don't know why Bednarek isn't telling him to f*ck off out wide. The commentator kept mentioning it yesterday too. He used words like 'oceans', and 'acres' to describe the space left for the RW. Why can't RM see it? Look at it. Their attacker, Miyoshi, had time to chest it down, compose himself, and line up his shot, and Manning was still nowhere near.
What a bonkers game of football. Feels like I've said that a lot this season, love the championship! Smallbone was excellent back in his natural position and delighted for him after the week he's had. Stephens had a decent game I thought but it's not enough to make it worthwhile disrupting others ie THB at full back. THB and Bednarek formed a decent partnership so seems crazy to break that up. Similar to KWP at LB I just don't understand why you'd move one of our best players out of their best position as it definitely weakens us imo. I see Manning getting a lot of stick as normal but I'm convinced he's under instruction from RM to defend so narrow. KWP does it too and why else would a natural wing back come so far in? If you're gonna slate Manning for it then you should be fair and slate the manager for it. The defence as a whole is becoming a bit of an issue again which needs rectifying. However I'm fairly confident this will improve with Downes up to speed and if we restore the settled back 4. Thought we were pretty poor after the red card really. Felt like a fair portion of the team thought we had won it and was only a matter of time before we sealed it. Not seen it again but the red looked soft? Do we practice set pieces in training at all? 16 corners yesterday and pretty much all of them were atrocious. Bar the winner of course, which I'm gonna take credit for as when we got it I said to my mate "not point getting excited about it..." Good subs from Martin yesterday I thought. Much much better than last week v Millwall.
This. You can criticise manning a few times but it happens so often, Martin either needs to rectify it or drop him. I know it seems mad to break up THB and Janny, but maybe we need Stephen’s leadership in defence.
The noticeable thing for me is that Martin regularly hammers players from the touchline if they're not following instructions but he never seems to do this re Manning's position. Why is that? The only logical conclusion is that it's because he is playing to instruction. Though the first goal yesterday was particularly bad as he seemed to anticipate the cross coming into the middle rather than the crossfield pass. Lots of teams have used the switch from one side to the other against us to good effect this season on both sides so it definitely feels like a tactical thing to me.
I think the theory is to compress the space in the middle to force teams out wide and then back yourselves to deal with the crosses etc. I've definitely seen KWP sit really narrow when out of possession and the ball is on the other side of pitch.
I don't think it's that common to score from corners for most teams. Quick Google search states there's something lie a 2-4% chance of scoring. From recent games, we scored from corners against Brum (Aribo), West Brom (Fraser), and Huddersfield (Rothwell), though in fairness I don't think Rothwell's was planned haha. I know most come to nothing, but it does at least look like we are trying different things, unlike when JWP just used to take the exact same corner every time. Re: Manning. I did say, 'Why can't RM see it?', so yeah I'm laying the blame at his feet too.
The difference between KWP and Manning though is that KWP doesn't wander around the pitch half asleep. He's alert and is able to anticipate the play. Manning doesn't seem able to do this. He only sees the threat when it's too late.
Yeah I'm not expecting to score from many but I reckon at least 10 of those 16 didn't clear the first man with a few more taken short. Just seems like our delivery is particularly bad for them. And yeah re Manning I was talking generally rather than calling anyone out specifically.
Agree with this 100%. Manning's anticipation is probably his weakest attribute. There was a corner of ours yesterday which was headed away by first defender (again!) and he wasn't far away from it but just didn't react at all and they won the ball. It was incredibly frustrating. I think you have to be a very good full back to play in this system and as we're so spoiled on one side the deficiencies in the other seem so obvious.
