I may be wrong, but I dont think he has ever been at a game for us since, Gillet, imported from Australia, we used to send convicts over there, we brought one back
Did not see the game at all as on holiday in Thailand but from what I can gather we were OK first half and poor second half. Individual errors and apparently Ballard had an uncharacteristically poor game. Don't think we should be knee jerking quite yet and as a club just need to stay focused and look at the next game.
The nonsense about it all is that these players are not permitted that leeway for some reason. Clarke blew hot and cold even into last season. Roberts blew cold for a whole 46 game period. The desire to pull the eject lever on young players is so high these days amongst our fans - and it runs completely against the pathway that allowed the likes of Jack Clarke to become a player that we were all so disappointed to see leave the club.
Pretty much spot on. Was a scrappy first half but we edged it. Could have been 2 up when Roberts' free kick was turned onto the bar by the keeper (pretty sure it was a cross) Just didn't come out for the 2nd half and Mundle was probably the only player who comes out with any credit. Ballard was particularly poor but I don't think he's fit (he certainly isn't now after leaving the ground on crutches) and Patto made a couple of mistakes that led to their 1st and 3rd goals. hey ho. Bad day at the office. Essential we don't see another display like this on Sat
I watched the EFL highlights and MOTD, loads of keepers made errors far worse than Patterson. He wasn't great but, to be honest, there was only decent goal out of five. The goals reflected the game IMO, scruffy, scrappy and might never have been scored on a different day. It was a game unlike the previous four ... ... we allowed ourselves to drop down their level, lesson learned I hope.
That’s exactly it teams more be performing poorly but are in the league for a reason. Leicester lost 11 times last season, Ipswich lost 6, season before that Burnley only lost 3 and Sheffield United lost 11 so it’s not uncommon for the teams pushing for promotion to lose games. The teams going down even get double figure wins. We weren’t going to win every game. Just need to learn and improve
Agree. Anyone who thought we were going unbeaten all season have just had their plonkers returned to them. I believe RLB made his first mistake by leaving Browne out and that the horrible international break did for us.....it can't be coincidence that Ballard,Rigg and Jobe were not up to their previous performances....and Ballard will be out for a while. Hopefully back to normal this week.
On one hand I certainly think the 'subs hesitancy' criticism is valid. I'm generally of the opinion that we should use our full complement of of subs every single game. Makes it somewhat tough as you're effectively tending towards change out 5 out of 6 midfielders/forwards on a game by game basis (given you don't typically mess with your back four so much) and that is a lot of disruption. However, generally from a 'minutes on the pitch', involvement and energy perspective I'd tend to want to see that. The counter to that, though, is to ask how on earth our players can learn to deal with adversity or challenges on the pitch if they are always hooked at the first sign of a momentum shift. How does RLB learn what these players can do if we pull the ripcord so quickly? Ultimately it's about learning at this stage I guess. First half of the season we can probably afford to lose games in order to learn. Tough one to swallow when we all want to see us flying (and getting promotion), but I don't think this club is ever going to be 'win now' under this regime.
"how on earth our players can learn to deal with adversity or challenges on the pitch if they are always hooked at the first sign of a momentum shift." This is what puzzles me when people treat games like chess. Hooking people just demoralises them, makes their selection difficult in the next game and may not even work ... ... and what happens if you start badly in the first 15 minutes rather than the first 15 in the second half, start hooking people? We often start poorly then adapt, too many people think it's like playing Football Manager.
Good post mate. It's often forgotten that we're dealing with people....in our case,mostly young lads...and they're all different characters and personalities. RLB might think it'll be good to leave them on and see how they adapt to certain situations.
This post is far too thoughtful (and pretty damned decent imo) but some have already decided that the weaknesses from last season haven't been addressed even though we won the first 4 games! I managed to watch the match and I thought the high press that we engaged in the first 4 games was missing for reason. Whether that was down to RLB on the day, the players or lack of cohesive training with players being away on international duty I suppose we won't ever find out. I reckon we'll see a response from the players on Saturday and we'll beat Boro
Yeah people forget a lot of our key players were away. From those that started the game: Hume, Ballard, jobe, Rigg and then browne came off the bench 2 of the 3 midfielders hadn’t had a session with the team until a couple days before the game
I think Saturday will be the first real marker this season of where we are in our progress. Boro are more than decent. We are back to normal in that we have a clear week on the training ground with all our available players. Coming from a relatively poor performance and a last minute defeat.....knocked off the top by WBA....let's see how we respond. I'm going for a 2-0 win.
That's it in a nutshell mate. We're built for getting the ball down and playing around the opposition, not being dragged into a scrap. We can tackle, we can press well and we can battle, but we need a greater level of composure on the ball than we showed last Saturday. I'm sure this will be something RLB will be working on this week. We will lose games, but it's how we react to that which is most important. Anyone who thought we would go unbeaten, just because we won the first four so comfortably, needs their bumps felt. Every team has a bad day or two at the office. This was one of ours. We owe Boro one for last year and I think we'll get it.
