Still shots on this occasion are meaningless. You have to see the video to see the problem. The refs initial positioning wasn’t great but it also wasn’t the problem. As a ref in the Championsip he should have been aware of the possibility the ball might be played to the player nearest him. The pass doesn’t come from nowhere, there’s a second or two where it’s obvious where it’s going. Mehlem has every right to move towards where the ref is standing to receive the ball as it offers him more space. Whilst the ball is on its way, the ref first steps forward into the problem before getting out of the way. This stops Mehlem having as much time on the ball and Sunderland capitalise well. It’s the refs movement and awareness of his surroundings I have an issue with and not his initial position.
The ref clearly interfered with our initial plans. But there you can see M had the ball under control with no immediate pressure, could see the player about to press, two options to play it sideways and maintain possession or even stick it in the box , shoot or even hoof to row Z. Can also see that we have inexplicably got every single player either in their box or within 10 yards. But no I'll try a fancy turn and lose it. That was 90% our own undoing that goal and blaming the ref is shifting focus from a stupid decision to attack like we are losing 1-0 in the last second plus another stupid decision by an individual player.
But as football is a complicated game, all of these things can be true at once: The ref shouldn’t be in the way. Mehlem should deal with it better. It was good play from Sunderland to sniff out the chance to pressurise. The refs movement cut down how much time Mehlem had to control the ball and pass it on. The ref didn’t cause us to concede - that is true - but at the same time Sunderland probably don’t score if he’s not in the way.
Progression in football isn’t linear and having a manager who has managed in the EFL isn’t some guarantee of success. Coventry under Robins have gone from 5th in the 22/23 season, to 9th last season and are currently 21st and that’s with them maintaining a decent core of their squad without much overhaul. On balance, I think Walter is doing okay for his first season in English football.
I remain far from convinced by Wally but think we need to give him at least until Xmas. Changing manager every 5 minutes rarely does a club any good. That said, if we are in the bottom 1/3rd of the table by Xmas I wouldn't be surprised if he got the boot
Walter won’t do this. He will constantly have Mehlem and whoever else pinned on their back line with a huge gap for the 6 to play in. The centre of the pitch is a complete waste of time for us most of the the game.
We’re on course for 23 to 29 points at the Christmas break. Last season, that would have put us between 20th and 16th.
If we have 29 or 30 points after say 23 games (half the season) then that's about as many as I would expect. I'm expecting us to get around 60 points all season and finish around 10th. I have seen nothing to suggest we will be better than that
I think Walter needed to show yesterday that he isn’t a one trick pony. If we had played how we had so far this season, Sunderland would have picked us apart. He didn’t, and Sunderland struggled. They are full of confidence but they just looked like mid-table fodder yesterday and that was down to us. People have said that we sacrificed our attack to keep it tighter and to an extent that is true. But this was a much better balance and had Bedia scored or we had chosen better options in the final third than we would and perhaps should have scored a couple. Despite the result, I think the performance made me think that perhaps Walter could be the right man for the job. I think how we fare in our next 4 should give us all the answers we need.
So why doesn't one of the players hang back a bit? OK it's Walters plan but the players are on the pitch, are they so indoctrinated in the plan that they can only move like chess pieces no matter what is happening on the pitch? Also when taking the corner didn't our man see that our player was being marked by the referee but passed it to him anyway rather than doing something different.
Upon reflection, I actually think the handball call is waaaay worse than Madley's positioning for the goal, ultimately, the ball hasn't hit him so he can't stop the game and like you say Mehlem (who i'm still not sure about) could have done better and hell, when Puerta played the pass he could have seen the ref there and not passed it.....but that handball, the blind ****er is bang in line with it, it looked obvious from all the way over in South that it'd hit his hand, and whilst not a penalty, really should have been a red card.
This is not the first time that fans from other teams have been baffled by the reaction on here. We are improving, and I for one think that sooner or later things will begin to click on a more consistent basis, rather than going the other way.
It's not like the league leaders (Allright second at the time) were peppering our goal with shots and the panda got mom again. They had one real good chance and took it. We had plenty of chances at the other end but couldn't make any of them count. It's getting better.
