The defence got better when Hughes arrived, not sure TW had much to do with it, His arrival seems to have given Jones his confidence back, he used to look terrified when McLoughlin went on walkabout upfield then was too slow to get back!
I’m at the point where I’m tired of getting coaches with philosophies that require the perfect XI to make it work. We’ve historically struggled getting our top targets. Work with what we’ve got and adapt slightly. Pandur is a good shot stopper and he’s ok at short passing but he’s not Ryan Allsop in terms of his passing ability
That’s obviously what Walter was telling him to do, Macca and Jones made one of the most solid CB pairings in the division just over a year ago under a different manager so clearly they can play well together as a partnership.
And Hughes is doing the same only he's better at it. So the defence got better when Hughes arrived, TW didn't need to do anything.
I think the idea that we’d be miles better if only we had a goal keeper who could pass like Kevin De Bruyne is laughable. A keeper is meant to stop goals and Pandur does it fine.
Then the point would be TW was insisting the players play in a way that didn’t suit them and caused them to make mistakes. Macca looked totally lost when he was up the pitch anyway, would get the ball in space and not have a clue what to do next. It was absolutely ridiculous, he should have just been playing as a centre half not a centre forward.
our passing out at the back was abysmal - how many times did we give the ball away needlessly and put ourselves under pressure - and when we were chasing a result why would Pandur get hold of the ball, not release it and slow the play down giving Portsmouth time to get back into position - ffs - very frustrating - very poor second half - Tim went absolutely mental on the side when Coyle ran up field , stopped and passed back again - as I said very frustrating - on a separate issue, I've just realised that an anagram of 'Tim' and 'Acun' is I'm a **** - in fact it's more than that if you had tim acun tim acun tim acun in lights going round the edge of the pitch there would be numerous im a ****s going round - oh well - roll on Oxford
Hughes has, by and large made a huge difference. Bringing the best from Jones too. He does have a mistake in him though.
First half was decent today. Still not enough creativity on the whole, only two real chances although Simons should've scored the second one. Pedro's goal was what we've been wanting to see. Hughes' pass out to the wing was perfect, arrowed at Belloumi with pace, controlled expertly and that probably meant that the defence was just that bit higher and less organised than if we'd taken longer to get it under control like we normally do. Pedro did what he's previously shown glimpses of being able to do. A wonderfully simple goal, made possible by the standard of the entire move being high from back to front. I can't remember many times we've collapsed more dramatically than that though. To concede so quickly, and comically was piss-poor, and then our reaction to it was awful. Portsmouth's tails were up, same with their crowd, and we just didn't stand up to their pressing and physicality. We didn't have a way of playing over or around them when they got tight to us, and we seemed to lose composure. Hughes and Pandur passed directly to the holding midfielder (Simons and then later Zambrano) on a couple of occasions which totally caught them out because, as we know, that isn't part of the plan. That midfielder is told to stay out of the build-up. Then Pandur giving in and booting one long because we'd just bottled it trying to play out. I find it a bit embarrassing when we're resorting to that because the bottom side is pressing us and we can't hack it. It's not the first time we've failed to stand up to a fight this season. My biggest concern with Tim isn't anything tactical, it's whether he can get the players to fight for him.
Feels like we need the best in the league at their respective position to have this system remotely close to working.
