Again, we're back to maybe over-recruiting? Rather have a shiny new toy than a pragmatic known quantity - and wasting money in the process.
Ohio kept defenders occupied too. If you let him turn and run at you he could well have caused chaos. He’d have created far more space for Belloumi.
I feel Bedia did that for Belloumi and Millar and looked a threat when he was starting. Pedro is anonymous out of the box
Yeah, to be fair he did. But I think Syd's criticism extended beyond the time he came back in and began contributing. The goals eventually shut him up at the end.
I'm not sure our striker is supposed to drop deep and link up under this system. Just like the central midfielders aren't supposed to drop deep and occupy - well, central midfield either.
The 2 advanced seem to just be waiting for a winger to get the ball so that they can combine to get the winger higher. In theory it makes sense, things just aren’t clicking
That's fine if you're if you're in a slower more technical, less physically demanding european league and you have a far superior squad than the vast majority of your opponents. Meanwhile...
I think Bedia has all the tools to be a big player at this level. He’s showed some real brilliance and quick skilful footwork that a guy his size shouldn’t be capable of. He’s also showed us some absolute donkey ****e. With a bit of confidence in a well drilled, nicely organised and settled side I think he could be a very good player.
I think this narrative needs to stop as it’s not true. Clearly as they’ve done worse since he left. The bad results are very fine margins at the minute and confidence is rock bottom hence the inability to recover anymore
Agree. But he does give me the impression of one of those who needs to be continually motivated and focussed though. Which is ultimately why he's here not elsewhere. Probably.
And we've done worse since Rosenior left. Your point being? With respect, championship is a different standard, a different culture and has different demands. if he's going to be as rigid, stubborn, distant and deflective as he's being currently - then it's a foregone conclusion his British football journey will be over. Sooner rather than later.
But surely the narrative of having a better squad being the reason he finished higher is just a nonsense route to take. Because that can literally be applied to why Rosie did so well last season no? A squad with Delap, Philogene, Greaves, Seri, Morton, Tufan, Carvalho. Not many below us had that luxury… plenty of times we’d scrape a result due to one of the above pulling out a bit of magic as opposed to excellent team play
Cov maybe but not in abundance like us. Only player from them I think would’ve started for us last season is Ben Sheaf and Haji Wright, they probably had more experience Boro again, a few players but not in abundance. Only one that comes to mind is Latte Lath. There squad was nowhere near ours in terms of quality.
Liam had a technically 'better' squad in the second half of last season - but he lost Delap which meant the benefit of a Carvallo wasn't a net gain. He also lost Jaden for a significant chunk. They brought in a winger which made Jaden switch and become less effective. They signed a died in the wool wingback to play in a rigid back four. And we regressed from 5th - which he'd achieved with a squad similar to now because we lost cohesion. Too much churn. Not enough stability and genuine, solid, incremental growth. His record against the league table for the time he was in charge of his first season was 8th. He has us 5th in the first half of his second season and only really underperformed after the January influx. Generally speaking, yes we had flaws but I could see a platform to build on. I think it will be another 18 months before we might have a similar platform. And as soon as we get rid of the gaping trapdoor that is Walter's supposed 'philosophy' then we can get on with building it.
Simms, Wright, Sheaf, O'Hare, Sakamoto, Godden, all pretty decent players I would have thought? Latte-Lath, Jones, Morgan Rogers (who is preferred to Philogene at Villa this season), Forss and McGree all had multiple good seasons for Boro.
Rogers left in jan, Forss and McGree wouldn’t have started for us last season. Jones is fair enough. Simms was crap til the end of the season, O’Hare isn’t better than Tufan or Carvalho, Sakamoto another squad level player really. The players I listed for us were among the best in their position for the division, not sure many of those names for CoV n Boro were bar Sheaf, Wright and Lath.
