Got away with one there. Cordoba gets a 2nd yellow, sent off. And he's laughing about it. Now we concede again We are falling apart, manager needs to get a grip with our players
That shouldn’t a yellow card for Cordoba. Potentially said something he shouldn’t as well as Sainz was trying to cover his mouth. And now we concede
This rebuild season goes from bad to worse. We are collecting yellow cards for fun and now another red. If Gunns discipline hearing results in a ban, then the Boxing Day fixture against Millwall could see three NCFC players on bans. In this rebuild season it would be refreshing to see an occasional victory.
Bizarre refereeing, but it has to be said we are a dreadfully fragile side mentally. Another three points thrown away completely. More appalling discipline. Needless and mindless. McLean has a lot to answer for.
Personally think we have gone toe to toe with most of the best sides this season. Looked like we tired in midfield again
I think that fragility is at the heart of our problems. JHT is clever and speaks well, but the players lack discipline and they get thrown off course by rough tactics. Sainz was a classic of that and his game has suffered as a result. More of that is coming next week against Millwall.
I don't agree that we are particularly mentally fragile as a side. If you look at metrics such as points gained from losing positions, and points lost from winning positions, while we are certainly not particularly resilient, nor are we especially fragile; we are pretty much bang average. McLean's getting himself suspended for eight games, just at the point when the injury crisis involving several of the more experienced core of the side (Sargent, Núñez, Gunn) was beginning to ease, has left a lot of responsibility lying on the shoulders of newcomers and younger members of the side. Despite which, as Suffolk said, we managed to outplay Burnley and Sunderland over large parts of those two games, and came within a whisker of salvaging a point at the death in both.
A more concerning statistic is that we've now lost 6 of our last 10 games with one win (at home to Luton) and 3 draws making up the other 4 games - a grand total of 6 points from a possible 30. I like Thorup, but I'm not convinced that his tactics will ever allow us to be defensively sound. Entertaining it might be, but enjoyable it isn't. Much may depend on the January window, but with Fassnacht likely returning to Switzerland and Gordon another possible departure, we have several weaknesses to deal with. Hanley is now seemingly out of the picture (judging by last night's substitutions), leaving the defence spread thin as well. Hernandez starting up front last night is another suggestion of desperation creeping in. Not a pretty picture. Yes, the Pinkun journos will go on telling us that we have to be patient, but I'm still not convinced. We need some points, not promises.
Achieve a better balance between attack and defence. Too many players commit forward then get caught out by counterattacks. Last night we lost the ball in the centre of the pitch and their player had an unopposed run at our goal and should have scored, but fortunately shot wildly. We are not scoring many goals at the moment (2 goals in the last 4 games) so we should put more emphasis on not conceding (7 goals in the last 4 games).
In every match in probably the last ten we have had passages of excellent play, but usually followed by disastrous and unacceptable mistakes that give us no chance of getting a positive result. I would say, possibly wrongly, that no team has actually clearly beaten (ok, QPR) us in that spell, but we have been the architects of our own downfall.
