Another thing I’ve noticed is lack of creativity with this current midfield three. We’ve chopped and changed the midfield loads this season. Walter couldn’t settle on a midfield and tried combinations of Zambrano, Simons, Burns, Slater, Puerta, Mehlem, Palmer and Ömür in a midfield three. Sellés seems to have settled with Slater, Alzate and Puerta but there’s little creativity. Slater and Puerta are both good at carrying the ball forward but struggle to make that final pass and Alzate is playing as the deepest midfielder so isn’t able to create in the final third. Alzate should be playing as one of the number 8s, in my opinion. He’s probably the best passer we have available and he’s a bit wasted playing so deep, much like Seri was for large periods under Rosenior because we lacked a natural ball-winner to sit deeper.
Vaughn had a blocked shot that he should have done better with, Slater just wide following pressure from Pedro, Alzate just wide, Geldhardt scored.
I thought Gelhardt looked okay and nice to see him score but yeah, I thought the same. I don’t think he’s a winger either. He tried taking his full-back on a few times tonight and just got stood up and lost the ball. Not exactly a winger full-backs would be ****-scared of defending in one-on-one situations. Same goes for Burstow and probably Kamara too.
Our wide players are absolutely ****ing ****, both full backs and wingers. We have **** all there. Why oh why I just can’t understand why we keep trying to play with four wide players when we don’t have a single competent player available in any position out there. We have some fairly decent options down the middle. Good old school defensive 4-4-2 with 4 centre halves and 4 centre mids or something, the kind of thing a rescue specialist like big fat Sam or Colin would always have done in years gone by. Give pedro a bit of sorely needed assistance up top too.
Between injuries, bans, players unavailable because they're being lined up for a move away and Joseph signed but not registered in time to play, we were missing 14 (fourteen) players tonight. That really is shambolic.
Burstow is out of his depth on tonight’s cameo. Macca made some great passes to the opposition. Drameh started well but is not consistent enough and always an error in him Geldhart shows experience beyond his years Pedro was ineffective tonight - number of games catching up with him perhaps Jacob should have started at left back Vaughn did well but might be better as an impact sub on 70 mins We’ve got 2 decent keepers Think Slater needs a rest QPR half a yard faster than us tonight
It won’t be far off. As it stands, all but four teams in the division have earned at least a point a game. If that continues it will be 46 points minimum.
I think it goes hand in hand. He wants a smaller squad of players who are available. In 2022 and again this year we've cultivated these massive squads of players where half of them are either injured or we've given up on and are trying to get rid of. We need to be so much more deliberate and considered with our recruitment and sign players who we actually know we want long term. Not be signing players in one window and then replacing them the next, and losing games with a total lack of options available whilst we're in the middle of a drawn out process of replacing those players and they're unavailable in the meantime. It's a buzzword but we have to look at teams like Brentford. They stick with their manager and they stick with the players they sign. KLP took 2-3 years to become a regular but they stuck with him and it's paying off. We don't seem to have the resolve to do that, and we flip-flop between managers with different styles which brings more chaos.
I maintain that very few home crowds are 'good' nearly every away game you go to you come away thinking they were **** fans, didn't make a sound apart from when they scored, we're no different but it's been such a long time since we were good at home people have just forgotten what it's like, there's a nervousness from kick off and the second the opposition score you can feel any life in the ground disappearing. 2 noisiest games, consistently through the 90, I've been to in the last 12 months were Leeds and Ipswich, no coincidence that we scored 3 both times and played some energetic football....as Buffy the vampire slayer once said
Palmer, Omur, Allsop, Woods, Drameh, Giles, Racioppi, there's probably plenty more where we've signed them and then 12 months later been desperately trying to shift them out.
That's all definitely true. But I think there's an extra eeriness around some of our home games these days, even beyond the usual weak home support that's typical of English football. It really didn't feel like a league game tonight, even before they scored.
I was joking ok And absolutely agree A poster on here said we’ll make money selling Hughes the other day!! **** me he’s only been here five months!!
Like I've said in another post, our results in the home games against the sides around us will be key.
I didn't think we were bad tonight. We all know that the final third is where we are lacking, and a starting 11 including Harry Vaughan shows that. He actually did well first half, although for all he looks busy and runs at people, has he ever scored or assisted in the first team? Apart from the second goal I thought Drameh was decent, carried the ball forwards quickly and combined well with Gelhardt. We desperately need more down the left. Macca offers nothing going forward and the wing options just aren't enough. Pedro is a great player but he needs help, he should be getting an hour tops. I think we will be ok, the signings all improve us and we are much better organised now, but it isn't great.
Did you actually go the game? Crooks made one hell of a difference when he came on. I don't think he was a yard off the pace at all. His physical presence alone stiffened up the midfield and he used the ball well, tackled and won headers. What else did you expect him to do? If we lacked anything tonight, goals obviously, it was a winger, and height of course. QPR were decent but before they scrambled up that first goal the game had 0-0 written all over it.
