Stating the bleeding obvious, I know, but we've got to tighten up in defence, big time. 2 against every game, is not sustainable in the long term. It obviously means we have to score 2 to get a point, 3 for three points. Whilst I don't think an all out relegation battle is on the cards, with those stats, any advance on the upper half of the table is not achievable.
What was worrying for me was the clumsiness and lack of basic football skills of some of the substitutes. Maybe it was nervousness but Gyabi almost fell over the ball in a really good shooting position, allowing Watford to break away, Akintola continues to oscillate between dangerous and downright comical and Palmer seems to have forgotten how to pass a football. And from having a squad full of wingers we're suddenly short, with Belloumi and Ndala out, Akintola not delivering and Miller being wrapped in cotton wool. I'm not gonna mention the defence. Sergei suddenly has his work cut out to get us back on track.
In general, Gyabi looks more assured playing further up the pitch, which is exactly what many Plymouth fans were saying about him. Not that he got many opportunities to play in that position for them. I'd stick him on from the start in Gelhardt's role and move Gelhardt to RW. He's more than capable there. It's hard to argue that he shouldn't have done that for the Watford game, it just makes more sense in terms of threat, but he was more concerned about Watford's abilities.
I know what you mean about Gyabi but when he came on for Belloumi it seemed to take him 10 mins or so to settle in and for the rest of the game he looked handy. His other appearances have all been cameos late in the game.
I think it’s tough criticising Pandur for either goal, the first, the Watford player was choosing where to put it, I think Pandur thought our player was blocking the area where it went so was expecting it to go across the goal so was wrong footed. The second, McBurnie is out jumped by their player. Pandur is in the middle of the goal & helpless. The initial long ball bypasses the entire midfield. I think overall Watford just had more pace & more tricks. It was weird because the fans were obviously unhappy at halftime & then completely changed their tune after going 2-1 up. Like I said before, they were there for the taking, we just didn’t, we sat back trying to catch them on the break. Once they equalised, we tried to go at them again, instead of trying to keep the ball & tire them out.
i'd imagine we will see millar briefly on tuesday, no more than 10 minutes though and its not just about the goals, but due to pandur having a poor game, he got a big whack to the nose, since he spilt the ball like that, maybe thatll get him playing better i remember crooks seemed a minor issue at the time but he's been out for well over a month now will he be in the squad on tues or is that again too soon?
We need alternative attacking methods , can’t rely on Giles being given room to cross the ball . PNE will be organised and functional as usual .
It may be worse because we're trying to play more attacking football, but Jones was a very reliable centre back, which is why he's playing for a team top of the table. I don't dislike Egan but I'm not convinced he is any better than Jones. And Mcloughlin was very good as a defensive left back, if less dangerous going forward than Giles. On top of that Pandur and Hughes don't seem to be quite at their best. So, plenty of reasons!
Yeah, probably not much between Egan and Jones. Macca, decent in the air but he got subbed early twice as tricky wingers with any pace had him on toast. Decent back up but never a LB.
Pandur has a 57% save percentage this season, the 3rd worst in the division for goalkeepers that have started every game. He’s faced 33 shots on target, the second most in the division. Stats don’t tell the whole story, but those seem pretty representative of what we’re seeing, our defence is crap and putting him under pressure, but when called upon he’s not performing at the level he did last season. For context, he had a 71% save percentage last season, 6th best in the division.
Everyone seemed to rave about Lincoln until the last 6 or so games. I never saw him play really so can’t pass fair comment on him, but I did see some proper bits of skill in highlights. Like a lot of foreign players probably needed a bit of time to get used to playing here rather than thrown in to a struggling side for 6 months battling relegation under a poor manager. Think we would have been better getting him back than Aki from the limited amount of evidence I’ve seen so far. Then again, Aki could well improve his output somewhat after he’s got settled in here, it’s early doors yet.
He's had a drop in form this season, but anyone claiming it means he's not a very decent keeper is being daft.
I don't think I've seen him play well in any game..Over hits a simple pass, gets the ball taken from him with ease, runs into a dead end, but he seems like a chipper character so he gets a game!!! Not the recipe I'd follow.
I don't feel like I'd have expected him to get many of the shots that went in. I recall he didn't have a great game against Blackburn but he had McCarthy in front of him, and the team were ill, but i don't recall anything outside of that match Overall, we've conceded 14, and opponents post shot xG is 12.5, so difference of -1.5, which isn't great, but that's the same as Boro, and significantly less than QPR, Oxford, Sheff U, Southampton. Our opponents have also got the best post shot xG per shot on target, at 0.38, meaning he's faced the best quality shots in the division, which tracks with my feeling that I wouldn't have expected him to stop many of the goals. Face enough shots and some will go in, so we need to stop them shooting
