24,922 but definitely lots of empty seats. I'm pretty sure Season Ticket holders are counted in attendance figures even if they don't attend. I'll be there Saturday - looks like I'll have plenty of choice where to sit!
I thought there was much better structure to our play tonight and Clement's tactics will become more evident once there is more training time to get what he wants across and builds fitness into the squad.
Fair enough, but I think you’re being a bit harsh on Sargent. He ran his legs off tonight, almost played as a midfielder the amount of defensive work he was doing but he looks bereft of confidence near the box unfortunately. If anything shows the difference a bit of confidence can do it’s the difference between him at the start of the season and now. Certainly not lacking effort or interest for me though
Sorry Suffolk but I never accused Sargent of lack of effort. If however ' he almost played as a midfielder' and is praised for the amount of defensive work he was doing that indicates to me, rightly or wrongly, a loss of interest in his main function as a striker. That well be lack of confidence but a striker is not going to get his confidence as a a striker back by playing as a midfielder. As for the rest - when I see young players with their hands on knees getting their breath back after 30 mins it made me despair as to what has gone on at Colney and I exclude the back 4 from that complaint.
Apologies if I mistook your meaning of a lack of interest as a lack of effort, the 2 would be hand in hand for me. I think he is showing interest in trying to help the team in anyway possible, he had more touches in and around the box last night than I’ve seen for a while. I’m not sure why you are trying to criticise a player that is working as hard as he can to help the team, at worst you could say he is channeling his efforts in the wrong way but to question his interest is mad to me.
Sorry to bring it up again but this is classic 'expectation perception' 1950. You expect to see bang average performances so that is the way you see performances. There were variations to be sure. Topić and Marcondes could be described as 'average', IMO, but not the others, especially Sargent, who as Suffolk says, worked his socks off. He had a very good chance with a point blank header early on and 2 or 3 other chances as I recall. Makama, McLean and Schwartau were also excellent, IMO. Makama's goal was perfectly executed as the replay showed. Here's the WhoScored ratings:
Again a slight misunderstanding on what I mean. I do not doubt his effort or his desire to help the team but his main interest as a striker is to score goals. Take one example last night. He picked up the ball just outside the box faced by two defenders. The Sargent of old would have cut inside to try and create space to get a shot away but last night he dithered a bit and then went on the outside trying to get past the defenders until he just ran out of space and ran the ball out of play. On the bright side I thought that McConvile was very sound and Darling looked his old self because he had a partner he could trust. I thought Stacey was our best player and Fisher did a decent job out of position. The rest left a lot to be desired including Kenny in the first half.
Sorry Rick but my ' expectation perception ' is that we should be capable of beating at home what is considered to be the favourites for relegation. We did not create and miss a bucketful of good chances, did not batter the woodwork, rarely looked like increasing our lead and I couldn't have been the only person who could see that equaliser coming from a player who should have been picked up by one of our midfielders. The reality is that we have got 10 points from 17 games - 30 points less than the leaders - are in the relegation zone, will be 5 points from safety if Sheff Utd win their game in hand and I cannot bring myself to do cartwheels of joy when getting a point at home against what is probably the worst team in the league. If, as you say, 9 players were excellent and 2 were average how do you explain the result? To me the Juresek fiasco is just another example of a Club in crisis. I do suspect that Clement can pull this round but to do that there has got to be a vast improvement on individual and team performances to what we have seen all season including last night.
What I saw was a big improvement on what has gone before, not perfect, not battering down but we should have scored more and were let down by one defensive error by the missing midfielder. Our tactical structure was much improved and allowed us to dominate most of the time. What I also saw was that improvement and the potential for more in coming games as Clement gets more training time and injured players return and develop match fitness. I was disappointed that Kvistgaarden didn't get on before stoppage time, as I see him and Makama as the keys to helping Josh get back on track. The result was disappointing, but for me it was our best balanced performance for some time and something to build upon.
Amazing how people see things differently. I thought Stacy was very average, his forward passes were well over hit. Makama was very good, so was Sargent but not offensively. Schwartau was also decent. The less said about Macondes the better. In reality while he was on the pitch we were playing with ten men.
Jurasek needs to be off-loaded asap. He can join the likes of Rachica & Tzolis who were hailed as some of the best youngsters in Europe but ended up as expensive flops.
As with everything it is in the eye of the beholder but I don't call 50.8% possession and 15 shots to 12 against a very poor side 'domination' Lets see where we are in 3 games time.
Problem is that he has 5 years left on his contract so off loading him might be easier said than done
Sargent is employed primarily as a striker. His other contributions on the pitch are applauded by the fans, but he has not scored in 13 games now. Kvistgaaden and Makama have scored 7 goals between them since Sergent last scored. Perhaps Sargent could start in midfield with either of the former two players taking on the main striker role?
I did say 'dominate most of the time' but yes, dominate is too strong, more like 'upper hand' perhaps. QPR will be another test, as they are currently 16th, but I'm hoping we will see further 'green shoots' of recovery that will continue through to your 3 game target QPR(h) Watford(a), Sheffield Utd(a). Here's hoping.
It might be worth waiting a bit longer to see if Clement can work with him and help develop his potential. Tzolis is currently playing at Brugge, Clement's former club and is valued at €30m on TransferMarkt.
