Genuine question directed at fans who've seen a lot of matches, especially the away games. Adkins (our own Duracell bunny) has been positive about games we have lost and this is obviously shared by his team in interviews. We have lost games, but I know fans have said that we played well even in losing games. So to repeat my question: how many games were we truly poor, as opposed to losing because of an error.
I went to the away games at Reading and Doncaster and we were rather ineffective in both those games.
The problem as I saw it with our "blip" was that instead of like earlier in the season when we had 5 or 6 players really performing great in every game, we suddenly had 5 or 6 players only performing averagly or poorly and only 2 or 3 playing well. Seemed yesterday that everyone played well, no weak links in the side, even taking into account the poor opposition. Plus Forest didn't close down our midfield like other teams had been doing.
there's the key. When we played Forest at St Mary's, we were fantastically good for 30 minutes unti lMcClaren came to the touchline and pushed their front two right onto our CB's when Kelvin had the ball and stopped us playing out from the back. It worked and they got right on top of us. If teams push onto our CBs and stop us playing out it closes the midfield and stops us. i couldn't get there yesterday, but my Forest season ticket holding mate sent me a text at half time and said that they were making us look like barca allowing us to pass it around. In answer to original question, I'd say 6-8 games, including some victories like Hull.
If you just watch home games then the two after Christmas are perfect examples of how the pressing game effects us. Crystal palace backed off and tried to get numbers behind the ball but allowed us to control possession. Morgan was allowed to ping the ball about at will and we could eventually create space in the final third to get chances. Bristol City on the other hand hounded everyone on the ball forcing us to take the longer low percentage option. Had Forest pressed our back four and defensive midfielders then we could have been in trouble as our out ball to Lambert was not on. I didn't go to Doncaster but when teams close us at a high Temp like Bristol & Reading have then we do tend to struggle.
It makes me smile how we all thought that it would be good to get into the Championship as no one would park the bus and would let us play. Of course, we didn't imagine we would be the team to beat in the Championship as well.
A hell of alot of away games have been bad. But that's because teams played how they usually play against us. At home teams tend to back off more, letting us have more time on the ball. All the home games have been good/class bar bristol and maybe hull?. Away from home we tend to play to narrow. Soon as the other team put pressure on we lose our passing game and resorting to playing hoof ball. Granted there has been a few good games away from home (Leicester,Coventry,Brighton,Forest). Hopefully now we are over our away day blip and can push on from now. This will also take some pressure off us at home allowing us to play our game.
