A pretty acurate assessment Col, iv'e put it down as a bad day at the office, we need something Saturday what with City & Chelsea coming next
Good report as ever col. Agree with what you and other posters have commented on this thread. I did get a sense before we kicked off that something wasn't right. The players attitude and body language was not as it should be, especially for the first home game of the season. I can't put my finger on it, but something was amiss. Maybe it was something to do with appointing Park as captain. I can imagine that decision may well of put a lot of noses out of joint. Giving the captaincy to a player who has just walked through the door is never a good move. I can't really think of any other club that has done this, apart from us last season. I'm pretty sure that this had much to do with our dis-jointed performance as much as anything else.
Excellent write up col. No issue with anything there and I strongly agree re the Captaincy. Apologies if anyone has said this elsewhere but Barton is ten times the captain Park is, though a fraction of the character! Very sad re Green BUT we must support the lad as he is now QPR's keeper. I was so disappointed to hear the R Block sarcastically clapping the man. Ridiculous and in no way helpful. I actually did wake up feeling better this am. 'Happy' to chalk it off as a freak / fluke and see what the next few games bring. Onwards and upwards.
Good report and agree with the majority. One point though - Ferdinand - for me he was very shaky indeed - and was nearly always on the wrong side of Graham.
Seems a few thought Ferdinand was worse than I did. For me, he and Hill were exposed badly by the system we played. Didn't think he was "stand out bad" like one or two others!
Agree, him and Hill were exposed time and again. I comes back to our age old problem of the midfield failing time and again - and tbh that was the exact problem - the midfield didnt support Cisse as they were too deep - and we had too many attacking players in the midfield (who didnt actually attack!) rather than a properly defensive minded player to help Hill and Ferdinand.
Good write up col I agree with your ratings, I think this formation will work better away from home, Swansea 1st Half were very deep, there were a few times in the first half Cisse was making runs of the last man and park, Hoilett etc have not played with him long enough to know which channels he's running into imo. Mackie miss major turning point, but it was a great save, I think Tarrabt looked great for the 1st 30mins and looks like he'll link up well with Hoilett. We were shocking defensively especially at set pieces I am alot more optimistic after this defeat than after the Bolton one.
There's no point in saying that the midfield were responsible for the goals, we had six players behind the ball when Michu scored his first, courtesy of butterfingers. Bad passing was responsible for most of the goals, it dogged us all last season and it continued yesterday. Give the ball away, particularly chasing a game and you're a dead duck in the PL...
Thats the problem though - they sat far too deep. Last season at home v Swansea we pressed and pressed their midfield to force mistakes. We were happy to let their defenders have it but when it got to the midfield we pressed. Yesterday we didnt. We only started pressing until it was near our box - far too late. We sar far to deep all day - hence Cisse left on his own up front.
Great read Col. Watched it live on Internet and agree it was a freak result Stats on sky said i dont know how accurate they are: Swansea 7 attempts on target they scored with five We had one more but scored none We both had equal pass completion and time on the ball And we were up on corners. I think it looked like we trying too hard at times and agree Adel is no good deep at all ... I think this will of hurt them and their egos and I expect something now we can't lose our first five games ... Can we?
Was hoping that unlike me, you wouldn't be so dis-spirited as to lose the will to live, let alone write a Col Report after that farce. Glad to see you're man enough even in the face of disaster mate! A great and obviously accurate account, as others have said. Only thing I'd take issue with is Taarabt's positioning being Hughes' fault. Taarabt just loves that deep left-sided position from which to approach his game. With Hoilett there and evidently more than competent, Taarabt had every opportunity to link closer to Cisse. The fact he didn't then (and where similar opportunities arose last year) shows our Messiah's limitations in full focus. Those limitations include heading the ball. When was the last time he did that? It'd be a great help to have both him and Cisse as central aerial targets when we're attacking. As for Green, I keep reading that we should give him a chance - but just like nervous airline pilots, you cannot build any level of confidence around a nervous keeper. Maybe he'll man-up but I for one will not be holding my breath all the way to ground zero! Time to recall Cerny and buy in a real prospect.
Quite excellent post. Dont know about that finishing in top ten, but our playing will improve a lot from that. You were dead right about that turning point. IF Green only would have take that quite easy shot from Michu and then IF Mackie only would have scored from that sitter of his then Swansea would have had a mountain to climb....Yes i know after 0-5 humilation it sounds ridicolous and Swansea did have their chances too, but it was really the turning point of yesterdays match. By the way another excellent report rangercol!
If that is the case then he should be dropped!! I can't believe though that MH and his team wouldn't have been up and screaming at him after 20 mins if what you describe were true. I watched the bench yesterday and MH was sat for vitually all of the first half. If Adel had so flagrantly been defying instructions I believe MH would have been up and tearing him a new one. No....I'm sure Taarabt was told to get on the ball as often as possible and influence the game. Watching from the stands it was obvious that he was playing a deep role which was tactically very wrong. Down to MH for me!!
A newbie to the forum .......... have supported this one and only club thru all the ups and downs, for the past 41 years. Like you all, to say I was completed gutted by yesterdays performance would be an understatement. Maybe we need to ring Warnock to ask for our old goalkeeper back! ( was disappointed he left ) Our keepers actions set the tone for the day. As some of you have mentioned, Green hopefully will settle down asap. Cheers.
Exactly, he was being played in the same role as Faurlin would have been playing, he tried to chase back and help out which is more than Hoilett did all game.
