I'm confident we will be safe and would say the fire is nearly out. I'm sure like you say we'll see a lot of deadwood gone and the beginnings of a team that can hold their own in the top 6. The future is bright. The future is blue.
We would all like to be entertained and watch open decent and attractive football but its very much a case of needs must at the moment. Keeping up by all means possible is the no1 priority and attractive nicey, nicey football will just have to wait! Your last sentence makes me laugh and grimace in equal measure! Who did we have in midfield under Jewell? Bowyer, Bullard, Leadboots & Norris! Andrews on loan who scored a few before he left! WOW they really set the place a light with their attractive style didn't they! Mick's first priority is to keep us safe and then to build a team to mount a serious challenge next season so lets not put the cart before the horse.
I generally thought in the middle third of the pitch we looked decent under Jewell. On many occassions we passed and moved well and actually our final ball wasn't too bad. The problems were generally mistakes at the back and being very open and also a failure to take our chances or due to the fact we only had 1 upfront there weren't enough people in the box to attack the final ball.
The biggest problem we had was that he insisted on having players out of position and wouldn't change things when it was obvious that it wasn't working! The midfield was only one symptom of the malaise that we were going through during his tenure! Mick has steadied a sinking ship and with a bit more hard work and determination we will survive this season. This season is a damning verdict on the misguided Evans years with a clueless CEO and a hapless manager who was painfully out of his depth. I think we are all agreed that although things are not perfect by any means at least we have started to turn the corner in a just a few short months under Mick's Stewardship. He is firefighting at the moment but come the summer he will show what he's all about when recruiting the quality we desperately need. Its unfair to criticise the style (or lack of) shown so far when its not style we are after but earning valuable points. Its is painfully obvious that a number of players we have just aren't good enough to push on to the next level.
Very true JWM he's done fantastic so far in changing our fortunes and especially making us looked more organised and solid at the back but our home performances we've been outplayed by teams lower than us, in both we were quite lucky really to come out with a point!! And I think part of it is because of a lack of trying to keep the ball on the floor and keep possession and also having more defensively minded players over a bit more creative one's in the team.
ptc I agree with your premise about the need to be more expansive and creative. And yes we need to be beating teams at Portman Road especially the ones that are below us in the league. What I will say is that we are in the most undpredictable and crazy league in England where anyone can beat anyone! We have no given right to turn over teams like barnsley and they will come to portman road to fight and scrap for everything. Its not an edifying experience I agree but this is what we will have to do for the rest of the season. Our Away form is pretty good and I can see us beating Bristol next week. If you remember a few seasons back under jim we went through this extraordinary sequence where 1 season we only lost 1 home game all season and winning the majority but couldn't win away followed by a season where it was the complete opposite! I know we have a lot of disagreements on here mainly through my intransigence but we do agree on quite a lot of things actually!
With you on this warky. As I've said in previous posts we're very much at a needs must juncture at this time. Survival is paramount and far from assured yet but what MM has done so far is doing what he was asked when he took the job on. Get us up the table and safe. When that's guaranteed lets then look forward to next season and some more flair to go with what is looking like a pretty solid defence.
Madads I agree mate. To put some perspective on things, yes we are havng a dip of form since the away win at Wolves but we have only lost 1 out of the last 3! In seasons gone by we would have easily lost the last 3 and be in the ****e again. I would be really worried if I were a Blackpool or Huddersfield supporter as they are in free fall along with Wolves! There are plenty of teams involved in this scramble but I feel more than confident that we will get ourselves to safety. This will be a huge achievement considering the mess we were in back in October.
And long may it continue JWM , I would agree with you on that point but I don't know what intransigence means
The sky sports highlights are up, I have to say I don't know what else Loach can do to stay as our number 1 because he looks like a top keeper. http://www.skysports.com/video/inline/0,,26947_8417844,00.html
Lets face it Barnsley played the better football for the majority of the game and we can be thankful for a point, if Harewood had taken his 3 one on ones with our keeper we would have been dead and buried by half time. We seemed to get overrun in midfield so there was very few passes for our strikers to latch on to and what were those long hoofballs up the field all about? we dont play like that. It reminded me of the Bristol City match where once again we were overwhelmed in mid field, but I suppose a point is more than we would have got a few weeks ago so we have to be pleased with that. Immense respect to the few Barnsley fans that made the trip in foul conditions and a very uncertain weather forecast, I hope they all got home ok. On the subject of Bristol City we are going on Saturday its the only ground Ive ever been to where away fans seats have no backs to them, you going jonny?
My god reading this board currently is like going back to reading 606 under Keane. There is a major difference between having a tighter defence and just hoofing it aimlessly We seriously could (and probably should) have lost 5,6 or 7 - 1 on Saturday against a team lower down the table than us. Marlon Harewood is not exactly small or pacy but he managed to get behind our defence about 5 times and if he was wearing his shooting boots could have got 4 all by himself. We didnt look tight, we looked bloody lucky and it wasnt a one-off. Peterborough should have scored a few and our last 3 or 4 home performances have been poor. On the attacking front, we have let DJ wonder off to pastures new and have replaced him with 3 strikers who combined look like less of a threat then he did. MM seems to favour playing one striker who runs around alot and does little (Mclean now, Barnett before, although thats slightly harsh on Barnett as he had very little opportunity to show other sides to his game) and McGoldrick spent more time right wing than in the box. We moved up the table with Mick getting back to basics but we only really had DJ to rely on to get the crucial goals. I think we should be safe but we have very little idea or threat still and I hope that our board gives MM some decent support over the next week. If not we are going to be in for a bumpy ride. Our midfield has two very defensive players in the centre, Martin who is worse than the average 11 year old. (I actually thought Murphy done more on LW in his short time on the pitch than Martin offered for the rest of the game and I normally think Murphy out wide is a stupid idea!) and Edwards looks like a RB when playing RW and a RW when playing RB. His crossing is just not good enough long term. I hadnt been very active on these boards over the last week or 2 because I knew what kind of response I would get for posting this type of thread but I am seriously worried about our squad. MM needs to be backed or we could be ******* long term. (I await the obvious responses)
You make some good points TB. We lack creativity etc but as we all know this season is all about survival. The more entertaining side of the game will just have to be put on the back burner until we are mathematically safe in this league. Mick pretty much said the same thing himself in his post match interview where he sugggested that substance over style was the order of the day until he knew we were safe and he could start to try new things out towards the end of the season. It's certainly not going to be plain sailing from now until May but I have confidence we will arrive still as a championship team and Mick does have an eye on next season already. The good thing about it is he isn't spending obscene amounts of cash or offering lucrative contracts but is building something for the future in a way that wouldn't **** us too hard were we to go down. Expect the big money to be spent in the summer after we know where we will be playing our football.
