Match Day Thread WBA v Swans

Dai - what would you have said if that performance had been delivered under Laudrup?

In many respects, it was as bad as Laudrup's last game as Manager at West Ham.

As we are mid-table and "arguably" safe, perhaps the players are switching off...... but I don't buy that.

 

Apologies if someone has already pointed this out by why is it we have such a soft underbelly. As soon as teams start to get stuck in and give us no time on the ball we fall apart. We're not Barca who can dink the ball around and get free of the harrying. In fact our first touch on the ball is so gash that the oppo nearly always have the opportunity to get the foot in.

So what is going on behind the scenes? And what's happened to the Spanish assistant manager? Haven't seen him on the bench or did I just miss him?

 

This from an individual who constantly ignores the positives that were prevalent under Laudrup. Pathetic,and embarrassing.

 

No we have that top coach Kris O'Leary giving instructions, Talk about going backwards.

 

It would be more entertaining to give Pintado some "crack",and then send him in Robbie Savage's direction.

 

Josip Collett is always sat next to Monk giving him advice (and was last night), not sure why you are both assuming O'Leary has taken the role on? That said, it obviously isn't working atm anyway :s

 

As distinct from Monk's "brand of football". Jeez.

 

I have seen O'Leary on the line giving players instructions on many occassions, whether they were passed to him by Monk I don't know.

 

The only difference is that Pullis gets effort out of his team, there isn't much difference in the styles of football anymorel.

 

9th place - under Monk - "so can't complain"

9th place;League Cup;Europa Cup - under Laudrup - yet you can't stop complaining.

 

Pulis will get effort out of a stone. He's that kind of a guy.

 

Well, at least we still beat them on aggregate... Barrel officially scraped of all silver linings.

Last night was as poor as it gets, and if/when we slip into the lower half of the table, our current buffer to the relegation places may be the only thing that saves us. If we drop into contention with the relegation candidates, the board had better think long and hard about opening up Outlook to send the e-mail.

 

Another moan sorry,happy clappers feel free to skip this post. What a load of rubbish and I couldn't wait for the ref to blow the whistle to get out of there. It was another good turn out by our loyal away fans,but we were shocked into silence as the game went on,as lowly WBA showed us up as mere pretenders to our top half position. They were quicker to the ball,didn't allow us any space,defended stoutly throughout,and capitalised on our schoolboy defending for their two goals. We however were weak and lethargic,and just not good enough for this league. Thank god we have points on the board for we looked like relegation candidates last night,absolutely clueless. For all you armchair critics who think I'm exaggerating,well you had to be there to see it, just read the reports from the fans who attended.
The only consolation for me on the long trip home through the massive traffic jam on the M5 was that the players were suffering too,having to come home by bus also,for a change,instead of flying,and saw first hand what we go through travelling by road to away games,and getting home in the early hours of the morning.
Where we go from here I don't know,can Monk turn it around,has he lost the dressing room,it's obvious the players are not playing for him,nor to their full capabilities and were without any cohesion or game plan.

 

Respect for going up to the game on a work night. You paid your money and time, so you're especially entitled to a moan. For once it seems that in the stadium and the TV coverage added up to the same result - we were poor. Prettier than normal, but with nothing in the final third. Montero was the only player capable of going past his man, and whenever he did, the player that he squared/crossed it to (Gomis x2 and Routledge the worst offenders) duly wasted his fantastic work. We desperately need Gylfi back for his goal threat and set pieces, as well as his understanding and link up play with Montero.

 

They didn't just capitalise on our poor defending but overall looked organised and attacked with pace ,you can have all the procession in the world but as you rightly quoted they converted 50% of their chances ,our shots were feeble efforts and we lacked imagination, the last 20 minutes we were devoid of any ideas and played at a snails pace , for me at least Oliveria imo came out of the game with any credit he never stopped trying .

 

Poor game from us yesterday, WBA offered little and we offered even less. Very disappointing because we are better than yesterdays performance suggests.

Problem we have is that we, first time for a long time, don't have a striker so our attack is pointless, lets face it, its as blunt as a bag of spuds.

In the first half of games, in general, we play decent football, we pass well, move with intent and probe for openings but all comes to nought as invariably, there's little or no box action.

Yesterday Gomis was on his arse more than a kid on a skateboard and I am very concerned, so much so I'd cut my losses right now and give Emness a shot.

Unless we do something now we're doomed to struggle to the end of the season.

The rest of the season for me is us having to endure the consequences of the boards calculated risk to sell Bony. Once we get to the summer we can either sell Gomis or give him a mop, gloves, overalls and point him to the toilets in the west stand and, its a big and, sign Alexander Mitrovic

 

Pullis didn't stop cajoling & instructing his team last night, .they're work rate exceeded ours and pressed in numbers .He's not my sort of manager but then he gets results and can get a misfiring team into some sort of cohesive unit which was more than evident.

 

"Very disappointing because we are better than yesterdays performance suggests."
Are we?
That was no worse than we've produced for most of the season. Apart from a brief flashes of quality and the odd step up for 'big games' we bumbled along and scraped a handful of results.
The result last night was disappointing but the performance was not surprising.

 

I think most clubs work harder than us. I believe if we actually put the effort in a Burnley, Leicester put in to games and coupled with our better quality we would be further up the league. We just seem to be apathetic and have been for an awful long time. Can Gm get them going, it doesn't seem so.

 

Only pluses I saw from the shoddy Russian stream I was watching on was Montero beating his man but final ball wasn't always on the money. Thought Ki, Cork and Naughton all looked tidy but the rest was a shower.

I like Pulis as he builds teams and puts emphasis on work rate.