and you sir look through rose tinted glasses where Thudd is concerned, so I suspect the only irrelevance here is your good self !
Hatpins back in the handbags girls (forgive the pun) and, according to Mr Hat's profile he is a 16 year old girl fathered by Mr Garrison of South Park so show some respect. But, back to the game, I never saw it either but my rello's who did and the fans on facebook (who did) all tell me that it simply wasn't our night. Hit the bar, hit the post and a certain penalty appeal denied. their Goalie played a blinder 9why the hell do opposition Goalies always seem to save their 'game of the season' when they play us) plus we dominated with shots on goal but the difference was that they scored and we didn't. Could have got all 3 points or at least 1 point for a draw but we got sweet fanny adams.
I don't why he subbed Huddleston either because I thought he was having a decent game Perhaps the pre match plan was not to hit the ball long which Tom was doing ? I don't think the state of the pitch has been taken into consideration. It looked awful and appeared to be holding water the longer the game went on. Same for both teams I know but Brum got the lucky bounce that alluded us. On the positive side. Every place is up for grabs the next time we play a Championship game. Which means those who are chosen to play against arsenal have something to prove. I'd have felt a lot more disappointed this morning if we had lost two or three nil last night and not turned up. But we did, we battered them, outplayed them, and looked as though we wanted the points, but we couldn't get that one clean strike on goal. That's football. Every team in the Championship will have those sort of days between now and the end of the season.
The formation and tactics weren't any problem at all last night, or against Wednesday. We cut both teams apart aplenty and especially last night how many times did we get the ball behind the defence or a shooting chance right in front of goal? On a day like Charlton all those chances go in and we score 6, on a night like last night we fall to bits in front of goal and it just doesn't go in the net. 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 or 4-4-2 isn't going to make a difference to a players ability to take a shot and get it in the net. What 5-3-2 will do is take away our wingers and cut our width and support for the front men leaving them even more isolated and giving them even more work to do. I agree about the substitutes. Tom and Dave were doing well, Diame, Clucas and Snodgrass were having mares and most our attacks were breaking down at them.
Not treating him like a boo boy and blaming him for everything isn't looking through rose tinted glasses. He made a lot more than one tackle and played more useful balls forward than anyone on the pitch by the time he was brought off. He was having a positive impact on the game and bringing him off was the wrong move.
If their manager comes out and says that before anything else about their tactics it's a bit of a worry that Huddlestone is known to be a weak link to be exploited to that extent, saying that if Bruce heard him saying it then he might have done us a favour as he seems oblivious to that or not concerned by it
In case anybody missed it the first thing their manager came out with last night being interviewed was how they set out to exploit 'pockets of space' around Huddlestone. I'm not buying into the Clucas bashing either, he should have scored but was also massively unlucky with a wonder block from their player and was getting into striking positions despite being played out wide, what's more telling was Hernandez lack of contribution from the central forward position. I think Clucas probably needs a rest but he is by far one of our better players usually
Agreed. I was surprised when he brought him off too. I thought he was playing well. Got stuck in, played some bloody great passes and was an oasis of calm in a pretty frenetic midfield. Haters gotta hate I guess. I wonder if other teams have groups of fans who need to have a boo boy all the time.
After the dust has settled, it was a really poor night as has been in previous performances. The only things I can blame Bruce for last night were the inclusion and playing of Diomande when he has someone in his squad that scored a hat trick 3 weeks ago and hasn't has game time since and is an England Under 21 international and the blind faith in someone 'Clucas' whose confidence must now be at an all time low. He talks about not relying on Abel, but every team now knows how to nullify his skill by sticking their two biggest men on him and we are not even using his pace by playing over the top and turning them. We play in front of their back 4 or 5 and the 2 they stick in front of that. Hernandez in Clucas's position last night would have scored 3/4/5 but the chances aren't coming to him and you can see his frustration increasing match by match. We play some very good football at this level, but we're not Premiership standard by a long way and the space you get in that division isn't available. Unfortunately there has to be a Plan B. Ive been slated for saying use Maguire for 10 minutes up front and please be honest anyone who posts here, would you rather not have that than 33 minutes of nothing from Bruces choice of forward replacement last night !!? Lets hope we get done another favour tonight and over the weekend. One thing is for sure. We need an own goal, a deflection, a penalty and a goalkeeper who doesn't go from clown to hero at clubs we play Its not going to get any easier, every team will set up to frustrate us and can see clearly how to do it. Theres a saying that I think is very apt to this club and its management, IT SHOULD BE PUT ON THE DRESSING ROOM WALL. .
And how many goals or even chances did we concede from pockets of space being exploited around Huddlestone?
For once I agree to a certain extent that Hudds was playing reasonably well, however he did make a tackle & make it back just in time, but overall there was too much space for Livermore to cover on his own, the space between the the defence & midfield was too much & that's how they got in behind us.
I thought this might make some of you laugh. He doesn't have sky, he just reads updates on Ceefax, or whatever it's called now, and I send him texts (last night I was mostly just baffled how we hadn't scored and was mostly positive). I give my old fella's views on last nights game: I've stopped even trying to discuss with him why Long wouldn't be as good as Abel has been for us. For background info, he's firmly in the Bruce Out camp, was anti name change in the end, and wants the Allams gone. He also hates all foreign managers, especially Van Gaal, Klopp and Mourhino. On the bright side, there's no doubt he's from Ull with his cheery and positive outlook on us, although in fairness to him, he's seen more than most.
I don't think its Clucas bashing Bojak. If Abel had missed all the chances (and lets be honest its not a one off with Clucas) he'd have been the target. He does get himself in scoring positions granted, but if he's ever going to be a top flight player, he has to be cuter and get his head up more. It was the same last week too. As for Abel, no service means no chances… I'd never fault his work rate.
Charlton was much more the exception than the rule. In many games we miss loads of chances and end up scraping by 1-0, drawing or sometimes even losing to inferior opposition. The could be another season doomed by missed chances.
Ah you old bastard, that made me laugh. No doubt I'm his, but I get my cheery outlook from me mam. Oh and it was 50 odd years ago, ya smooth talking bugger.
Having calmed down a bit I think playing only 1 up front makes it far to easy for teams to defend against us. Brum played really deep, so Abel couldn't use his pace behind them. For me I would play Diame next to Livermore in a 442 and play another striker next to Hernandez to give opponents more to think about.
