Slavi confirmed that he found out about Peter Odemwingie joining Bristol City on loan quite literally as the press conference started this lunch time. Naturaly, he said we will do our research and inform the players accordingly! On the home front Kaca is out and Baird doubtful, while Woodrow is considered fit enough to be included in the squad. Pity about Chris Baird because I think the boss would have been tempted to yet again tinker with the back three and put Chris between Madl and Nando (instead of Dan Burn). If that's not an option, the only other change is likely to be O'Hara coming in for Parker. Earlier in the season - when Jamie was performing - it was with Tunnicliffe beside him. Ryan seems to have got the rust out of his system and the boss could be prepared to try the pair again. So - .....................Lonergan............ ........Madl....Burn (or Baird)..Amorebieta... ...Fredericks....Tunnicliffe....O'Hara.....Garbutt.. ...........................Cairney......... ...............Dembele............McCormack...
In the away game both teams played 3-5-2 but I don't think City will play that, but let's hope our front two give them nightmares like last time. Tunnicliffe and O'Hara played with Fredericks and Husband doing a lot of damage down their wings. The central 3 that day was Stearman Burn and Ream. It was probably our best away performance under Symons, with an early goal helping things out. City will probably look to be more defensive this time and hit us on the break with the speed of Peter Odemwingie if he is played, their confidence should be up, so we need a early goal or two, to knock it back.
He might not look it but the man in the middle today, Phil Gibbs is a rookie. Not only that he doesn't get many games - only 17 so far this season. Mind that hasn't stopped him keeping up with the regulation quota of cards with 52 yellow and 2 reds. Ironically (sic) in his only two previous outings in the Championship, one was that horrible midweek defeat we had to Blackburn.
Religation we are then finished. 5 mediocre and 6 **** on the pitch today. Managers tactics now on a par with Magath
Haven't been on the forum in ages. Seems that we are on our way to league 1! Excellent stuff from the boys. Keeping players who don't want to be here is a huge mistake! Let the rot continue!
Beautiful opener from Ross, ended up being a curse - scored too early and took it too casual - we should have put the game to bed before half time. Wonder what the groups of primary children made of it, nice day, good atmosphere and positive chants slowly turned into a cauldron of frustration and swearing as the sky darkened - probably a scarring experience for some.
I keep thinking to myself that we seem to be losing a lot of points from winning positions this season, we get off to a good start but more often than not don't see the job through. So I finally looked more into it and it turns out that we've lost a total of 24 points from winning positions so far this season, 8 of which have came in our last 3 matches. I know every team will lose points from a winning position over the course of a season but 24 points seems like A LOT. No wonder we're in so much trouble when we are throwing points away.
Agree with all of this guys. And have two questions and one comment. Question 1 - how wasteful was Garbutt in his futile attempts at crosses? Question 2 - why did we spend the first half dithering around outside their penalty box and nobody with the confidence to run at them? Comment - we are apparently totally incapable of playing as a team!
I almost feel sorry for Garbutt, he did almost nothing right, mentally he is not up to the level - he might improve - but by the end I was just hoping he didn't get on the ball because you could guarantee he would lose it. He was inches from hitting the corner flag with his shot on goal about 8 yards out. We are not the right place for him to develop, we can't even bring on our own academy players, would be best for both to part, except we've hardly got any back up for him in a 352 system. It would have been so different if we just took our chances but in the end we deserved to lose.
Well that was a wasted trip. Looking forward to my early morning flight back to watching some decent football. Last time I was here, in October, I saw us play Reading. We came back from 2 down to score 4. We looked good, we played quite well and had some attacking intent, we passed it and moved. I was shocked by how much we have deteriorated. Lumping the ball up from the back to no one in particular, not being able to string two passes together, no real attacking intent, going backwards and sideways before losing the ball. We didn't look like a team and most of the players didn't look like they cared. His after match comments are bizarre - we played well? Really? And the same old nonsense about standing up, being strong and being men. If this is what Jakanovic's tactics/training is doing to them he will take us down. I can't see us getting more than 7 or 8 points if this is how we play. The teams at the top will kill us. Seriously, should we get rid during the summer and get a coach who knows League 1 as his style won't work there - it's barely working in the Championship.
We now find ourselves in a desperate position and we NEED a win at Birmingham. I think it's about time this team got freshened up a bit, as what we're doing at the moment clearly isn't working. So here is what I'd do with the team(assuming they are fit and available)... Lonergan Fredericks Madl Baird Ream Cairney Mattila Hyndman Labyad McCormack Smith The 3-5-2 formation worked like once and Slavi has stuck with it ever since, maybe we do play better football but it's not producing many points. Let's go back to basics. I think Madl and Baird could be a strong partnership, Ream in there who I think is solid enough, Mattilla and Hyndman providing cover when needed. Let's see what Labyad can do, why bring him in then not give him a chance? Is he injured? If not then throw him in. The one player who's chance is well overdue is Matt Smith, I've said it over and over again, successful teams in this league tend to have a big target man, we have one here who was scoring plenty of goals for Leeds then done the same at Bristol City but we don't ever play him.
Agree with Smith. No ti.e to be loyal to players who aren't going to be with us next year. Said this all along. Get Dembele in the reserves and get Smith in.
Potentially 7 in yesterday's lot won't be around after the summer. Agree with Fab we need a shake up. The problem I have with your selection though Fab is Cairney out wide - he disappeared in the second half yesterday (like a lot of others) but he just has to be in the middle. Also Matilla and Labyad didn't exactly shine when they turned out for the U21s earlier in the week.
I think Labyad is a busted flush and probably not the answer to our problems - yesterday did seem to be more about individual mistakes and not playing with the right intensity - it was a bad day for Slav although I think he is somewhat forced to play the 352 in order to accommodate Ross and Mousa - i reckon he will bring players in for a different system over the summer. I'd say to build around Cairney and put Fredericks further forward, his pace is fantastic at this level.
Yesterdays game was again another opportunity missed by SJ to show that he recognises how to take the pressure off our defense by putting the correct players on as subs. Again I rarely saw us attack City quickly so that they were facing their own goal, they were always given time to get back and defend in numbers, and then in the 2nd half their midfield took control so we were the ones facing our own goal. Jokanovic doesn't seem to want to use Smith in the last 20 minutes, yet we know that he causes panic in the opposition back four, he makes opposition midfield have to face their own goal as we launch the high ball. The Linesman on the JH Stand was poor, he seemed to flag 4-5 when players were onside at the time the ball was kicked. So far our away form has been better than our home form recently so let's hope for a performance at Birmingham to get 3 much needed points. I wonder if Bettinelli will get back in goal, would he be better, will SJ say show us what you can do, Lonergan is a good shot stopper but the rest of his skills from kicking to commanding his area is poor.
I have said many times in the past Bettinelli has no positional sense or command of his area, sure he has pulled off some good saves but his distribution is poor, it all started to go wrong when we let Stockdale go
