Wasn’t Honeyman the player directly involved in the most goals last season? Notwithstanding, it’s not his attacking contributions that are missing. It’s his consistency, his battle, his always making himself an option and his ability to keep plugging away and give failing players struggling in a poor performance that little bit of an outlet to allow them to pick themselves up. In todays **** show you can guarantee he’d still be a presence all over the midfield and helping the others out, where as every man in our squad hides and goes missing once it starts going to ****.
I doubt you ever saw the City v (original)Newport County 0-0...The first time I realised that refs can have a huge amount of influence on how a game pans out...this one(Stoke)was just weak and allowed them to foul with impunity early doors...Would we have had attacks cut off with fouls further into the first half if they had 2 players already on yellows?Who knows,it's all hypotheticals at that point.But he was a weak ref in the first half,that's all I'm saying.
I have no doubt a ref can have a huge impact on results. I played two games of football last season against the same side in the space of 3 days, lost the first 3-0 and won the second 2-0 after a diabolical ref in the first game. My point is that blaming the ref week in week out won't help us identify the root cause of our issues any quicker.
Slater and Seri behind Tufan just doesn’t work, sorry. Both decent midfielders individually but they need a big ****er next to them to do the dirty work. Really should’ve pushed the boat out in preseason to sign a ball-winner to play next to Seri, even if it costed us several million in transfer fees. That Ndayishimiye seemed to be exactly what this side is sorely lacking but nowt ever came of that link. I just checked on WhoScored and he seems to be playing really well this season in the Turkish league. MOTM against Beşiktaş.
I always cringe when people text into RH and moan about the ref. A good team succeeds in spite of a refereeing display, not because of it.
Haha yes my example perhaps confuses my point slightly - at grassroots level I think there's a big difference, at a professional level there really shouldn't be.
He was spoken to, but his wages were mental and so we went for Woods instead, who strangely is nothing like that kind of player.
No guarantees he would have gelled in this new side any more than he has at Milwall. He was dropped and they won after some poor results last time out. I've said before that letting Honeyman go was fairly amicable and just business. Not getting an upgrade on a Smallwood type, or even respecting the idea that a physical presence in midfield is necessary, is the glaring weakness in this squad.
I played 6 a side at the 4G pitches at Hunsley (my old high school) a few years ago in a half decent team, bottom half of the top division. The ref spent most of his time on his phone and usually gave decisions based on whoever yelled the loudest. He got angry when both teams used to undermine him and say "nah mate, it's your goal kick" or tap the ball back to the keeper from a wrongly given corner.
Interesting. Was he demanding the same as Tufan and Seri or even higher? Even if we didn’t go for him, we should’ve gone for a midfielder like him instead of Woods.
Looking back, I really don't think Smallwood was that good at being a tough tackling central midfielder. Like Slater, he had a go, but he wasn't really Championship quality and should have been the easiest player to replace. We just didn't.
I don't know what he was demanding, but I know that he wanted more than we could fit into our budget. We would have had to shift a few out, which we couldn't because they were injured. Jayson Denayer is available on a free, bloody good centre half and can play in a DM role. Injury prone, though, but very good player.
Kinda pointless now but Mamadou Loum is another name we could’ve gone for. He joined Reading on loan so he was certainly available this summer and fit that profile. If we wanted to, we could’ve signed a combative midfielder; we just didn’t and it’s a decision I fear will cost us this season.
Yeah, I think we've got too much to be in any real trouble, but it's a bit of a shame that we'll probably end up as also-rans when for a bit more transfer nous we could have been challenging the play offs.
Not really pointless now. . We have a squad place for a free agent, just everyone's wanting us to go for another striker, so are assuming that's why we haven't registered one of the other players that we could have.
Agreed. Don’t think we’ll be in a relegation scrap but we’re too unbalanced as a side to be a strong contender for playoffs. Midfield has a lot of individual talent and technical players, which we lacked last season, but now it lacks physicality.
