Hypothetical, but... What if we had not been ravaged by injury, and say had Liam in from game one???? I reckon we would be not a million miles off top 6 (its only a few more wins/draws). Glass half full for me. There is a progress. If Greaves wants out, big deal. We move on. We stopped leaking (apart from last week) like a sieve when he lost his central spot.
If you look back Idi. we could be at least 6/7 + points better off... all these bore draws at home against Rotherham, Blackpool and Sunderland when they were down to 10.. READING!! easy in hindsight...
I was at the game today but didn’t notice anything about Greaves’ body language. Anyone in West Stand explain what his deal was? Ebiowei had another very poor showing in a City shirt. There’s absolutely no convincing me having him back next season on loan is a good idea. Talented player but I’d rather have Sinik getting game time or someone else.
There was an interesting point made before Sunderland if we'd scored in about half of Liams draws we'd be a couple of points off playoffs. But then it's not surprising it's not clicked consistently going forward when the only consistent thing about a our forwards is being unavailable or lacking match sharpness before they are unavailable again.
Thought Jones and Macca played well again at cb, macca prob our best cb on current form, but I do feel that they both need to be a bit braver with their passing sometimes. I've no objections to passing it out from the back, going back to Darlow and keeping possession BUT there are numerous times in the game where they take an extra touch, slow it down or play the safe pass rather than trying to break the lines, or go back rather than quickly getting it wide and it's frustrating for the crowd and the CMS on the rare occasions they actually move.....
Just got out paced a few times, never looked like he wasn't trying or owt, not sure why there's a bit of a pile on...not sure if maybe he was carrying a knock or bit under the weather, just looked a bit slow is all
True, don't disagree. Liam maybe has some part in them, but I still think we have made progress. Let's be honest, shota would have lost them bore draws (probably).
Aye but on Friday we drew 4-4 away at the Stadium of Light and then beat Millwall with a great goal today. The Rotherham game was in the only blank in seven games for us, that's pretty good going. Our form in the last ten games reads: P10 W2 D5 L3 GF11 GA13. The ten games before that are..........: P10 W4 D5 L1 GF12 GA5. So the story of our season basically is a lack of consistency, which we can put down mostly to the worst injury list I think I've seen at our club, and I include our PL season under Phelan where we only had 12 players at the start. What that tells me is that when we have a fully fit team, we score goals and we don't concede. Without Connolly, Oscar, Tetteh, Allahyar (I know he's back but he hasn't been for most of the season) Pelkas and Traore in the side, we struggle badly to create anything. We need cover in the attacking midfield role because, and I know Liam has said he will mitigate against this, we could get more injuries next season and we don't want to find ourselves in the same position. Strength in depth is what we need.
Yeah I didn’t notice any bad body language in terms of effort. He did look a bit leggy. Tbf, Rosy said the lads he took off wasn’t him singling them out for the poor first half in terms of energy and effort. I thought Pelkas worked hard first half. Only one who looked like he couldn’t be arsed was Ebiowei.
If Traore can stay fit then I'm very much looking forward to him being a big part of next season. I'd keep Tufan as well.
No he didn’t, Macca played middle of three at the back. I think as soon as Shota took over, and so steadied the ship after Grant. At the start of this season Shota went back to Greaves as one of two centre backs, dropping Macca. We conceded more than anyone ever, until we took Greaves out. Conclusion is he really isn’t very good. If we can get anything for him in the summer, get it! Having said that, I always thought Harry Maguire was rubblish
If we win our remainng five games we will total 67 points. The lowest total I remember to get to the play.offs was 68. So, close but no cigar.
Am I the only one that doesn’t think pelkas is worth signing. I’m not actually sure what his position is
I think he's got quality but hasn't justified his wages in terms of availability and overall contribution over the season, so I'd probably let him go. That said if we did sign him it wouldn't be on the Fenerbache contact we're covering.
That's my opinion too. I've seen enough in him to say that he'll be an exciting, quality player in the future, but he looks much more raw than he should be for someone who has been on the books of top clubs since his early teens. The only other comment I'll make, and I acknowledge that I may be way off with this, is that he doesn't look like a lad who really enjoys his football.
