A decent result for us as things stand but over the course of the season I think WBA will be more of a threat than Ipswich.
Well summed up. So frustrating that we are so reluctant to shoot from distance. For all our 'dominance', we didn't shoot from the edge of the box until 30 mins, and that effort hit the post. Then Smallbone had a decent effort a minute later. But for the rest of the game not once more. Really need a confident Charly back.
I was far more impressed by WBA at SMS than I was by Ipswich. Fortunately we ran into WBA whilst we were good form, whereas we ran into Ipswich when we weren't.
Whatever the reason it needs sorting. It’s definitely becoming the “norm” & without the occasional late goal would be a much bigger issue.
Yep, me2. Apart Pompey that is. Great “lucky win” for Blackpool as I was reliably informed earlier this eve!!
It’s clearly Martins style, and he clearly won’t deviate away from it. There is something to be said about the players taking a bit of initiative and occasionally just booting the ball away when it looks like suicide to play a ball into the midfielder, facing their own goal with 2 attackers up his arse, but we have heard from a few sources now if you don’t agree to play Martins way then you don’t play. My main issue is that when we go a goal up it’s almost like we take the foot off the gas and just think we can possession our way to victory and it’s too risky to attack as we are more likely to lose the ball the further forward we go. Only being 1 up will always give other teams hope/a chance and they grow into the game (as we saw again yesterday). It’s also why I’m of the opinion we score so late in spite of Martin rather than because of him. I think as time runs out we become more direct and as we do have very good players for this league we manage to score in a 5/10 min spell where we just go for it. Yes the oppo might be tired from us having the ball for 70% of the game and that helps, but for me it seems to be the more direct approach. And it makes you wonder what would happen if we played like that for an entire game rather than just short spells of one. As I said before I’m not advocating for him to get sacked etc and there are some positives from his management, but his style of play isn’t one of them for me
Some one needs to tell our manager that stubborness is not a virtue and that he has learned **** all from the fact that teams have cottoned on to how to play us.
Agree, he is starting to win me over but I am still not sure if we are winning in spite of him or because of him. With that being said, the first half yesterday was good from us, we actually attacked and created a couple of chances. But in general we still create nowhere near enough. The players we have should be capable of catching teams on the break, and instead we let them get 11 men behind the ball. Huddersfield looked like scoring a lot more than we did yesterday, which is very damning. We have much better players and more money than them yet their direct style seemed you outgun our crab football. We need to create more chances
Our matches are a bit like the scene in (one of) the Indiana Jones films, where Harrison Ford's character is confronted by a sword-wielding 'Whirling Dervish' (Saints in the first half), so gets out his gun and shoots him (Huddersfield second half). I'm sure on of the more technically able members of this forum will be able to retrieve the scene and post it on here...
Yeah - there's little point anyone asking for Martin to adopt a different style, because he won't. I too am not advocating him to get sacked, and can also see positives from management. However, I remain wholly convinced that he won't be our manager at the end of next season. That will either be because he fails to get us promoted this season, therefore leaving him vulnerable (whether this season, over the summer, or next season) - or because he does get us promoted, only to see his style get absolutely ripped apart in the PL.
yeah if we do go up I would be very confident we would do even worse than last season in the PL as his system just wouldn’t work with a weak team in a league. But that problem feels a long way away so no point thinking about that just yet
Their goal was down to Edozie - he made no attempt to stop the cross coming in. Basic stuff - get between the ball and the goal.
