It took 25 games to work us out, so despite my Saturday, I hate football mood, somehow we'll sort this mess out. Besides RM has a meeting with Tom early Monday morning just for a feedback session.
Thing is I think Charles is fine for cover and we would have been much better with him in, but RM seems to have taken against him for some reason. Hopefully he puts two and two together because we couldn't have been any worse with him in the side. Bar the second half against Huddersfield I really haven't seen much of anything from Rothwell since joining.
I’m very sure if we went up we’d come straight back down, which I’m absolutely fine with. Being a Norwich/Fulham yoyo type team is the best kind of team for a club like ours. Every other season you have a good one. Finishing 14th in the PL every season is utter **** and pointless. The problem is if you get settled in the Championship, you basically have a two year window to go back up otherwise it becomes extremely hard, we could easily be another West Brom/Cardiff etc of former PL teams who get stuck in the Championship and the financial issues that come with it.
We’ve had a magnificent season overall. Before the season started I honestly thought we’d be 11/12th. I never expected a whole bunch of new young players to learn an entirely new system in an entirely new league, with more midweek games under a new manager and coaching staff and perform consistently over the entire season. I sure as **** didn’t think we’d be anywhere near the autos but here we are. This is the first season I’ve owned a season ticket so the first time I get to hear regulars week to week and my god some are entitled ****ers. There’s a guy in front of me and my two mates who complains from minute one to the 90th. Unless we win, then you don’t hear a word from him. This is the first time this season though where I actually though the moaning was warranted. Today was particularly worrying to me because it’s been the most glaring time it exposed what seems to be RMs biggest flaw - following and adapting the team to the flow of the game. If the game isn’t played to our (seemingly one) pace we’re ****ed. And RM can’t seem to adapt to that. I felt like I was going insane today watching 90 minutes of passing it to the wing only to lose it or cross it to a Millwall leg. And it didn’t stop, the entire. 90. Minutes. It got to the point where it wasn’t even exciting to see the cross, you knew it would get cleared. And that is by far the biggest concern in the last few games. It’s exposed how one note we are. And if we play outside that note everyone looks lost. What’s strange though is either how tired or just not bothered the players look by it all. We were in second with a game in hand and now we’re 5 points behind second, yet the players are all walking around the pitch at 2-1 down, we end up passing it around the back, Bazunu gets more touches than the striker, there is just as much urgency at 2-1 down as there was at 0-0. And I just don’t understand where it’s all come from. Has RM fallen out of favour? Were we just lucky? You’d like to at least be able to say we left it all on the pitch but that just isn’t the case these last few games at all.
Actual LOL , for someone who corrects everyone else for the smallest grammar mistake. U don't half come out with some bollocks
Great post, Couldn’t agree more with most of it but especially the last bit. Bazunu going up for the corner was the only indication that we thought we were in a must-win game. Apart from that we were seriously lacking in purpose and aggression in the second half.
I didn’t see the game but did look at the stats. Passes 770 to 180, possession 80/20, utter domination on paper. Really hope RM doesn’t read much beyond the final score today because the other numbers are pretty meaningless.
I know i'm repeating myself (again) here, but I think it is as simple as RM not being able to adapt to the absence of Flynn Downes. Downes will be back soon, or RM will finally find a way around it but the problem is you cant afford these prolonged periods of bad form if you want to be promoted and this is our second of the season. If we are at full strength and in full flow at the end of the season we have a good chance in the play-offs, but as we are seeing we need the right conditions.
Id hate for it to be that simple purely for the fact that we’re not able to adapt to something so blatant. Downes will solve a problem but that doesn’t explain the lack of energy and just overall attitude of the last few performances. We look slow and sluggish and I don’t think that’s a problem a player coming back will solve
FFS Martin, swallow your pride, you had plenty to say after the game but just pick up the ****ing phone and find out what @......loading...... is doing for the next 12 games.
I disagree. I think he is one of the few defenders outside of kwp who was trying to play attacking passes and then giving himself as an option in CM to draw people away. I would be happy if he took on the dm role whilst we left bed and HB at cb. Putting HB at right back left us no attacking outlet as he didn't offer anything attacking forward.
Second half maybe (he was a long way away from me so hard to tell), but first half he had their right back on toast and was dovetailing nicely with KWP and Stu.
Arma is great on the right wing when teams sit back. He doesn't offer a lot when we get pressed as we have done recently
Several weeks ago I was chatting to the bloke I sit next to and saying that it would be impossible to choose a player of the season because there are so many candidates. I am now of the opinion that Flynn Downes is essential to our success and he would get my nod. Today demonstrated how we cannot seem to win games at the mment without him. I was surprised by today's performance as I expected a 2-0 home win. To be honest, we played well in the first half but went behind due to a Bazunu error. This happened right in front of me and I was unsure where the ball had gone in the melee. I was surpised to see it trickle over the line into the net. Smallbone was excellent n the first 45 but I feel the hatchet job on Ryan Fraser turned the game as he was ou most effective forward player. For the second himw match in a row, I feel Bazunu has let us down. I would like to see Lumley given a chance. The second half was a no-show and I feel Millwall defended superbly and were worthy winners. They offered little up front yet their defence actually had our front line in their pockets for the second half. The game was rarely outside of their control. I would also say that the save from Armstrong's header was world class - it was very similar to the famour Gordon Banks save. For me money, you would not want to lose a game if your keeper produced a save like that. All in all, I have to say we are fluffing our lines and think the best we can home for is a place in the play-offs. I cannot see us getting an automatic place but it will need a monmental fall off to avoid a play-off place.
I feel the stats are reflective of how the game looked but the missing detail is that Millwall let us keep the ball because they knew we were harmless and would not be able to penetrate the defence. The stats for passes behind the Millwall defence must only account for a fraction of the total number of passes we made.
We have won a game without Downes, but then we changed it for reasons beyond me. Bazunu made a mistake. That happens with keepers. He's far, far, far, far better than Lumley, so to land this defeat on him is a madness, sorry Ian.
