Back to the game.....thought Greenwood was good last night, his movement and passing caused us problems and if course they were denied a nailed on red card on the tackle by Mepham Surprised he was subbed but when the camera,did a close-up he looked absolutely knackered, putting a shift in against his old club.
Never a red card for mepham. All officials and a couple of professional referees I know have said the same his momentum is taking him away from goal and his touch would’ve been away from goal. Yellow card was fair
I think we could be comfortably one of them. A couple of rotations in the team, first half yesterday and our style was noticably different. Goes to show we are a suspension, an injury away from having an issue. This is why for me its so important to be amongst it come Jan, one were primed to push for autos and secondly RLB has to me anyway proven himself capable. With Samed being out a while, no guarantee of him finding stride immediately and the liklihood of reoccurence id be going for henderson. This allows him neil and samed to be the DM and even allow Neil to be one of the other centre mids meaning we've got 4 players for the rigg/bellingham roles. I think this 100% needs to happen. I don't think we're likely to see an addition in any other position that will be immediately ready to impact the team. Id argue for a winger but its more likely we get a january Mundle than someone ready right now. id like to be wroing but at this point i accept the recruitment, they know what theyre doing.
Defensive organisation means you don't concede so many opportunities. That has been a may say this season. However, if you look at the stats, we have conceded more opportunities, good quality ones in the last 3 games compared to nearly all other games. The fact that the opposing strikers are missing these opportunities is purely down to luck. We were not organised yday at all. Nor for large parts agaisnt Luton. Hence my points.
A decent day yesterday but never felt like we’d score and always thought RLB was more than happy with a point. I’d be staggered if we were in and around the automatic places come May please log in to view this image
I'll be staggered if we aren't. We are grinding out results away from home with a very youthful team and winning games at home while playing attractive football. We're not top of the league by luck alone.
Agree and don't agree with that. I don't think we are strong favourites for a top two spot. That's got to be what we try to achieve though - aim for it and if we fall short then not for the want of effort. I get what you're saying about if we go through an iffy patch, fans may grumble that the top two may be slipping away. Hopefully, the vast majority would appreciate the progress and stay completely behind the team.
I want to add that we have been excellent defensively for most of the season. However, I do absolutely see it as luck the amount of opportunities spurned last night, agaisnt QPR (digged in with a red card) and agaisnt Luton though. I mean Preston should have been 2 or 3 up at half time with high quality chances spurned. We were wide open yday.
Update on yesterday M6 crash. The wagon driver travelling North swerved and ended up through the crash barrier and collided with several southbound vehicles. Sadly the wagon driver lost his life and four southbound people are in hospital with serious injuries. A life changing episode for so many people, and it only takes a second. Sad news indeed.
Seen a few comments after the match last night and decided bed was a better option than interacting with a few broth heads, November the 7th, top of the league, 4 points clear of 3rd place and 9 points clear of 7th place with 6 or 7 genuine 1st team players not available. Had anyone told me that in early august I would have laughed at them. The fact we could drop Roberts and Mundle for a rest speaks volumes for our recruitment and managers ability. A good 3 points on Saturday and we will look at the table and smile for a fortnight.
cheers again RTB... nowt to say really, we never really turned up until the subs were made but at no point did we look as if we were going to score...on the other hand, preston missed some very good chances especially first half and played some decent stuff mixed up with some long balls. our midfield did not exist to be honest, riggy had a couple of 'runs', neil struggled to find his passing and browne just struggled...connoly had to fight to get a touch of the ball while wilson wanted to be into the box which stopped most left sided attacks. the loss of jobe was easy to sort but losing mundle/roberts as well completely messed the team up...i am sure RLB has learned a few things. nothing really to pick from for my MotM but giving it to onien again, defended well and was the player most likely to start an attack, plus for that hefty tw@t in the bollox
I really don't understand this take at all, what people are saying is the opposite of what is happening. How is it staggering that we would be there when we have done the job to be there so far. We haven't lost since Watford* ffs. This logic is so strange it is unreal
All of the teams in the top ten have had poor results and performances … … ours don’t mean we’re falling apart, papering over the cracks or have been ‘sussed’. We've come back from defeats with wins, let’s do the same after a draw
The first 20 minutes we were all over shop and were lucky we didn't concede at least once. Apart from the shot toward end of first half, well saved by Moore, we didn't concede any clear chances thereafter. We were really poor overall but I never thought we looked in danger of losing after half time. I thought Neil was probably as bad as I've seen him tbh. Browne wasn't great either and we just couldn't sustain any periods of control. Think we really missed Bellingham and his ability to hold and move ball in tight areas and his athleticism. But all in all its a decent ground out point and another clean sheet. Win Saturday and it's another cracking week
The Data would say we probably are overachieving. xG this season so far is only 17.2 which is below even the likes of Millwall, Swansea, Bristol C not to mention Leeds, Boro etc. The drop in possession is obvious albeit not the end of the world but we’ve only had 51 shots on target so far this season which is even less than Plymouth. Some may say it’s clinical, others will say err on the side of luck.
xG is a silly stat imo. We’re scoring quality goals with good finishes. Possession doesn’t win football games we attack with purpose and score that’s why we don’t have many shots on target because we take the ones we’re likely going to trouble the other team with. That’s the play style
