Wide forwards. Support for Pedro. Physicality in midfield and a steady head at the back. I'm not saying by any stretch our fullback options are top 6 or promotion candidates, but I am saying they're good enough to not get relegated. The issues up top, without strengthening would definitely have done so.
Allsop gone, Slater benched, so it's lucky that Coyle was back so it can be all his fault. This recent fascination some have with how much he shouts is incredibly tiresome. Ian Ashbee himself dismissed the importance of a captain shouting a lot when he was asked about it at the 1904 club live show. If you actually want to assess Coyle's suitability as captain in an unbiased way as opposed to just looking for justification for the scapegoat you've already selected, look at what his managers and teammates have said about his captaincy; the people who actually have an idea of how he does as a captain seem to think he's exceptional at it.
If Allsop hadn’t gone and was still our first choice keeper we’d already be relegated. Let him go, he was and is utterly ****e.
Exceptional captain but can’t seem to motivate his teammates to win more than 2 games at home this season and it’s February. Yeah, okay. The home form is mostly a confidence and mentality thing and Coyle is found wanting in both this season.
Another unwanted player dumped on City by his fast talking agent. We were supposedly looking at Murray Wallace from Millwall, another Oliver Twist like waif seeking a new aboard away from the workhouse. PS...Giles was supposed to be good. He was utter dogtod and what's more he's proving it at M/brough. The kids soon going to become the boo boy of the Riverside faithful. I feel for him. Not a lot.
"Could get a bit dicey"?! Things are already a lot more than just "a bit dicey". As said earlier, I think some are underestimating the deep trouble we are already in. For some it was like they were even expecting us to win last night, just because we'd had a once in a Sheffield Flood result the other day (deluded). In the bottom 3. Rivals picking up points. Horrendous home form. FB's that opposition know they can target and run ragged. Quality in midfield but still missing that needed steel. An improved front line but one that blows hot and cold. Massive squad turnover meaning players are still gelling. Etc etc. Realistically it's now 3 from 7, maybe 8 and currently we're one of the 3, and have given 4 of the others a nice head start. This will take some getting out of. We are in deep ****.
Quality in midfield is not yet matched by energy. Crooks and Matazo are knackered after 45 minutes so if we start both, both need replacing at HT
Crooks is blowing out of his arse at 30 mins. Never in a million years will he do 90 mins. Except for maybe in Bert's Greasy Spoon! PS....Deluded fans of clubs are a permanent fixture. We've had him since God was a boy. HCAFC have got its fair share. One fluky win and we're world beaters......again! Until the next inexplicable home defeat. Nothing much changes.
And yet we have had Puerta stuck on the bench!! Madness. Something is going on. And that's also what Slater is for. A decent squad player to bring on.
If ever there was a time to park the bus and grind out a 0 - 0 last nights game may have been the one.
We were comfortably beaten by a team much better than us, it’s not the type of game you can measure the quality of our players against. I had a chat about this with a friend of mine at football training, and the gap between the top of the Championship and the rest of it is getting bigger season after season. While Luton appear an anomaly, it’s clear that the money coming down, coupled with the wealth of the owners of those clubs, means that the top three is almost certainly going to be the three dropping down and only a colossal **** up on their part will change that. Looking at City, it’s fair to say that without the money of Murat Ulker (which isn’t dead in the water insofar as future investment but also isn’t clear why it stopped - though I have a theory) or somebody similar, our odds of promotion are pretty slim for the next few years. I know people say that the playoffs are a lottery and that is true to some extent, but the teams now finishing in the top six are far wealthier than we are and can afford to spend a lot more. Our target should be academy development because that’s where our biggest profits in the last few years have come from and for a club our size, sustainability has to come first. I’m not pessimistic about this season, we have Norwich on Saturday and we’ll probably lose that as well, but then the winnable games come around and as long as we play our best, we’ll be fine. A few days in the relegation zone isn’t an immediate disaster, if we are still in it with five games to go I’ll be more concerned. If we do go down, it is what it is and the silver lining is that the rules on spending are less restrictive (conspiracy theorists might suggest a deliberate drop for this reason. Come on now) and we’ll have both Millar and Belloumi back.
Puerta, Slater and Pedro are all such hard workers and benching them all was our undoing. We looked and were flaccid in that first half. Selles says he got the tactics wrong. He didn’t - it was a badly flawed team selection.
My concern about going down is that I don't think we've got the squad for a league one fight. Last time the squad was filled with players from league one. I'm not so sure that'll be the case this time. I don't see Millar, Belloumi, Alzate, Pedro, etc. being up for it really. We might be able to get a few quid for those players, but we won't be in a great place to negotiate and we'll need yet another massive squad overhaul. It's a league that clubs much bigger than us get mired in for years. I think going down will be catastrophic. We got lucky when we went down last time, no fans, our season went on longer than the league 1 season so players were fresher, good squad. It's a big ask to do it twice.
'The winnable games'... That's where we've struggled all season. Not sure what you've seen to suggest that trend will change now. Perhaps I'm pessimistic because I'm sick as a dog at the moment.
