Getting out muscled at the moment. Really need to try get a little sustained spell of pressure going. Trott has given me the trotts on a few occasions already with the ball at his feet!!!
I think Turner can feel hard done by. Just listening on radio stoke. More ball for us, more chances for them.
A terrible 1st 30 minutes from Tanner as well. We simply cant deal with the long balls. We badly need a dominant CB.
They look stronger, more street smart and quicker than us right now. Lots of little tugs, pushes going on that's unsettling our lot. Fair play to Vale, they are playing some decent stuff too. We'll be fortunate to go in level...
Old weaknesses highlighted. The 2 outfield changes have weakened us significantly. Wasteful wide play from Tanner. Lucky they are crap or we'd be losing.
As bad as and maybe worse than anything last season. 4 or 5 nil to them would have been fair. We need 4 or 5 players and a couple need paying off.
Stole a point. How bad was the final ball? Not one chance created in 90 minutes. Such a lack of impetus and drive. Where was the evidence of this terrific training performance? Willock & Chambers were absolutely dire. Please can some clubs take them off our hands. Tanner & Wintle were equally poor. What does Ashford & Turnbull bring to the team? A dominant centre back, left back, a winger with goal threat and ideally another forward must be prioritised this window. A huge reality check tonight; a big learning curve.
We are fecked until Tan goes. They haven't backed the manager and its going to be a real struggle. Chambers and Willock need paying off.
A very hard watch. Vale did a number on us for sure. Did all the niggly stuff, outfought us almost all evening and pressed us well. We lost far too many individual battles, I'm not sure we won any 50/50s and id say only Rubin, Kpakio and Salech come out of that with credit. Turner has to come back in for the next game... Fish has to start instead of either Chambers or Lawlor. Chambers looked like an accident waiting to happen all game, despite the odd decent interception and Lawlor was getting bullied again. Willock had one or two bright moments going forward but did nothing much to help Bagan defensively. Tanner took up loads of good positions and threatened to look dangerous but his end product was woeful, as was pretty much everyone's all night. Shout out to Darren Moore too... Very balanced interview at the end of the game, which is typical of the guy who has always impressed me. A decent point in the end as it could have been far, far worse...
Yes the lack of physicality especially defensively is a concern. Other teams will relish set pieces against our defence. Chambers can’t play CB again - we need a dominant CB and it’s not Fish. The only possible one is Daland but he’s an accident waiting to happen. I agree there was a total lack of fight in the 50/50’s. I mentioned the terrible delivery into the box in my last post but should have added the lack of movement and pace in taking up positions needs to be improved. This isn’t going to be the stroll in the park a lot of fans think. We’ll come up against teams like that who’ll take us to the cleaners unless BBM gets the team more street wise.
