Someone indicated that in the Championship, that on any given day, any team in this division can beat anyone else, is spot on the money. We will rebound no doubt would like to see Ben Hamer back in goal. Any update on his injury? Six points out of the last three games is not bad either, especially with two of them away.
3 1 to Norwich That's how **** we have become All this everyone can beat everyone nonsense in this league Shows how **** the championship is Shows how **** we are
I was going to post a mid table chart of our standing but l came to the conclusion that everybody already has an image etched in the memory bank. Those of you that may have recently joined, supporting the R’rssss, need only go back a week or two & join the dots.
Blackburn played five at the back and didn’t really have a go at him. There was another of his LB performances where we said similar that it was fortunate he wasn’t against a real wide player. Got badly exposed against their 18 who was probably man of the match, not helped by Chair not helping enough but more by the fact Varane and Madsen were weak as piss so their midfield kept getting the time and space to give him the ball. I can’t believe after 15 minutes or so it wasn’t obvious to Stéphan to switch Chair and Saito for a bit. If you’re going to play the three midgets then the one you least want playing off Burrell is Saito surely and he’s the best of the three defensively. A very odd performance and for all the possible explanations I think it really was just that they knew they had a couple of results in the bag and didn’t fancy the effort of getting another.
I'm sure that it doesn't help the players not knowing what position they are going to play in either. Mbengue has played in every defensive one so far. I like the bloke but he's a complete liability. We were there for the taking yesterday as soon as the line ups were announced. Any opposition manager would target the flanks against 2 non full backs, even more so when there's a keeper who babs himself on every single cross. My main gripe with our set up is the fact that we allow every team, whether playing home or away to have easy possession whilst we drop everyone into our own half. We rely on a counter attack style which doesn't seem to make sense considering this.
I don’t mind playing in a way which doesn’t mean we have loads of the ball. Clive showed some stats which had a long run of games where we had less possession and played well versus games where we have most of the ball and struggle with it. Any way of playing is going to get undone when your central midfield play like tarts and have a goalkeeper terrified of crosses. We know Kone hasn’t been great but Burrell has offered little when playing up by himself despite the goal yesterday which isn’t a coincidence. Were a far better team with only two of the midgets and Kone up there and also I thought looked good when Kolli came on to play with Burrell last week. Mbengue is an astoundingly poor footballer even if he can do 100m in 8 seconds and is a bit of a character. Got himself injured running with the ball with loads of space ahead of him only for an abysmal touch to give their player a 70-30 and crunch him (fairly). Then got Smyth clattered with an awful under-hit pass. JCS was rested on Wednesday and they’ve presumably decided against him based on the weather in case he explodes into a million pieces again. But it all comes back to the midfield really. All the other issues aren’t noticed much if we win the midfield and Varane and Madsen were so painfully far off if we could have been quite good across the rest of the pitch and still lost the game.
That defensive back five needs sorting big time. We need two proper full backs left and right. We need an improvement in goal long term. We need to fix our first choice centre backs and stop tinkering around with them. Clearly has to be January for the full backs (if they’re available then) or it’s the next stage of improvements for next season. Note: Christian: we need some height, strength and speed there - and good common sense! But it has to be sorted. The whole left back moaning has been going for ages now; Jimmy isn’t a right back (for all the good effort he puts in). Get a solid foundation at the back and then our midfield and forwards can do what is expected of them - score one more than the opposition.
If we can get RND for a small fee I think he’s a perfectly fine first choice. Unspectacular, 6 or 7 most weeks. The plan going into the season was Larkeche and Esquerdinha which beggars belief.
Some thoughts... Our tactics... it's hard to work out exactly what they are. It seems to involve a lot of giving the other team space to allow them to come onto us, for us to knick the ball and counter. Except, when we get the ball, we make several slow passes sideways or backwards and the opposition are back in shape. And whatever our tactics are, it seems that they either work well or they completely don't work. Meaning, it doesn't seem like we have an effective backup plan or way of adapting if the opposition's tactics nullify ours. I think Stephane is still traumatised by the Coventry games and appears to be stuck in this awkward place between messing about at the back and hoofing it to nowhere. Mbengue doesn't have the ball control for a fullback. In that position, you need good ball control and an ability to get out of difficulty. He is better off being used for his pace as a CB, to recover when they opposition has broken through our line. However... At CB, we have better options than Mbengue. What a great character he has but we should be playing Dunne and Morrison/JCS at CB. I can't believe that after about 3 or 4 seasons struggling to have proper first choice fullbacks, we still haven't sorted it out. Our best options for the fullback two seems to be RND left and Morgan right. But Morgan right? Why are we in a situation where Morgan is our best right back?????????? Maybe Adamson will only come good if you actually play him? It will be good to have Poku back, to give some competition on the right wing. Not sure what has happened to Saito... totally ineffective at the moment. I still believe in playing Kone with Burrell. I just have a feeling Kone will be up and running again once he gets a goal. Imo, Madsen still playing well and doing the thankless receive and pass immediately, to keep things moving, with a handful of good forward passes to players feet here and there. I've no gripe with Chair or Burrell. RND great, imo.
I think every time we play three games in a week we get this necessity to change the team with inexplicable and unlikely positional changes. JS is obviously married to stats, levels and other technological hokum and that seems to influence some of these decisions rather than your best eleven available. That said even without midweek games I can't fathom his thinking but the upshot is we too often play poorly regardless...
