well having watched all the differant highlights there first goal was a complete fluke there player made an apaling shot at the goal and basically the ball struck one of there players in the face,this diverted the ball into the net,the other goal was yet another fluke where nedum tried to get a foot in front of the attacking player but toe poked the ball intro the net i think when you look at the stats we had our shair of attacks and matched them in open play SO MAYBE WE ARE ALL PANIKING HERE THERES MORE THAN A GOOD CHANCE OF A VICTORY AWAY AT WIGAN,AND A DEFINATE CHANCE OF A VICTORY AT HOME TO BLACKBURN AND WITH THOSE 6 POINTS WE SHOULD BE BACK IN THE MIX SO LETS HAVE A LITTLE MORE FAITH
But Ted, we were awful and didn't look remotely like scoring. We rely too much on Chery and he had his worst game of the season by far. Am hoping tonight may give us some welcome confidence although it is a cup game so possibly not!
I think what happened at the Preston game is quite simple. JFH (whether right or wrong) is trying to get the team to play a new system with strong emphasis on high pressure and intensity. This kind of game requires a lot of discipline and everyone has to move together. More so than many other ways of playing the game, it requires the players to have an understanding of what their teammates are doing all the time. So, it requires high levels of fitness, discipline and whole team awareness. We've had a packed set of fixtures at the beginning of this season and in different games there are periods of time when less than all of the team on the pitch are on the same page as the manager and rest of the players. That is when things fall apart, because they're no longer moving and working together or are too tired to pull the party line (or aren't putting the same effort in). The games where this has happened more often than the other ones are the games that we've looked terrible. I think this is noticeable because, when you look at the last two performances, you get a sense that the players on the pitch individually don't look so bad or would look a lot better if the whole team were successfully carrying out the style of play in unison. There are two possible solutions, perhaps. The first is simply that we will get it right over time and that the first two games were kind of fortunate, especially when we weren't tired due to few fixtures having been played at that point. The second solution is that JFH needs to work with them more/better with regards to everyone understanding the system and style. More focussed training? More discipline and marginalising players who aren't putting in the full performance?
Or with 2 more displays like that,we'll be run ragged by Wigan and put to the sword by a toothless Blackburn. It will either be top 6 or bottom 3 !
I think we'll all have a better picture of our chances after those two games and the window shutting, at the moment it's too soon to say...
