4 games in 12 days

I agree we need to rest at least half the team in the FA Cup. And we needed to press our advantage against 10 men much more direct & urgency.

But overall, we are not in a bad place, and if we get the right recruits in, I am sure we
will get back to winning ways.

The doommongers will be saying its a disaster. Lets get this blip over, accept KM is human and made a tactical error or two today and stay behind the Club.

 

Cue the meltdowns

 

I wanted Chaplin on from start! In form, and Edwards too. Against Pompey that formation were superb.

 

You are slating people on TWTD but they are Town fans just like us and are passionate just like us.
Sorry but think you are out of order taking the piss out of our own fans for showing passion and hurt when things go wrong!!

 

Disappointing result against a team playing with ten men for just over half the match. It’s typical that sides will pack players behind the ball, allow us possession in 75% of the pitch, and look to hit us on the counter. I don’t blame them when we are often too slow and cautious on the ball. It’s as if that 4-4 against Charlton a few months ago has still rattled us. We looked far more attacking and potent earlier in the season.

Often, we manage to shut out the opposition and comfortably win games, but lately we’ve been dropping points. We’ve got 13 points from the last possible 36 (three wins, five draws, and one loss). It’s not bad form, but it’s not promotion form.

The angry reaction from some supporters is understandable, in that passions run high, but context and perspective from those people are needed. Particularly if they’re still livid hours later. The issue I have with the loudmouths on TWTD is that a section of Town fans are just always angry and never happy. They complain regardless. If they put that type of passion and anger into actual support, it’d be a happier club. This team has come incredibly far under McKenna’s management. We’ve not finished higher than 9th in this division over the last few years. During that time, we’ve not been competing for a top two position this late in the season. We’re arguably playing the best style of football in years.

Transfer business this month will be crucial. I know we were without a few players today through illness - missing Davis at left back was noticeable. Fingers crossed we get that centre forward early in the window. The next league match at home to Plymouth will be massive!

 

Kettle,pot,black!

 

I follow the statman on twitter who points out that KM has not won a away game where the crowd has been above 8200 !

 

Weve been saying it for years, possession with no end product means absolutely nothing, theres no points awarded for possession its the team who scores the most that gets the 3 points. Lincoln at home ,Wycombe away, lincoln away the list goes on, we should be walking this division with our quality of football but instead we are no longer in an auto promotion place anymore, its a quality striker we need McK and quick plymouth are coming soon and we just have to win but we wont with the consistently useless Jackson.

 

Looking at the bigger picture we're in a great position, we've had illness in the camp and whilst disappointing the last 2 games haven't been bad points to pick up. McKenna has done a fantastic job.

However having watched the past 2 games to me they have highlighted all of McKennas tactical weaknesses and given the quality we have both in terms of players and in himself that is very disappointing. Yes we have lots of possession and the stats say we have lots of shots on goal but watching the games we never seem to put the defence under consistent pressure, we have to score the perfect goal built from the back, allowing defences to sit deep and get set into their positions, when do we see us force a mistake from a defence? We don't because we don't put them under pressure, we don't stretch them enough that's why we haven't won many penalties. In fact when Jackson got the player sent off that's one of the only times I've seen us get in behind a defence recently.

I love some of the football we play but at the same time it can be quite dull seeing our CBs pass it between themselves for the majority of the game. Whether we are behind, infront or drawing we play at the same pace, there's no urgency in our play. It's good to see after a number of years without one we have a style of play but it feels like sometimes McKenna has taken this too far and its a little idealistic. We've spoken about other managers being rigid to a formation etc. I can't remember the last time McKenna changed formation, in both of the last 2 matches our lone striker has looked isolated yet despite chasing the games and against Lincoln playing against 10 men for the majority of the match we never had 2 strikers on the pitch!! We just swapped personnel. As I've said I have found the past 2 performances infuriating mainly because I feel we have the potential to do much better and are letting idealism get in the way of pragmatism.

A few other views from the Lincoln game, I thought Lee Evans epitomised my frustrations the other night, everytime he got on the ball he slowed the game down and took too many touches on the ball. He's arguably been our best player this season but on reflection from the games I've seen I think I prefer the Humphreys, Morsey duo, I think Morsey sitting a bit deeper brings out the best in him because to me it seems like he wants to dictate play because its his responsibility to pick the ball up off the defenders, plus some of Humphreys positional play and passing is superb. I feel Evans sometimes has a bit of a Skuse feel about him and actually would be the ideal player to bring on when we're ahead to keep the ball and slow the game down.

Saying all this in regards to preferring Humphreys in with Morsey I think Humpreys in the no 10 position is a great idea. His passing and movement in that position opens up more space than anyone in this team, I've said it for a while we struggle when teams sit deep and we don't really have a number 10 who can consistently unpick defences...this also requires movement from players around him.

Saying that I thought Aluko had one of the best games I've seen him play, he looked like the only player who might make something happen but he was subbed.

 

Good morning read ptc! I totally agree about the lack of urgency and need for more direct play. This was our style in many earlier matches.
Pretty possession doesnt win games!

And we all now would like to see 2 strikers on at times. I will have a word with friendly char lady who serves him tea!

 

Not everyone scoggy, terrible idea apparently! I hate the lone striker, always prefer two natural goalscorers on the pitch. In an ideal world Ladapo and Chaplin would work, can't beat a big hold up forward with a nippy fox in the box forward, i just don't think ladapo is good enough!!

 

I don't think we've had a striker who can play the lone role effectively for years (if ever, Alan Lee strikes me as the only one). To be fair I think Ladapo is more suited than most but it's not an easy role to play in this town side, from the very little I've seen of Adhame he looks well suited but hasn't got his chance here yet, I know he's had injuries but it's a shame he wasn't thrown straight in here as he was in a fine run of form when he joined at a time when our strikers weren't. Jackson is very average but looked at his best when he was paired with Norwood....for someone so fast he rarely looks explosive. Chaplin as I understand used to be a striker and looks superb in and around the box, I see no harm in putting him higher up the pitch and putting some balls in the box and hoping it drops for him. No idea why he was dropped for Lincoln given he's in a good run of form!!

I've always been an advocate of 2 strikers but in alot of games it's worked well for us so far the biggest issue I have is when we need a goal and we're dominating the ball but not putting any pressure on the defence why not put an extra man upfront? I'll go back to it, the best performance I've seen from us under McKenna and anyone for a long long time was last season against Gillingham when we played Bonne and Norwood uptop together.

 

I don’t think formation or numbers of strikers or anything like that is the problem. We have a more attacking side than we’ve had at any point since Joe Royle.

The problem is we are patient in our build up and create loads of chances then get a sight of goal and either play any old final ball into the box, which often finds an opponent, when it does find an attacker invariably we snatch at the chances and occasionally we’ll score from it. There’s not enough composure or intent at that final stage. That’s partly McKenna not focussing the players’ minds, it’s partly the quality of the playing staff and it’s partly getting closed down faster because we are entirely predictable.

 

And partly down to Brexit, i don't know why but i just love blaming everything on Brexit!! Well i do know why but we won't go there....

 

I disagree with your first point but also agree with your second. I think we are quite choreographed as a team which makes us sometimes predictable, for years I've wanted us to look at patterns of play and the little triangles, now that's all we seem to do perhaps there appears to be that bit of just instinct taken out of our game. It can be hard to stop but to me in alot of games it looks pretty easy to defend against. Given the level we are at the majority of teams look well set defensively. We very rarely pull defenders out of position mainly because we've given them time to get into position and we don't have enough movement or players to occupy them.

If we had 1 extra striker on the pitch in the second half against Lincoln rather than 3 CBs and 2 DMs I'm sure it would've put their defence under more pressure due to defenders being occupied and more movement against them and we still I'm sure kept healthy possession. If you have more strikers you're also more likely to have someone getting on to knock ons, have more people attacking crosses. At the moment we don't seem to have anyone willing to get across their man in the box to get on the end of things, they just wait, that's partly down to personnel but also in my mind because we only have 1 striker on the pitch.

 

Against Lincoln we were dangerous after they scored. Before that it was football by numbers, we played with all the intensity of a training ground game. It was complacency.