I seem to recall when I posted Luke Hyam stats a few weeks ago that we have never won a game when he has come off the bench...
Bit late (and with the benefit of hindsight!!) thought we'd struggle today, was a benefit of hindsight but think we were due a loss at some point at home!! Have to say agree with views on Chopra, he is a good player at this level, but really does not suit the lone striker role, with a partner uptop with him I think he could be good for us. His movement and finishing are very good though he is very much epitimised PJ's time in change, looks quality when it works when it doesn't it doesn't, very much a confidence player. I would like to see us get at least 1 striker in whether thats DJ though who knows!! Ticket prices at the club are a farce, they may not earn more money by lowering the prices and getting a few more in the stadium but unless you're a pretty ardent fan you don't know about the deals. Lower prices will mean those 1st timers or those fair weather supporters they think I'll go to football as it's a reasonable price, if they enjoy it they'll come back and are more likely to spend their money again. If we're going to have the high ticket prices, it may make more money in the short term but in the long term you're not going to get such a wide audience of potential new fans!!! Certainly though success helps, unfortunately the past 5 years there has been not alot of success, stupid ticket prices and boring football, so low attendances!! Looks like the whole Hyam thing is happening again with another manager???
I can't find any fault with what Big Mick has managed to do since he arrived, we are in a far better position now than i thought we would be come the new year. So i am prepared to let Mick decide if Hyman should start or not. I'm sure he has some perm signings lined up to replace Leaving loanys or improve the squad, i just hope that Clegg can adjust his thoughts and complete said signings. COYB
Was it a game too many for some players? I'm happy Mick is not rotating the squad for the sake of it but am surprised he made so few changes during this busy period. Never mind, it was a good christmas period and we can now look forward to the Villa game. They have a young squad and I think we could get at them.
Just a bad day at the office! We can't win them all and if anyone had said that we would take 7 points from the 4 christmas games I would have ripped their bloody arm off. I agree with Weighty regarding Luke Hyam I will leave it to Mick to decide when he plays and I trust his judgement in these matters.
Kevin Friend is no friend of mine. That tosser was fooled so many times by Brighton and at least one, if not two of their goals came very soon after poor decisions from the ref. Plus he missed an obvious handball in the box and a whole host of grabbing from the Brighton defence when town were given corners. That debacle at the SBR end was dealt with poorly and as for the clothesline tackle - not even a warning for what any other official would have considered a red card offence. I'm not saying we could have won; we were bad today, but at 1-0 we may not have simply given up, which is what it looked like to me. I see today as a point dropped, courtesy of Kevin 'Andy D'urso in disguise' Friend.
I agree I generally trust MM judgement although NRC really doesn't look up to it does he?? Again it seems harsh on Hyam really. Perhaps it may be a chance for MM to try a few things against Villa, although I'd still like to see him put a strongish side out!! I'd like to see this team: Loach Hewitt, Chambers, Smith, Creswell Martin, Hyam, N'Daw, Murphy(?) JET, Chops Would like to see Hewitt given a go instead of Orr as he's been ok but hasn't overly impressed and I haven't really been impressed with Edwards since he's gone to the RW. Martin looks busy down the left but really IMO is not a left winger so should be tried on the right. I'd like to see JET and Chops given a go together, each time i've seen them together they actually seemed to link up fairly well (although this has only been for a few mins). Couldn't think of anyone else to play LW so put Murphy there as he can do a job!!
A bad day at the office, up to a point, but we should never be getting beaten 3-0 to anyone. Despite the huge achievements, losing by a considerable margin is still happening too regularly and shows how far we still have to go. Now it's over to Mick in the transfer market, let's hope we are excited by who he can bring in.
I think we should be looking at the bigger picture Hampy! In context the result today doesn't alter our league position as everyone around us also lost. Mick is the first to realise where we need to strengthen and I have no doubts that he will bring in the personnel we require. The great thing is that we are now plainly off the life support and we are slowly beginning to recover from our horrendous start to the season. Lots of positives can be taken although today we were plainly second best to a Brighton side who were better than us on the day.
A lacklustre performance, we were second best all over the field, except for a period just before half time. Martin was involved a lot, but he lacked any real quality, his final ball was appalling, he will have to be taken off corner kick duty if he can not produce anything better than this. We had a promising free kick close to their goal, and with the big men waiting for a cross, he blasts it over the bar, and still his lack of disipline produces another booking. We had no pace or penetration in midfield, with Reo Coker rarely coming up with any telling passes, mainly sideways and backwards with this guy. We were caught dawdling for the second goal, just not reacting, or being aware of the danger. As for Henderson and the third goal, well this is a schoolboy error, anyone of us on here could have stopped it.
I can understand why Mick hasn't brought Hyam into the starting lineup - no point changing a winning team, but I was very confused when he took N'daw off rather than Reo-Coker. I suppose the upside of this is that it just shows ME we still have a long way to go before we start challenging for promotion and hopefully he won't hesitate in supporting Mick when the transfer window opens. I would like to see us bring in a striker (campbell or similar), a RW (edwards hasn't been impressing me recently and JET would clearly need some motivation to up his game to get a first team spot) and CB('s) for cover. Our own first team keeper would be nice too.
Wright, you are right there's no point in changing a winning team but he did because Drury was ill and he brought NRC into the line up. A few months ago I could've understood this because I thought NRC was a class player unfortunately he has showed no form since he's been here whereas Hyam has!! I'd say we are in need of a LW over a RW, although I do agree, for all the fuss about Edwards not being a RB and this square pegs in square holes malarky, I don't think I've seen Edwards have a good game on the RW for ITFC, he never takes on his man, never gets to the byline and never passes forward to the strikers feet, he only seems to go sideways or backwards. It seems to me he's much better attacking from RB than from the RW, he did used to have some great games there, his defensive positioning leaves alot to be desired sometimes but for me he offers alot more from this position than he does on the RW. I'd much rather see us put Martin on the RW and drop Edwards, because also I know Martin leaves alot to be desired but he's looked our most dangerous player this season bar DJ yet he looks like a round peg playing in a square hole on the LW!! I think JET is wasted on the wing, although it is an option, is much better centrally!! I think priorities are at least 1 CB, a LW and at least 1 striker possibly 2. Then a creative CM and possibly a RB, I haven't been overly impressed by Orr although you can tell he's a RB which is a bonus because he's probably defensively and positionally the best RB we've had for 2 and a half years!!
I've been watching football for thirty years, and this not changing a winning side doesn't ever work, not when you have to cram in as many fixtures as we have over the Christmas period. When you have a tired side, that's often worse than having less talented but less fatigued and more hungry players in the side. It's about knowing when to change it, who to bring in, to give people a rest without upsetting the balance. It's got to be a second string for me against Villa. The league is everything this season.
PTC I realise Drury was ill, but my previous comment was about the substitution of N'Daw for Hyam. True, I would have preferred Hyam to start in the first place, but I thought it was clear NRC was the weakest between him and N'daw. I just don't understand why Mick seems to prefer NRC. Lancs I would normally agree, but (by some miracle) I wouldn't have said the team looked particularly tired, they were running at players a lot and still keeping a quick tempo. I think the fact they only had 4 shots on target and 3 went in also shows us it could have been a very different result, unlucky for us their finishing was really on form. Of course if we have to rely on the other team to miss chances then I think it really shows we are a mid table team. Until we can beat an on-form team we won't be challenging for promotion.
McCarthy himself has said the players were tired. But, he said, he doesn't have much in reserve to freshen it up, so perhaps he just doesn't rate Hewitt, Hyam, Chopra.
For possibly the first time since he arrived I couldnt see what MM was trying to do yesterday. Martins positioning and final ball are both terrible. Is he still playing at LW because for the last two home games he has been anywhere but there. Full of energy but too often he is standing next to Edwards! NRC has not had a decent game for Town since arriving here. N'Daw and Murphy offer the only height in the attacking half of the pitch. Taking N'Daw off was strange for two reasons, His presence and he does 1000% more than NRC. Murphy again offers something up front that we dont have elsewhere. If we wanted to make changes up front than I would have thought putting Murphy back to LW would be a better option, although not ideal it would have replaced Martin and kept height in the team. Our touch was terrible the whole game so Im not convinced the idea was to play nice passes for Chopra & Scotland to work with. I wont repeat my thoughts on Chopra. They are well known on here so I will simply say he done nothing to make me think any different off him. Overall it was the second poor home performance in the last two games. I think it was slightly better than Bristol City as a spectator, although not helped by a very whistle happy ref but I think the viewing pleasure was mainly due to the fact that Brighton have obviously got a very watchable style of play. I think all 3 were poor goals to concede and have no idea why we let them play nice football. I thought Mick was going to 'kick arse' at half time as we let them do their thing in the first half but little changed. MM has obviously done a good job so far but we are far from safe and a few more performances like the christmas period home games are going to put us right back into the brown stuff. With a little room to move now we have an open transfer window then maybe we will see a bit of movement in both directions.
