The frustrating thing for me is I think we have enough quality to do much better, it’s LJ. that’s the weak link at present . Too many square pins in round holes , he has players that seem to play however they play too, Patto last season , odowda this, We have an array of strikers , but our midfield is so poor we create so few chances
I guess that was to allow Wells to play in the middle , otherwise Wells would have to play left , I kinda get that , but why not swap them around a bit during the game. I don’t know what the issue was with Nagy last week, and therefore not sure if he could have started today , Massengo and odowda though isn’t a midfield pairing I’d chose , Massengo is not experienced enough & shouldn’t be the mainstay of our midfield, he has great potential, but isn’t good enough yet . that he is says it all for me , as for odowda I’ve no idea how he gets in the team every week. I imagine his ground covered stats are very good and that’s why,
Quality in midfield is as good as Korey Smiths through ball when Weimann was completely free. I’m sorry but a look up and pass was all what was needed. That was a panic pass too heavy and far to central. That was the extent of the quality in the team. O’Dowda must have something on LJ as to keep playing him is beyond me. And to think at the time we probably could of had Roofe instead of him.
I think Korey would be ok if he had better cover around him , his role for me would be to put his foot in and break attacks up & the leadership he brings , for me our biggest problem has been the failure of Nagy , whether that’s because of injury I don’t know, to me there’s something we aren’t being told , maybe it is just he’s not settled into the area I don’t know, it just doesn’t add up. If he had kicked on from the performances he had when he first arrived I believe we could be in with a real shout because what he brought in those first few games is exactly what we are missing .
LJ has done great these past 4 years making us a competitive second division team always battling at the top of the table but the way he sets us up every game is really starting to get on my nerves especially having to sit through those types of performances every week, I never really call for managers to go but it’s getting really close with LJ, the constant tinkering and nonsense like playing centre forwards out wide is mind blowing and don’t get me started on match interviews with nonsense like “players I can trust” Talking about midfield wise I was a big fan of players like Tommey Doherty, Paul Hartley, Wade Elliott, Tinnion, Skuse, and wish we had players of similar quality now especially a player like Elliott, great captain and a leader on the pitch just the type of player we need imo.
I'm sorry that isn't Smith anymore, he was awful today and as for being a leader that is something he is not, he only talks when play is dead, a leader organises whilst the game is ongoing, there absolutely zero organising in our midfield. As for Nagy for me it's simple, Johnson cannot handle big players, Bentley, Kalas, Williams, Baker, Nagy, Diedhiou, Palmer and even Wells from what I have heard, I wouldn't be surprised to see most of them leave especially if Johnson is still in charge.
Surely either put 2 wide men on or play 3 at the back with wing backs and play 2 down the middle, sorry I don't get playing strikers out wide, it's to negative. Wiemann and ODowda might cover a lot ground but neither achieve much, Wiemann has been poor most of the season and ODowda has been poor ALL season, if we sign players whose main quality is that they run around a lot, the end result is a team like ours, a team lacking quality and creativity.
I still think Smith would be ok if he wasn’t having to do the work of 3 , Massengo is too young and inexperienced & odowda isn’t a midfielder.
I love Smith he has been a great player for us, but I think his legs have gone, he reminds me of the latter days of Elliott and with that type of player in midfield when your legs have gone it's the beginning of the end. Fans have cited the sale of Pack as being the problem with our midfield, well not for me, between January and April last year our midfield was just as bad as it is now. Most of us realised that about Massengo and don't get me started on ODowda, the giving to him of a new contract was madness. The truth is our midfield has been a huge problem since Johnson arrived and he has managed to make a poor midfield even worse, it is a midfield in his image as a player, weak, slow and virtually non creative. He's has got to go, Blackburn was bad enough but yesterday his mistakes from start to finish beggared belief, yes both goals came from defensive mistakes but team selection, team shape, team tactics and the replacing of Vyner for Hunt in the 88th minute when we were still only 1 goal behind, show his total incompetence and then for me hearing him say "we need a Barry Bannan type midfielder" nearly resulted in me smashing my laptop up, FFS many, many fans having been saying that since Johnson arrived 4 years ago and he has only just realised? you really couldn't make that up. Maybe it was a blessing for Bannan because as I said on another post Johnson IMHO cannot handle big players and Bannan is a big player, I forgot to add to my list Benkovic and Henricksen and my list is just this seasons list.
I've always tried to support LJ and still firmly believe that he has been subjected to unjust criticism due to the fact that people remember him as a player and resent him because he played under his dad. However, much of the criticism levelled at him over the last 2 games I quite frankly agree with. He's playing players that should be on the bench at best, and of those he does play many are out of position. The only bit of sympathy I have for him is that he has lost his team captains in successive windows - possibly not his idea(??) who knows, but he is still responsible for getting the best out of the players he has - and as individuals they are not that bad. This season has gone as far as I'm concerned. I can't continue to support LJ if we allow the collapse to continue. A defeat - unpleasant though it is - I can just about accept if we played to our strengths and are beaten by a better side after giving our all. I have NOT seen this over the last 2 games and I can't see it changing tbh. Thanks for stabilising us in the Championship Lee - and the fantastic memories from those wonderful Caribou Cup performances which will always stay with me, but perhaps it's time to take a bow and move on?
Sadly I don’t know who presented it Sparkey, as we got knocked out in the semi final. I don’t even know who won it - was it Cardiff?
Nah, it wasn't us. We got chucked out and Warnock got banned for arguing with Dancer and Prancer........
