Well I blame this result on the fact that I was unable to post a proper match day thread However, Mick tells me that he's given me access to an advanced editor so I'll test it out at the weekend when we play PNE in the Cup
Great Great news KIO and that last one blatantly didn't count no question of that. Hopefully the advanced editor will make it more user friendly because we all know we have zero chance without your threads, I do find it easier to upload pictures on this new site I couldn't do it on my phone before and hopefully when we get used to it there may be some other improvements. I believe Mick changed the site as a lot of users were getting virus alerts and the old one was prone to nasty things getting in from people putting links up. Pretty good of him to take time to assist you with your threads to be fair. Look forward to the Preston thteadand another 3 points.
After the Derby game I was negative about our prospects, when almost everyone else thought we had turned a corner. It was even suggested that I should be put on 24 surveillance, for being so negative after such a great performance, and then we won 6-1 at Milwall and all was well in the world. Well having watch the game yesterday I've got to say that I can't see that my reasons for being negative were so far of the mark. Here they are again with updates in red We're 7th. Still 7th and losing ground. We've got 4 points from the last 3 games (Derby, Milwall & Reading), it doesn't matter how well we've played that's not good enough. 6 should have been the minimum (wins against Milwall & Reading) we should have been looking for, 7 if we want to win the league. We are still playing Martin at CB, even though its costing us goals & points. Martin seems to be our 1st choice CB and all the other CB's seem to be rotated to see if they can play with him. Martin is our best RB, Whittaker's fine going forward, to the detriment of his defence responsibilities. If I was manager, Martin would be one of the first names on my team sheet, but only as a RB. As captain & playing as CB he should be organising the defence, he doesn't. On numerous occasions at the start of the game yesterday Bennett seemed to be trying to get Martin to hold a higher line up the pitch. I've said before that in general it is not the conceding of goals that is costing us points, but our lack of ability to score. Teams that get promoted from the Championship always seem to have a solid well organised defence and a very solid CB partnership(s). Our best CB pairing is warming the bench. Yesterdays game would have been ideal for Turner. After all he would have been fresh, would have been eager to get his place back and he's just the sort of CB that you need on a cold afternoon at somewhere like Reading. For me without a doubt on the players available our CB pairing should have been Turner & Bennett with Martin at RB. We're playing very narrow, to cover for Martin's inadequatcies. We have good quality in midfield and we should be building our team around this rather than adjusting it to cover for our lack of a solid CB partnership. Hoolahan appears to be fit which almost certainly means he'll start each week. Past performance suggests he'll have one good game in every 3 or 4 he plays. This hasn't happened, yet!!!!! People keep saying we're playing well, but we're not getting the points we need. After the Derby & Milwall games you would have thought all was well in the world. Don't get me wrong they were both very good results, but if we want automatic promotion then it's the games like yesterday that we should be winning. With all respect to Reading, they are the sort of team we should be doing the double over, not the other way around. There are 3 or 4 teams in the league that are a lot better than us. I was challenged to name them by Canary Rob so here goes Bournemouth, Middlesbrough & Derby. Watford, Brentford & dare I say it Ipswich are on par with us, if not better. Just to be clear I am talking about TEAMS not the collective ability of individual members. The January transfer window is fast approaching and I fear that there will be several squad members who will be thinking like me, considering their options and thinking the grass is greener. Hooper, Turner & Redmond for example. Forget Hooper & Redmond, but we are really f**ked if Johnson goes. and what makes it worse is that we have the squad to do much better than we are. We have the individuals to win this league, we just don't have the team.
