"To be fair to the players they had a go at it and had 13 attempts on their goal in the second half. Tommy Smith hit the post and we had a couple of efforts blocked on the line so on another day we might have got something from the game." Don't want to get on the guy's back, but sorry Malky, you could have been doing that in the first half. It's pointless talking about "on another day" - we lost THIS game, it's gone now. That's 3 points never to be recovered. For a guy who come across so positive about everything at the club from the owners through to the players and supporters, you are so negative in your approach to winning away games from the kick off. We all realise a game is never won in the first half, but we're handing the opposition the opportunity to get at us and gain confidence in their own game. For Christ's sake, we don't need Whitts playing as a sweeper behind Cowie, Gunnar, Smith and Conway, hit them with our own player's ability going forward and let them do the worrying. For obvious reasons, I'd rather win one and lose one on the road rather than drawing both - and ffs, we can't even do that! Let's be honest, at Ipswich we got lucky, but we lost against Palace and Forest playing a cautious 4-5-1. It's time to take a fresh approach away from home.
Sooner or later he must concede that all the opportunites he's discussing are when we have a more attaching formation. Rather than let the opposition get a lead and then play catch up, go at them from the off. I'm with you Sparkey, let them worry about us rather than try and nulify the opposition.
Spot on Sparkey - we only threatened at all when Malky threw out his original team selection and tactics. Will he ever acknowledge he is getting it wrong away from home? How many bad performances does it take? And we were bad at Ipswich - they were just worse than us.
I agree, i went up to forest and it was awful. As soon as i heard the team i thought what's he doing. There's no way Cowie and Conway should be getting in the team ahead of Noone.
Agreed. Noone had a difficult game at Ipswich and when Conway came on for him, he took his chance and played well to be fair. Starting Cowie and Conway to some extent ahead of Noone yesterday sends out the wrong message to Nooney and the team. Let's put it this way. Malky has options at midfield and upfront and he was very quick to drop Noone to the bench. If McNuggs and/or Taylor had a mare (IMO McNuggs has already had a fdew this season) they would both still be on the pitch for the next one. Malky needs to grasp the nettle and play to our strengths on the road, not try to stop the opposition playing - it has been shown not to work for us.
Sorry Nat but I disagree. If we don't start utilising other players and end up sticking with a traditional Malky 14 player squad, we will suffer with player burn out in the later stages of the season. Noone is definitely the better choice but we have to gamble and use more of the squad to benefit key players in the long run. One up front is the problem.
Turner has to come back in as well. He should have started with Noone yesterday. However he was poor against Ipswich. We lacked pace last season. Yesterdays line up was slow and predictable. Its all heading towards the play offs in my opinion. If thats the case we need the likes of Bellamy and Mutch to be fit.
was reading the replies and just about to say this if we rest players every 6-7 games then we will be in a much better position to really go for it from january onwards, we will also pick up less injuries if players arent forced to play every week like they had to last year. dont agree with the negative tactics but in hingsight you can understand why good players were left out.
you cant expect to win every game...MM has to use other players at some point and its easy to criticize after the event....Forest are a good side and they had home advantage......
They were a very ordinary side who we completely overran for the final half hour when MM made the changes that shoudl have been made at five to three - the only advantage they had was that we hardly attacked them for the first hour.
Dai - you've got it wrong again mate. We supporters DO NOT expect to win every game but at least we should TRY. Playing the best system to suit the talents of the players at your disposal is a prerequisite of good management. Doesn't matter about home advantage either. In fact, attacking a team on their own patch when they would normally expect the away side to defend is good policy. We have the players to do just that rather than cow down to the opposition and try to defend the point we start with. Finally, you're out of touch with reality regarding Championship sides. Forest are not a "good side". They are middleweights in this division despite their aspirations to regain "big club" status.
MM definately has his favorites, 4 - 5 - 1 isnt working away from home and we are leaking goals, which basically means teams are working us out, therefore we are predictable away from home. He has to change things around a little bit, to get the other sides managers thinking. Imo we should be going at teams right from the off.
I don't know it's a hard one, i agree we have to rotate the squad but the players we are putting in aren't up to the job imo. It might have been a different story if we'd had bellamy and mutch fit. Anyway onwards and upwards, two home games now with hopefully a pretty much fully fit squad
