It's easy, the fans do it all the time, "we're the finest football team the world has ever seen"!I meant that from his ( Ian Taylor's ) point of view that he has to put out player and manager interviews etc. He's on a hiding to nothing.
He or they can't say outright that we're ****, he still has a tough job trying to put a positive spin on events even if there isn't any.
It's easy, the fans do it all the time, "we're the finest football team the world has ever seen"!
Worrying times, I've never had Ollie down as a master tactician, but I thought he and Birch would be able to unite the team and add some passion, but as yet it hasn't happened. Quite the opposite if the last couple of results are anything to go by, but I accept it is early days in Ollie's reign. It can only get better can't it?I'm not sure what the way forward is now Rod. The away end was packed and there wasn't a spare seat in our stand but at the end of the game the players came over and the majority of them booed and made hand gestures towards them. The players couldn't be under any illusion as to what the fanbase thought of their lack of effort.
The only exception was when Smithies came over and he received a standing applause.
I did notice that Onuoha bent down and adjusted his socks and didn't acknowledge the support. The bloke shouldn't even be in the team let alone captain he's clueless.
My first missed Saturday away game for many a season thanks to a nasty sickness bug
But sounds as though staying in bed yesterday was by far the better option
I'm mystified as to how we can be playing so poorly. We have a decent enough squad on paper - certainly not as good as Newcastle, but rather better than half this division. So presumably it is down to tactics and players' desire
We certainly need a striker in January, and hope that some of our better players don't move on
Late to this thread.
Jesus **** we look a mess.
I don't think a striker would have changed much yesterday. It was just awful tactics.
I'm mystified as to how we can be playing so poorly. We have a decent enough squad on paper - certainly not as good as Newcastle, but rather better than half this division. So presumably it is down to tactics and players' desire
Sorry to say I strongly disagree. After the opening match against Leeds I thought against my pre-match judgement that JFH had cracked it but that was a very false dawn. It soon became blindingly obvious that we lacked any fluid playing style, we still were piss-poor in passing and with several inexplicable team selections we seemed to be as clueless on the pitch as the manager was off it.
When you regularly get outplayed by teams below you in the table you know you're in trouble, yesterday was the big wake-up call to all those like you who thought relegation couldn't happen, we are now in a survival battle and if Ollie doesn't find some answers soon, and we have a tough run of fixtures coming up, we'll be in the drop-zone by January...
Interesting Watford - what would you have done differently yesterday had you been Holloway?
I sympathise with Holloway to a small extent as Polter wasn't fit to play a whole game leaving him with only Washington. Sylla is presumed dead.
However the lack of width was ridiculous and killed off any chance of us opening up their statistically atrocious defence. Inverse wingers don't work for us and never will. He made this worse by removing Yeni and reverting back to narrow as possible 4-4-2 as we saw against Wolves.
The full-backs are a big problem. Bidwell looks slow, uncomposed on the ball and able to do nothing but pass it back or sideways at best. Onuoha just isn't a full-back. He lacks the awareness of where to be both in attack and defence.
We have a plethora of wingers but I appreciate for most games they perhaps won't be good enough going back to play a 532/352. However, this was Rotherham on seven points with fragile confidence. It was crying out for us to play with pace and take the game to them.
Therefore I'd have gone 3-5-2 with Shodipo left and Kakay right. There's no need for sandro- he's not good and lasts an hour. He also needs two other out and out midfielders there to run for him.
So, for me.
Onuoha Hall Lynch
Kakay Cousins Luongo Shodipo
Chery
Washington Polter
If Polter could only last 45-60 mins then Yeni up there to stretch them later into the game would have made sense to me.
Good analysis - I like your thinking