@Glenactico said:
On the seating issue point, I can see it from both sides. People coming in half cut at 2:55 and trying to stand at the back in a full area isn’t helpful at all. Some of the guys that arrived late caused a bit of a fuss and upset some of the kids, which isn’t acceptable.
Having said that, there is quite a bit of naivety among people that come in early and head to the back rows with kids or older folks and then want to sit. Everybody knows that some people prefer to stand and will logically do so at the back of the stand.
My issue is more with the away grounds/ stewards - either force everyone to sit in their allocated seat, or open the whole thing up.
I think we showed bluster and effort today, but were poorly set up, wildly low on confidence with little quality. Whereas we aren't getting the lucky bounces, hit the bar and missed a penalty today, that's ultimately irrelevant if we leave their fresh sub in acres of space to neatly curl the ball home.
@Chris said:
Allsop is a perfectly fine keeper at this level. Yves Ma-Kalambay less so.
Allsopp is not a good goalkeeper at this level.
Yves Ma-Kalambay literally looks like he's never played in goal before.
As poor as Allsop has been for a considerable time, i can only presume Ainsworth has
looked at him in training, and seen his confidence is totally shot. As like you say Ma-Kalambay doesn't resemble a keeper.
Alldrop and Kalamity are the modern day selection headache of Cheesewright and Parkin.
Can we not just treat the pair of them with X-Lax, so we can bring in an emergency keeper due to illness ?
At least it will be those two shitting themselves, rather than the Wanderers faithful who suffer that every time a ball goes in our box.
Leading games for a bit doesn't matter if you don't kill them off (see timewasting earlier in the season and horrible striker goal return more recently) or if your defense is leaky. Late losses in important games shouldn't be a surprise as there's always more urgency at the end. Last year we were getting those results. The opposition is harder this time around and we haven't been up to the task all season. January was a disaster really, as much in terms of pace and running lost as anything else and the knock on effect is everyone else being knackered.
Individual selections however odd are just shuffling the pack, if someone has a mare or two we can't replace them with equal quality.
Can't really expect Ainsworth to keep magically finding freebies and some of our fans seem to forget he got us in this division.
Just about recovered from yesterday. On the positive side of things off the pitch, I thought that the Wycombe support was fantastic for the whole match, whereas Oxford’s support was absolutely pathetic until they scored the winner. Their view of themselves as being a big club is delusional in the extreme. Next Saturday we will see a truly big club, with a great history (albeit troubled recently) and strong fan base, with the visit of Pompey.
In terms of the match, we were well worth a point and could / should have nicked all three with the chances we had. Yes, the team is low on confidence (understandably) at the moment, which results in fear which in turn manifests itself in too much hoof ball , rather than getting it down and looking for a pass to a teammate and also not being able to see out games. Stewart, Freeman and also Bean played well. As others have said, ‘the Yves experiment ‘ is clearly over. Bayo was lethargic, but if the header goes in, we would all have been happy.
Re the next two matches, agree with most of the above - Bolton definitely not the answer though. Up front, why not be bold and play Samuel and Kashket as a pair? Time for Scott to step up and regain his goa scoring prowess to get the goals to keep us up? Bayo as impact sub if we are struggling?
Time for us all to keep the faith! COYB.
As another old man, I agree we must keep the faith. The season ends in May not March. If I was a Rochdale fan I be more concerned, they still have to play most of the likely sides who are near on in the drop zone. COYB's
We must all keep believing, no matter how hard it seems sometimes. But I do agree with the fact our squad is now weaker than last year, not helped by the fact that the older players just look knackered, even after 2 weeks off. Also, on the subject of keepers, and I'm sure others have said this before, I think we should just get a loan keeper every season, there are so many good young keepers in the premiership and Championship that can't get into match day squads, I don't think it would be that hard to get one every year.
I actually felt sorry for Yves yesterday, he looked so out of his depth.
But should we be surprised? How much football has he played in recent years? And then to be thrown in at such a crucial stage of the season.
It shows that either Ainsworth has lost all reason, or as suggested, that there is something going on with Allsopp that we don't know about which makes it impossible for him to play.
I'm which case I'd be tempted to give the young kid a go. At least he's used to playing in actual games
Eric Plant. What a totally uncalled for post. As it happens I was referring mainly to the negativity on the FB page and should have made that clearer. However, your posts stating ‘Ainsworth has lost the plot, choice of goalkeeper unforgivable’ would have been more at home on that page. Is that what you meant by people posting nonsense?
I do not comment on WWFC for a living but if I did I would say that a team and a manager who have over achieved are going through a very difficult period when they need the support of the fans more than ever.
Cannot fathom why anyone would say Bean played well yesterday. Trundled around, consistently slowed the play down and mispassed the ball.
The best top 3 for me would be Tyson/ Samuel/ PCH - a 433 has worked for us defensively throughout the season. Randomly trialling Kashket and Samuel is not the answer.
@glasshalffull said:
Eric Plant. What a totally uncalled for post. As it happens I was referring mainly to the negativity on the FB page and should have made that clearer. However, your posts stating ‘Ainsworth has lost the plot, choice of goalkeeper unforgivable’ would have been more at home on that page. Is that what you meant by people posting nonsense?
I do not comment on WWFC for a living but if I did I would say that a team and a manager who have over achieved are going through a very difficult period when they need the support of the fans more than ever.
Bit of an odd post, I was just saying that as a professional within the game it might be interesting to hear your opinions on it.
Back to the point, do you agree with Gareth Ainsworth’s decision to pick Yves Ma-Kalambay as his first choice goalkeeper for the last 2 games?
There was a strong lobby of opinion among Wycombe fans that Allsop had lost confidence and should be rested after some costly errors. If the manager had persisted with him he would surely have been criticised by those same fans. However, he did leave him out and now he’s being criticised for making that change.
It proves that as a manager, you can never win and can only hope you get more decisions right than wrong.
To suggest that GA has ‘lost the plot’ is, in my view, wrong and disrespectful to a manager who has done a wonderful job in very difficult circumstances.
Allsop began the season as our first choice keeper and I believe he will still be in that position come the end of the season.
Fair point, I concede the wording of my post was harsh. Passions were running high and I feared the decision may cost us the game.
My point remains though, if that decision was based on a choice between 2 fully fit and ready goalkeepers then in my opinion it was a massive error or judgment
Even @glasshalffull will admit you make your own luck in football and that comes from hard work and ability. We certainly don’t lack the hard work bit but we are short on confidence and it is greatly impacting our ability to win. Oxford were certainly there for the taking.
One big plus was Anthony Stewart who really shone during the 94 minutes.
We MUST get something out of the next two home games.
Bookies still have us at 9-2 for relegation, 5-1 in an odd place. Generous perhaps but not time to give up. Tough next two games, then final five perfectly winnable.
@Blue_since_1990 said:
Even @glasshalffull will admit you make your own luck in football and that comes from hard work and ability. We certainly don’t lack the hard work bit but we are short on confidence and it is greatly impacting our ability to win. Oxford were certainly there for the taking.
One big plus was Anthony Stewart who really shone during the 94 minutes.
We MUST get something out of the next two home games.
I agree about Anthony Stewart who I thought was magnificent throughout. I also thought Marcus Bean had a good game. We lost a game in which we deserved a point due to a wonderful strike that no goalkeeper could have saved. We are still in there fighting.
@micra said:
“4-3-3 has worked for us defensively throughout the season” - really, @prufrock_91 ?
I think for the most part, in our most successful part of the season during the Autumn, we played 433 with Samuel leading the line on his own as Bayo was injured.
@eric_plant said:
Fair point, I concede the wording of my post was harsh. Passions were running high and I feared the decision may cost us the game.
My point remains though, if that decision was based on a choice between 2 fully fit and ready goalkeepers then in my opinion it was a massive error or judgment
Whilst I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of our goalkeepers, has playing Yves actually cost us points? Allsop had clearly lost his confidence after making a number of mistakes recently which had cost us points.
It's a shame we are unlikely to be safe relegation wise (hopefully) until the last game or so, as it would have been useful to give our third goalkeeper a run out to see if he has the potential to be our number 2.
With you there @mooneyman. As I said a long time ago, from what I’d seen of Yves on a promotional video he is clearly very agile, athletic and acrobatic but I thought he might be the goalkeeping equivalent of Sido Jombati - eccentric and perhaps a bit unpredictable. I wasn’t at the match but, listening to @bluntphil’s excellent commentary, I got the impression that Yves’ positional sense did seem somewhat eccentric at times but that, nonetheless, he wasn’t at fault for either of the goals.
Just to be clear, in referring to Sido’s eccentricity, I was thinking very much about his performances at right back. As a central defender he has been immense and, for the most part, extremely disciplined.
Just a note on late goals: 26% of our goals conceded have come on 80+ mins, as have 31% of our goals scored. I'm not sure where they rank compared to the rest of the league, but they've got to be right up there surely.
@eric_plant said:
Fair point, I concede the wording of my post was harsh. Passions were running high and I feared the decision may cost us the game.
My point remains though, if that decision was based on a choice between 2 fully fit and ready goalkeepers then in my opinion it was a massive error or judgment
No problem Eric, we all get overheated at times but we all want the same thing: a successful WWFC.
I think around 15% of goals are normally scored from 80 minutes onwards so both of those stats look unusually high. It could be because of an underlying reason, or it might just be down to random chance.
When it's spread over the course of a season, there's usually an underlying reason. More alarming is the fact that during this winless run, 40% of our goals conceded have come in those minutes.
Watching Sunderland pass their way so readily through Portsmouth makes me think we need a similar approach next Saturday. A reminder of the lineup:
Allsop
McCarthy
Stewart
Jombati
Jacobson
Bloomfield
Gape
Bean
Bolton
Samuel
Tyson
The ‘flu virus was rampant at the time and Curtis Thompson was only able to come on as sub with a few minutes to spare. Luke Bolton had to be subbed after 28 minutes and was replaced by PCH. Tyson, Thompson and PCH must surely start against Portsmouth and we have to keep the ball on the deck as much as possible.
PS. Can’t help thinking Kashket is going to be involved and scoring goals before too long. Confidence is a key quality in the present situation and that’s something he’s never seemed to lack.
Classic game of two halves at Wembley.
Perhaps the slick passing game with all that “give and go” takes more out of players than the more direct style.
Comments
Allsopp is not a good goalkeeper at this level.
Yves Ma-Kalambay literally looks like he's never played in goal before.
My issue is more with the away grounds/ stewards - either force everyone to sit in their allocated seat, or open the whole thing up.
I think we showed bluster and effort today, but were poorly set up, wildly low on confidence with little quality. Whereas we aren't getting the lucky bounces, hit the bar and missed a penalty today, that's ultimately irrelevant if we leave their fresh sub in acres of space to neatly curl the ball home.
As poor as Allsop has been for a considerable time, i can only presume Ainsworth has
looked at him in training, and seen his confidence is totally shot. As like you say Ma-Kalambay doesn't resemble a keeper.
Alldrop and Kalamity are the modern day selection headache of Cheesewright and Parkin.
Can we not just treat the pair of them with X-Lax, so we can bring in an emergency keeper due to illness ?
At least it will be those two shitting themselves, rather than the Wanderers faithful who suffer that every time a ball goes in our box.
Leading games for a bit doesn't matter if you don't kill them off (see timewasting earlier in the season and horrible striker goal return more recently) or if your defense is leaky. Late losses in important games shouldn't be a surprise as there's always more urgency at the end. Last year we were getting those results. The opposition is harder this time around and we haven't been up to the task all season. January was a disaster really, as much in terms of pace and running lost as anything else and the knock on effect is everyone else being knackered.
Individual selections however odd are just shuffling the pack, if someone has a mare or two we can't replace them with equal quality.
Can't really expect Ainsworth to keep magically finding freebies and some of our fans seem to forget he got us in this division.
Just about recovered from yesterday. On the positive side of things off the pitch, I thought that the Wycombe support was fantastic for the whole match, whereas Oxford’s support was absolutely pathetic until they scored the winner. Their view of themselves as being a big club is delusional in the extreme. Next Saturday we will see a truly big club, with a great history (albeit troubled recently) and strong fan base, with the visit of Pompey.
In terms of the match, we were well worth a point and could / should have nicked all three with the chances we had. Yes, the team is low on confidence (understandably) at the moment, which results in fear which in turn manifests itself in too much hoof ball , rather than getting it down and looking for a pass to a teammate and also not being able to see out games. Stewart, Freeman and also Bean played well. As others have said, ‘the Yves experiment ‘ is clearly over. Bayo was lethargic, but if the header goes in, we would all have been happy.
Re the next two matches, agree with most of the above - Bolton definitely not the answer though. Up front, why not be bold and play Samuel and Kashket as a pair? Time for Scott to step up and regain his goa scoring prowess to get the goals to keep us up? Bayo as impact sub if we are struggling?
Time for us all to keep the faith! COYB.
As another old man, I agree we must keep the faith. The season ends in May not March. If I was a Rochdale fan I be more concerned, they still have to play most of the likely sides who are near on in the drop zone. COYB's
We must all keep believing, no matter how hard it seems sometimes. But I do agree with the fact our squad is now weaker than last year, not helped by the fact that the older players just look knackered, even after 2 weeks off. Also, on the subject of keepers, and I'm sure others have said this before, I think we should just get a loan keeper every season, there are so many good young keepers in the premiership and Championship that can't get into match day squads, I don't think it would be that hard to get one every year.
I actually felt sorry for Yves yesterday, he looked so out of his depth.
But should we be surprised? How much football has he played in recent years? And then to be thrown in at such a crucial stage of the season.
It shows that either Ainsworth has lost all reason, or as suggested, that there is something going on with Allsopp that we don't know about which makes it impossible for him to play.
I'm which case I'd be tempted to give the young kid a go. At least he's used to playing in actual games
Eric Plant. What a totally uncalled for post. As it happens I was referring mainly to the negativity on the FB page and should have made that clearer. However, your posts stating ‘Ainsworth has lost the plot, choice of goalkeeper unforgivable’ would have been more at home on that page. Is that what you meant by people posting nonsense?
I do not comment on WWFC for a living but if I did I would say that a team and a manager who have over achieved are going through a very difficult period when they need the support of the fans more than ever.
Cannot fathom why anyone would say Bean played well yesterday. Trundled around, consistently slowed the play down and mispassed the ball.
The best top 3 for me would be Tyson/ Samuel/ PCH - a 433 has worked for us defensively throughout the season. Randomly trialling Kashket and Samuel is not the answer.
Bit of an odd post, I was just saying that as a professional within the game it might be interesting to hear your opinions on it.
Back to the point, do you agree with Gareth Ainsworth’s decision to pick Yves Ma-Kalambay as his first choice goalkeeper for the last 2 games?
“4-3-3 has worked for us defensively throughout the season” - really, @prufrock_91 ?
There was a strong lobby of opinion among Wycombe fans that Allsop had lost confidence and should be rested after some costly errors. If the manager had persisted with him he would surely have been criticised by those same fans. However, he did leave him out and now he’s being criticised for making that change.
It proves that as a manager, you can never win and can only hope you get more decisions right than wrong.
To suggest that GA has ‘lost the plot’ is, in my view, wrong and disrespectful to a manager who has done a wonderful job in very difficult circumstances.
Allsop began the season as our first choice keeper and I believe he will still be in that position come the end of the season.
Fair point, I concede the wording of my post was harsh. Passions were running high and I feared the decision may cost us the game.
My point remains though, if that decision was based on a choice between 2 fully fit and ready goalkeepers then in my opinion it was a massive error or judgment
Even @glasshalffull will admit you make your own luck in football and that comes from hard work and ability. We certainly don’t lack the hard work bit but we are short on confidence and it is greatly impacting our ability to win. Oxford were certainly there for the taking.
One big plus was Anthony Stewart who really shone during the 94 minutes.
We MUST get something out of the next two home games.
Bookies still have us at 9-2 for relegation, 5-1 in an odd place. Generous perhaps but not time to give up. Tough next two games, then final five perfectly winnable.
I am fully confident that we will stay up
I agree about Anthony Stewart who I thought was magnificent throughout. I also thought Marcus Bean had a good game. We lost a game in which we deserved a point due to a wonderful strike that no goalkeeper could have saved. We are still in there fighting.
I think for the most part, in our most successful part of the season during the Autumn, we played 433 with Samuel leading the line on his own as Bayo was injured.
Whilst I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of our goalkeepers, has playing Yves actually cost us points? Allsop had clearly lost his confidence after making a number of mistakes recently which had cost us points.
It's a shame we are unlikely to be safe relegation wise (hopefully) until the last game or so, as it would have been useful to give our third goalkeeper a run out to see if he has the potential to be our number 2.
With you there @mooneyman. As I said a long time ago, from what I’d seen of Yves on a promotional video he is clearly very agile, athletic and acrobatic but I thought he might be the goalkeeping equivalent of Sido Jombati - eccentric and perhaps a bit unpredictable. I wasn’t at the match but, listening to @bluntphil’s excellent commentary, I got the impression that Yves’ positional sense did seem somewhat eccentric at times but that, nonetheless, he wasn’t at fault for either of the goals.
Just to be clear, in referring to Sido’s eccentricity, I was thinking very much about his performances at right back. As a central defender he has been immense and, for the most part, extremely disciplined.
Just a note on late goals: 26% of our goals conceded have come on 80+ mins, as have 31% of our goals scored. I'm not sure where they rank compared to the rest of the league, but they've got to be right up there surely.
No problem Eric, we all get overheated at times but we all want the same thing: a successful WWFC.
I think around 15% of goals are normally scored from 80 minutes onwards so both of those stats look unusually high. It could be because of an underlying reason, or it might just be down to random chance.
When it's spread over the course of a season, there's usually an underlying reason. More alarming is the fact that during this winless run, 40% of our goals conceded have come in those minutes.
I disagree - a few extra goals change the percentages a lot even over an entire season, and certainly in 10 games.
There's a good full breakdown here https://www.soccerstats.com/timing.asp?league=England I hadn't really considered that we're the second worst team in the league for conceding in the open 10 mins of games
Watching Sunderland pass their way so readily through Portsmouth makes me think we need a similar approach next Saturday. A reminder of the lineup:
Allsop
McCarthy
Stewart
Jombati
Jacobson
Bloomfield
Gape
Bean
Bolton
Samuel
Tyson
The ‘flu virus was rampant at the time and Curtis Thompson was only able to come on as sub with a few minutes to spare. Luke Bolton had to be subbed after 28 minutes and was replaced by PCH. Tyson, Thompson and PCH must surely start against Portsmouth and we have to keep the ball on the deck as much as possible.
PS. Can’t help thinking Kashket is going to be involved and scoring goals before too long. Confidence is a key quality in the present situation and that’s something he’s never seemed to lack.
Classic game of two halves at Wembley.
Perhaps the slick passing game with all that “give and go” takes more out of players than the more direct style.
Sadly, I'm not sure Luke O'Nien will enjoy watching a replay of the build up to Pompey's equaliser
Hopefully he can score the winner