@MindlessDrugHoover said:
Spoke to Reading supporting friend yesterday who also runs a football blog and he rates Blackburn as the Championship dark horses - says they're far better than most people give them credit for and he'd be shocked if they weren't play-off contenders - definitely not a bang average side in this division.
We'll see on that, although we were playing them without their star player as well Bradley Dack. Dolan looked a very tricky player
I thought Blackburn looked good. How much better are the other two thirds of the league you rank as better?
Not bad thanks, hoping to see the Twitter transfer notification pop up any time
Was hard to tell how good they were as we gifted them so many chances. Some teams with more clinical forward players could have put double figures past us. Rocky made some decent saves that they shouldn't have let him have a chance with and they put a few wide as well.
I'd be surprised if they finished in the top half based on watching a lot of the championship last season and the standard being similar but who knows yet. They've got nowhere near the quality of the top end teams that's for sure but that's not everything as we proved last year.
Tyrhys Dolan put me in mind of Eze with his pace, trickery and ability to twist and turn his way out of tight situations. Signed a couple of months ago from Preston (aged 18) and playing in only his second game for Blackburn. Phenomenal talent.
In our preferred 4-3-3 our fullbacks have been terribly exposed more often than not. However, the opposition never really fully exploited that in L1, apart from the Coventry home game and Sunderland away last season.
Saturday though, it was clear Blackburn had done their homework and new full well both Grimmer and JJ get left with no help reasonably regularly. They switched the play very quickly to leave 1v1 or 1v2.
Gape and Thompson are massive misses. I don't think we would have lost to Rotherham and conceded 5 at Blackburn if both of them had played.
I can see us switching to 4-5-1 now Uche is available, this will allow the full backs more protection.
It's early days and I feel pretty certain we will get up to speed with Gape back and a signing or two to bolster the ranks.
@Commoner said:
In our preferred 4-3-3 our fullbacks have been terribly exposed more often than not. However, the opposition never really fully exploited that in L1, apart from the Coventry home game and Sunderland away last season.
Saturday though, it was clear Blackburn had done their homework and new full well both Grimmer and JJ get left with no help reasonably regularly. They switched the play very quickly to leave 1v1 or 1v2.
Gape and Thompson are massive misses. I don't think we would have lost to Rotherham and conceded 5 at Blackburn if both of them had played.
I can see us switching to 4-5-1 now Uche is available, this will allow the full backs more protection.
It's early days and I feel pretty certain we will get up to speed with Gape back and a signing or two to bolster the ranks.
I think the first 10-12 minutes were our undoing. We went gung ho from the start - something which Blackburn probably weren’t expecting - and gained a false sense that we might have their measure. We know now that we will often need to “park the bus” much as we did at Rochdale last season or at least hold carefully to a deeper more defensive formation and hope to snatch the odd goal on the break.
I thought Blackburn looked good. How much better are the other two thirds of the league you rank as better?
Not bad thanks, hoping to see the Twitter transfer notification pop up any time
Was hard to tell how good they were as we gifted them so many chances. Some teams with more clinical forward players could have put double figures past us. Rocky made some decent saves that they shouldn't have let him have a chance with and they put a few wide as well.
I'd be surprised if they finished in the top half based on watching a lot of the championship last season and the standard being similar but who knows yet. They've got nowhere near the quality of the top end teams that's for sure but that's not everything as we proved last year.
Wow. So we aare in for some tough old games if Blackburn are a lower half side.
Glad your Twitter transfer notification was about the Wycombe account rather than about following @chairboyscentral in transferring his views and thoughts over to Twitter.
Why do you have to make such a harsh remark? Hope it makes you feel better.
If you are asking about me questioning views expressed by @chairboyscentral and @Username then I have no idea what age they are but I am interested in their differing views on the games. One seems ok with debating. One doesn't.
If you are talking about me questioning @micra on the cricket? I take your point
I thought Blackburn looked good. How much better are the other two thirds of the league you rank as better?
Not bad thanks, hoping to see the Twitter transfer notification pop up any time
Was hard to tell how good they were as we gifted them so many chances. Some teams with more clinical forward players could have put double figures past us. Rocky made some decent saves that they shouldn't have let him have a chance with and they put a few wide as well.
I'd be surprised if they finished in the top half based on watching a lot of the championship last season and the standard being similar but who knows yet. They've got nowhere near the quality of the top end teams that's for sure but that's not everything as we proved last year.
Wow. So we aare in for some tough old games if Blackburn are a lower half side.
Glad your Twitter transfer notification was about the Wycombe account rather than about following @chairboyscentral in transferring his views and thoughts over to Twitter.
They finished 11th last year and have bought in a youngster on a free from PNE (albeit one who looked impressive), a keeper who looked pretty dodgy Saturday and another freebie who was playing for Stenhousemuir last year, while losing a few seasoned championship pros, hardly transfer business which suggests a sudden improvement.
Not sure what you mean by your second part, can count my posts on Twitter on one hand so I'm guessing you have me confused with someone else.
So you were expecting six points at this stage @Username ?
Were you expecting us to beat Blackburn in our second game?
Or is it the style of defeat?
Will new midfielders solve our current woes?
I suspect even mid-table Championship sides containing Championship players will give us problems this first season.
I was disappointed we did not get a point against Rotherham, but I was fully expecting us to be in a relegation fight from the off.
Not saying anything you are suggesting is wrong, but just wondered what you were expecting?
I wasn't expecting any number of points, but I was expecting to not look entirely out of our depth like we were this weekend. Like you I'm expecting us to be in a relegation fight throughout, the first match fitted that bill, Blackburn didn't, that looked like a league 2 side getting a pasting against a championship side who didn't even have to play well.
Rotherham first half we played well, and even though we weren't great second half we deserved something from the game albeit against a side who will be battling relegation. Very disappointed to lose while knowing we could have won with that same team and level of performance.
It was blindingly obvious that the midfield was the problem this weekend, so even if bringing in new men won't immediately solve it, keeping it the same isn't an option if we want any points this season. I don't mind losing, or even losing heavily if I feel like the other team are just that good and we gave a good enough account of ourselves, but Saturday was so far from that, every time they got the ball they could pass it or run with it straight through our midfield and were immediately at our back line, which eventually meant they went to pot and made mistakes which compounded the problem.
I suspect as the season goes on we will become 'hard to beat' and then there will be moaning that Fred and Scotty are not getting forward and scoring enough
@Username said:
They finished 11th last year and have bought in a youngster on a free from PNE (albeit one who looked impressive), a keeper who looked pretty dodgy Saturday and another freebie who was playing for Stenhousemuir last year, while losing a few seasoned championship pros, hardly transfer business which suggests a sudden improvement.
@Username said:
Blackburn didn't, that looked like a league 2 side getting a pasting against a championship side who didn't even have to play well.
How much of your dissapointment on Saturday is down to you not rating Blackburn that highly?
I thought they looked a slick side on a dodgy pitch and made our back four look more immobile than I have ever seen. If we are coming up against 15 teams at least better than this I am not sure we can get players in to compete.
Is there a slight element that we underestimated them a bit?
I've seen talk of us having a good start in fixtures and Gareth seemed very sure we were going there to win.
He struck me as more adamant than he's been in the lower leagues!
I think they're an average championship side without their star man, so that definitely contributes. They're the type of team we shouldn't be getting hammered by even if we don't take anything away from them IMO. I agree they moved it about pretty well, but they looked shaky at the back, and they actually gave the ball away a fair amount, it's just we kept giving it straight back. It's not just the scoreline but the way it happened, it wasn't unlucky to be 5-0, it was a more than deserved 5-0, after the first 15 minutes we looked completely out of our depth
@Username Did you see us at home against Coventry last season? Or Peterborough (I think) the year before? Or Plymouth (maybe) the year before that?
All your comments could equally have applied then.
I’m not saying the manner of our defeat wasn’t disappointing but there were mitigating circumstances in terms of our lack of midfield.
We all know we need midfield reinforcements but most of us understand that it’s unlikely to happen for obvious reasons until much closer to the transfer window closing.
We are going to have a number of days like Saturday this season regardless. As a team we need to learn how to defend against teams that move the ball quickly up front.
As supporters we also need to not write off our players so quickly. It’s a steep learning curve for many of them and we have to accept pretty much every team we play this season will have theoretically better players than we do.
But saying they won’t ever make it at this level is a bit insulting to good hard-working professionals.
Let’s see, hey?
And make the most of it. Probably won’t be long before they close down football matches for a couple of months or more. If we could fluke a few points early on, who knows, next years t-shirts might be 0.75!
Running down the opposition seems par for the course for some reason and l recall opposition supporters last season saying disparaging things about us when their team had been beaten. I suppose it is done to make matters appear in the worst possible light,
Part of the problem surely is that we have played a League One team (from last year) and lost, and a mid table Championship team (from last year) and been absolutely hammered. The other results noted above were mid-season, and as such there was something to look back on and know its not going to be like that every week. Absolutely nothing about Saturdays performance suggested it wouldn't be the same every week this season.
@bookertease said: @Username Did you see us at home against Coventry last season? Or Peterborough (I think) the year before? Or Plymouth (maybe) the year before that?
All your comments could equally have applied then.
I’m not saying the manner of our defeat wasn’t disappointing but there were mitigating circumstances in terms of our lack of midfield.
We all know we need midfield reinforcements but most of us understand that it’s unlikely to happen for obvious reasons until much closer to the transfer window closing.
We are going to have a number of days like Saturday this season regardless. As a team we need to learn how to defend against teams that move the ball quickly up front.
As supporters we also need to not write off our players so quickly. It’s a steep learning curve for many of them and we have to accept pretty much every team we play this season will have theoretically better players than we do.
But saying they won’t ever make it at this level is a bit insulting to good hard-working professionals.
Let’s see, hey?
And make the most of it. Probably won’t be long before they close down football matches for a couple of months or more. If we could fluke a few points early on, who knows, next years t-shirts might be 0.75!
The Coventry game yes, and basically every time we've played Coventry tbh!
I agree to an extent, but watching the game there were problems which aren't down to having a good/ bad game with Pattison and Bloomfield- a lack of pace and power, and a lack of technical ability to keep the ball. Never going to fault their effort, but I'm not going to lie and pretend I think they're up to it even if they have a good game.
Regarding the post from Bookertease above, I believe the expression is POTD. We were soundly beaten, but let’s not forget that we played for over half an hour with only ten men and were missing Akinfenwa, Gape and Thompson, three players who played a major part in our success last season. I think Username has been too harsh in his criticism of certain players and too dismissive of the quality of Blackburn’s team. Even ‘average’ teams at this level are much better than the opposition we’ve been used to. It’s going to take time and we need to be patient.
Comments
We'll see on that, although we were playing them without their star player as well Bradley Dack. Dolan looked a very tricky player
@Username How are you today?
I thought Blackburn looked good. How much better are the other two thirds of the league you rank as better?
Not bad thanks, hoping to see the Twitter transfer notification pop up any time
Was hard to tell how good they were as we gifted them so many chances. Some teams with more clinical forward players could have put double figures past us. Rocky made some decent saves that they shouldn't have let him have a chance with and they put a few wide as well.
I'd be surprised if they finished in the top half based on watching a lot of the championship last season and the standard being similar but who knows yet. They've got nowhere near the quality of the top end teams that's for sure but that's not everything as we proved last year.
Tyrhys Dolan put me in mind of Eze with his pace, trickery and ability to twist and turn his way out of tight situations. Signed a couple of months ago from Preston (aged 18) and playing in only his second game for Blackburn. Phenomenal talent.
Don't worry @username, with United on at the same time our potential viewing humiliation will probably be small.
We'll win though. Based on..erm things can only get better?
They could get worse before they get better @Malone ! I’m not usually this cheerful.
In our preferred 4-3-3 our fullbacks have been terribly exposed more often than not. However, the opposition never really fully exploited that in L1, apart from the Coventry home game and Sunderland away last season.
Saturday though, it was clear Blackburn had done their homework and new full well both Grimmer and JJ get left with no help reasonably regularly. They switched the play very quickly to leave 1v1 or 1v2.
Gape and Thompson are massive misses. I don't think we would have lost to Rotherham and conceded 5 at Blackburn if both of them had played.
I can see us switching to 4-5-1 now Uche is available, this will allow the full backs more protection.
It's early days and I feel pretty certain we will get up to speed with Gape back and a signing or two to bolster the ranks.
Good post this
I think the first 10-12 minutes were our undoing. We went gung ho from the start - something which Blackburn probably weren’t expecting - and gained a false sense that we might have their measure. We know now that we will often need to “park the bus” much as we did at Rochdale last season or at least hold carefully to a deeper more defensive formation and hope to snatch the odd goal on the break.
Can I suggest a packed midfield and hoof it up to the big man...I understand it's a tactic that sometimes works!
Wow. So we aare in for some tough old games if Blackburn are a lower half side.
Glad your Twitter transfer notification was about the Wycombe account rather than about following @chairboyscentral in transferring his views and thoughts over to Twitter.
Why do you hate young people @Right_in_the_Middle?
Why do you have to make such a harsh remark? Hope it makes you feel better.
If you are asking about me questioning views expressed by @chairboyscentral and @Username then I have no idea what age they are but I am interested in their differing views on the games. One seems ok with debating. One doesn't.
If you are talking about me questioning @micra on the cricket? I take your point
You've spent the best part of two years sniping away at pretty much everything @chairboyscentral posts
Your denial of this is as laughable as it is pathetic
They finished 11th last year and have bought in a youngster on a free from PNE (albeit one who looked impressive), a keeper who looked pretty dodgy Saturday and another freebie who was playing for Stenhousemuir last year, while losing a few seasoned championship pros, hardly transfer business which suggests a sudden improvement.
Not sure what you mean by your second part, can count my posts on Twitter on one hand so I'm guessing you have me confused with someone else.
So you were expecting six points at this stage @Username ?
Were you expecting us to beat Blackburn in our second game?
Or is it the style of defeat?
Will new midfielders solve our current woes?
I suspect even mid-table Championship sides containing Championship players will give us problems this first season.
I was disappointed we did not get a point against Rotherham, but I was fully expecting us to be in a relegation fight from the off.
Not saying anything you are suggesting is wrong, but just wondered what you were expecting?
@Wendoverman
I wasn't expecting any number of points, but I was expecting to not look entirely out of our depth like we were this weekend. Like you I'm expecting us to be in a relegation fight throughout, the first match fitted that bill, Blackburn didn't, that looked like a league 2 side getting a pasting against a championship side who didn't even have to play well.
Rotherham first half we played well, and even though we weren't great second half we deserved something from the game albeit against a side who will be battling relegation. Very disappointed to lose while knowing we could have won with that same team and level of performance.
It was blindingly obvious that the midfield was the problem this weekend, so even if bringing in new men won't immediately solve it, keeping it the same isn't an option if we want any points this season. I don't mind losing, or even losing heavily if I feel like the other team are just that good and we gave a good enough account of ourselves, but Saturday was so far from that, every time they got the ball they could pass it or run with it straight through our midfield and were immediately at our back line, which eventually meant they went to pot and made mistakes which compounded the problem.
I suspect as the season goes on we will become 'hard to beat' and then there will be moaning that Fred and Scotty are not getting forward and scoring enough
How much of your dissapointment on Saturday is down to you not rating Blackburn that highly?
I thought they looked a slick side on a dodgy pitch and made our back four look more immobile than I have ever seen. If we are coming up against 15 teams at least better than this I am not sure we can get players in to compete.
Is there a slight element that we underestimated them a bit?
I've seen talk of us having a good start in fixtures and Gareth seemed very sure we were going there to win.
He struck me as more adamant than he's been in the lower leagues!
I think they're an average championship side without their star man, so that definitely contributes. They're the type of team we shouldn't be getting hammered by even if we don't take anything away from them IMO. I agree they moved it about pretty well, but they looked shaky at the back, and they actually gave the ball away a fair amount, it's just we kept giving it straight back. It's not just the scoreline but the way it happened, it wasn't unlucky to be 5-0, it was a more than deserved 5-0, after the first 15 minutes we looked completely out of our depth
@Username Did you see us at home against Coventry last season? Or Peterborough (I think) the year before? Or Plymouth (maybe) the year before that?
All your comments could equally have applied then.
I’m not saying the manner of our defeat wasn’t disappointing but there were mitigating circumstances in terms of our lack of midfield.
We all know we need midfield reinforcements but most of us understand that it’s unlikely to happen for obvious reasons until much closer to the transfer window closing.
We are going to have a number of days like Saturday this season regardless. As a team we need to learn how to defend against teams that move the ball quickly up front.
As supporters we also need to not write off our players so quickly. It’s a steep learning curve for many of them and we have to accept pretty much every team we play this season will have theoretically better players than we do.
But saying they won’t ever make it at this level is a bit insulting to good hard-working professionals.
Let’s see, hey?
And make the most of it. Probably won’t be long before they close down football matches for a couple of months or more. If we could fluke a few points early on, who knows, next years t-shirts might be 0.75!
Running down the opposition seems par for the course for some reason and l recall opposition supporters last season saying disparaging things about us when their team had been beaten. I suppose it is done to make matters appear in the worst possible light,
Part of the problem surely is that we have played a League One team (from last year) and lost, and a mid table Championship team (from last year) and been absolutely hammered. The other results noted above were mid-season, and as such there was something to look back on and know its not going to be like that every week. Absolutely nothing about Saturdays performance suggested it wouldn't be the same every week this season.
I'm not saying it will be, but there's not much reassurance
The Coventry game yes, and basically every time we've played Coventry tbh!
I agree to an extent, but watching the game there were problems which aren't down to having a good/ bad game with Pattison and Bloomfield- a lack of pace and power, and a lack of technical ability to keep the ball. Never going to fault their effort, but I'm not going to lie and pretend I think they're up to it even if they have a good game.
Regarding the post from Bookertease above, I believe the expression is POTD. We were soundly beaten, but let’s not forget that we played for over half an hour with only ten men and were missing Akinfenwa, Gape and Thompson, three players who played a major part in our success last season. I think Username has been too harsh in his criticism of certain players and too dismissive of the quality of Blackburn’s team. Even ‘average’ teams at this level are much better than the opposition we’ve been used to. It’s going to take time and we need to be patient.
I am sure the Gasroomers would want to wish @micra a very happy 82nd birthday today.
Happy Birthday Micra!
Hope you're having a great day
All the best Micra, always appreciate your courtesy and common sense when posting on the gasroom.