Credit to Pools, over the two games they worked us out, there was no gulf in class, seem to be playing for their caretaker manager.
We seem to think that hitting fast quick passes is the answer, it might be in a higher division with better players but not tonight’s line up. I’d like to see someone in mid field put their foot on the ball look up and play a killer ball - we needed a Sam Saunders type out there.
Volkes is being let off lightly by the fans, he was our big signing and he’s done very little to justify that, had a couple of chances which should have been clinically put away by a player of his experience.
Horgan isn’t the answer either, running around fast going nowhere looking busy with little end product.
I could go on but calming down now so off to bed.
By the way if you saw Lopez or Doniciean you wouldn’t complain about Grimmer.
Terrible performance, collectively and individually*
A complete return to hoof ball
No Plan B still
A miserable night all round and it’s hard to see how we’re going to turn this form around if we keep sticking with the same approach.
Yes, we hit the post a couple of times, but that really doesn’t reflect the complete lack of quality in both build-up and finishing (again).
I have all the time in the world for GA and will never question his off-pitch approach but on it he continues to frustrate. I just wish he’d at least acknowledge it once in a while by admitting it was a poor performance.
*I thought Thompson’s performance was a tiny positive but perhaps I’m just clutching at straws and admire the ‘League One Kante’ a bit too much. He was everywhere.
No options, too slow to pass, hoof up front with little to no support for the 2nd ball. If we have no G-Mac for that "something special", then surely we have to play Anis to give us that? Vokes, I'm not yet sure what his role is & I suspect neither does he. Just looked like square pegs trying to fit into round holes. Some serious thinking to do before Saturday.
@Wycombe85 said: @Shev Yes, we hit the post 3 times in the 2nd half and had several other chances. We were dominant, although Hartlepool did have chances on the break.
Thing is people will moan about long ball, hoofing etc, but actually we played on the deck much more tonight than we often do (we seemed to switch from long ball around the 35 minute mark), but that just made having both Vokes and Bayo playing all the more bewildering. It was clear a bit more craft and guile was needed up front to compliment the good work in midfield, but the change was far too long in coming.
Cheers! That helps bridge the gap between the Match reports (which said we were all over them) and the pronouncements on here. Without watch a game it can be hard to tell if we were bad because we were bad, or bad because we lost.
Our journey tonight back to the South Coast just hell. M3 closed, A3 closed and to top it all M27 completely closed. Just back. The magic of the cup eh…well the irony was not lost on us showing our 2001 cup run when it still meant something. 1500 crowd, just appalling. Worst performance of the night was our esteemed manager, he has to have an off day sometimes. Playing Vokes and Akinfenwa together was just ridiculous, both going for the same ball at times. Time for a decent performance Saturday or the rot will set in.
One ray of sunshine in an otherwise dismal night both on & off the pitch was the P.A. being done by Matt Cecil. A return at last to courtesy being extended to the visiting supporters and reading their team out so you could understand the names instead of trying to relay the whole away team in 10 seconds flat. Doesn’t do any harm showing respect to the opposition, especially if you want to uphold the decent reputation as a club WW has.
Surprisingly poor performance and surprisingly poor crowd.
Cold night, poor form and we're in a stacked run of homes and you had to pay extra to your season ticket being some reasons. But not 1,500 poor.
That said though, their goal fell perfectly for them, whereas even in a poor display we had some huge chances.
But you did wonder how 2 big target men and Hanlan was going to work.
Roll on Saturday. Really need McCleary back ASAP.
@A_Worboys said:
One ray of sunshine in an otherwise dismal night both on & off the pitch was the P.A. being done by Matt Cecil. A return at last to courtesy being extended to the visiting supporters and reading their team out so you could understand the names instead of trying to relay the whole away team in 10 seconds flat. Doesn’t do any harm showing respect to the opposition, especially if you want to uphold the decent reputation as a club WW has.
Agreed. This team rotation is one that should stick.
@A_Worboys said:
One ray of sunshine in an otherwise dismal night both on & off the pitch was the P.A. being done by Matt Cecil. A return at last to courtesy being extended to the visiting supporters and reading their team out so you could understand the names instead of trying to relay the whole away team in 10 seconds flat. Doesn’t do any harm showing respect to the opposition, especially if you want to uphold the decent reputation as a club WW has.
Indeed. Don't know who the guy is who's been doing it the last couple of league games but he's straight out of the Smashy and Nicey DJ school. Cringeworthy.
Not surprised by the crowd tbh, lots of small factors including the weather being the worst for a while if not awful, transport options, finances and the likelihood of it maybe not being the full first team / the first team being on a bad run. We'll have big games again.
Good to see Mehmeti doing well after not having a great weekend. Hopefully this will inspire him to get a few more minutes. Vokes and Bayo together never ideal when Hanlan , Wheeler and others just offer more variety. Think the balls down the throat of the defence for Vokes to terrorise them has only worked once or twice as a tactic, need more out wide and more of the ball at times.
Difficult to not be disappointed but Horgan, have to remember he came back from international duty rather than rest and gets bypassed but he always seems to hit too many hopeful balls rather than passes to teammates. That might also be a tactic.
Frustrating game but wouldn’t say we’re in as much of a crisis as some fans on here would make out. 4th in the league and out of all of the cups is still something we’d have taken at this point in the season.
Scowen is the big worry for me - looks like he over stretched to bring a ball down which could be a hamstring injury. He’s huge for us so will tough for whoever comes in for him if he misses some time.
Taking the very raw emotions out of it, I don't think the performance was that bad! We passed the ball well at times and created several clear chances. The frustration comes from the choice of Vokes and Bayo as a front 2. Horgan was busy and probing all night, but had such limited movement in front of him, he had no options but to go sideways all the time. Vokes had a perfectly decent game in my opinion, but Bayo struggled all evening to have any sort of impact, it just wasn't his night. I still can't understand why he was kept on for so long. Likewise, to leave Mehmeti on the bench until the the final 12 minutes or so was crazy! We were crying out for someone with his dribbling skills and movement.
@LX1 said:
Another season over before Christmas. Unnacceptable
Assuming this is meant to be serious, the poster takes the gold medal for ridiculously over the top comments.
It’s November, we’re 4th in the table with 31pts and there are 6 months and 29 games to go. How does that add up to the season being over?
@jessvl1 said:
Frustrating game but wouldn’t say we’re in as much of a crisis as some fans on here would make out. 4th in the league and out of all of the cups is still something we’d have taken at this point in the season.
Scowen is the big worry for me - looks like he over stretched to bring a ball down which could be a hamstring injury. He’s huge for us so will tough for whoever comes in for him if he misses some time.
I am also very worried about a Scowen absence. He's looked a class apart.
On what you'd have taken at the start of the season, you can speak for yourself! It's a massive disappointment to me for a team this good to have a free Saturday at the start of December.
And @A_Worboys well said on the return of Matt Cecil and the courtesy of thanking the opposition fans.
@LX1 said:
Another season over before Christmas. Unnacceptable
Assuming this is meant to be serious, the poster takes the gold medal for ridiculously over the top comments.
It’s November, we’re 4th in the table with 31pts and there are 6 months and 29 games to go. How does that add up to the season being over?
Surely you know the background behind this post. It’s serious for those who only live for the FA Cup
@Wycombe85 said:
Taking the very raw emotions out of it, I don't think the performance was that bad! We passed the ball well at times and created several clear chances. The frustration comes from the choice of Vokes and Bayo as a front 2. Horgan was busy and probing all night, but had such limited movement in front of him, he had no options but to go sideways all the time. Vokes had a perfectly decent game in my opinion, but Bayo struggled all evening to have any sort of impact, it just wasn't his night. I still can't understand why he was kept on for so long. Likewise, to leave Mehmeti on the bench until the the final 12 minutes or so was crazy! We were crying out for someone with his dribbling skills and movement.
I actually think it was pretty bad but I completely agree with you on the Vokes/Bayo point. Vokes' movement was completely hampered by having Bayo standing next to him the whole time. It was amazing to me that that change was not made at half time.
Also, what's happened to Stockdale's passing? He's gone from being a bona fide goalkeeper/playmaker to Frank Talia seemingly overnight
@Wycombe85 said:
Taking the very raw emotions out of it, I don't think the performance was that bad! We passed the ball well at times and created several clear chances. The frustration comes from the choice of Vokes and Bayo as a front 2. Horgan was busy and probing all night, but had such limited movement in front of him, he had no options but to go sideways all the time. Vokes had a perfectly decent game in my opinion, but Bayo struggled all evening to have any sort of impact, it just wasn't his night. I still can't understand why he was kept on for so long. Likewise, to leave Mehmeti on the bench until the the final 12 minutes or so was crazy! We were crying out for someone with his dribbling skills and movement.
I actually think it was pretty bad but I completely agree with you on the Vokes/Bayo point. Vokes' movement was completely hampered by having Bayo standing next to him the whole time. It was amazing to me that that change was not made at half time.
Also, what's happened to Stockdale's passing? He's gone from being a bona fide goalkeeper/playmaker to Frank Talia seemingly overnight
Totally agree that the Vokes/ Bayo seemed a strange selection. Also Ainsworth doesn’t like to make early substitutions. It’s almost as if he picks a formation to win a game and feels it’s a slight on him that he might have got it wrong. Game was crying out for creativity.
@eric_plant I would agree on the 1st half. I thought we were very poor. 2nd half, considering as you rightly say we had Bayo hampering our attack (and I hate to say that, as I think he's fantastic and still has plenty to offer) we've not done badly at all in terms of chances created. The 3 times we hit the post were all following good play, it wasn't as if they came from long balls and goal mouth scrambles.
Stockdale's passing was another frustrating aspect of the evening. In fairness he was trying to do the right thing and get things moving quickly, but his radar was badly off last night.
@LX1 said:
Another season over before Christmas. Unnacceptable
Assuming this is meant to be serious, the poster takes the gold medal for ridiculously over the top comments.
It’s November, we’re 4th in the table with 31pts and there are 6 months and 29 games to go. How does that add up to the season being over?
Vokes is definitely getting off lightly! I'm led to believe a lot of the Ikpeazu money has been spent on his contract! He's been poor, don't let the lack of the final ball cloud your judgement. He's missed chances all season. Ainsworth seems delusional about performances which is worrying when we can all see the problems clearly.
@bigred87 said:
Vokes is definitely getting off lightly! I'm led to believe a lot of the Ikpeazu money has been spent on his contract! He's been poor, don't let the lack of the final ball cloud your judgement. He's missed chances all season. Ainsworth seems delusional about performances which is worrying when we can all see the problems clearly.
But the final ball IS the problem. We are a team set up to launch the ball into the box at the nearest opportunity and for the last few weeks our crossing, on the whole, has been really poor.
The crossing is a real critical part of our strategy as Vokes is a player who thrives on crosses into the box as opposed to just pumping it up to him and hoping he can flick it on.
I love Bayo and what he has done for our club but we can’t keep playing him now. We are kidding ourselves continuing down this route and we have moved away from the crisp fast passing game we had developed earlier in the season.
Our dip in form is really worrying and you can see the confidence starting to drain from the players. Yes we can and will recover the situation but we do need January recruits to strengthen the squad.
On a slightly different point maybe the setting up of the development squad as deflected us somewhat. Another debate maybe?
@bigred87 said:
Vokes is definitely getting off lightly! I'm led to believe a lot of the Ikpeazu money has been spent on his contract! He's been poor, don't let the lack of the final ball cloud your judgement. He's missed chances all season. Ainsworth seems delusional about performances which is worrying when we can all see the problems clearly.
Vokes creates lots of space for Horgan and McCleary and the results can be absolutely devastating. Get those two either side of him again and you'll see just what a brilliant player he is.
Last night's formation was like asking him to play with his laces tied together
Few hours to reflect on what was a terrible showing last night. We looked clueless going forward and fragile at the back. Poor individual performances, tactics wrong throughout, subs too late. There were no positives.
I like Vokes. I like Hanlan. I like Horgan. But it’s a results game and these are amongst the highest paid players in the history of the club. We either paid a fee for them or they are on top money coming from a higher level. So as in any job it’s fair to ask for performance in relation to salary. And the stats will say they are not reaching that level. Ok it might be because of other factors tactics for example then they have a responsibility to say to the coaching staff this is what is making them under perform.
Whilst on the subject of coaching it must be an instruction from the management to not hit the line before crossing. All our crosses come from the same area. When our wide men get wide they rarely try and hit the line, looking to come back or go inside instead. This limits chances for Vokes and Bayo as crosses are almost announced and are so easy to defend.
Can’t think of any positives really. Enjoyed Anis. He learned a lot when in the Championship about releasing the ball and when to run and when to pass. He needs to learn the same lessons in league 1 but looks like he’s not going to be given a run to do so. Shame.
Vokes has not been poor in my opinion. I agree though that Vokes, Mehmeti and Hanlon might have worked out better. And as with most of the games we've lost...even playing badly we battled on and could have grabbed something however undeserved as the game wore on...so the players aren't giving up yet. I cannot remember the last time a season was 'over at Christmas' under GA so cannot comment on that. The recent run is very disappointing but it's not the end of the world yet!
Got to admit, I'd rather have Uche back up front than Vokes lately. Uche had some creativity about him as well as the ability to put it in the net, but also agree with other posters suggesting we've changed the tactic that worked so well towards the end of last season. Presumably this is supposed to have us playing to Vokes' strengths but with it obviously not really working I'd like to see him play to ours instead.
I don't think it's enough just to say "well they're paid lots so they should be better"
Players need to be used correctly at whatever level they play. You wouldn't put a thoroughbred Derby winner in the Grand National and say "well we paid a load of money for him he should bloody well work it out for himself"
Vokes is a thoroughbred footballer, one of the best we have ever had. But frankly with the team and formation we picked last night we'd have been better off with Kashket up alongside Bayo. This is not a knock on Vokes at all. I think he was probably as frustrated as the rest of us watching it
Comments
Credit to Pools, over the two games they worked us out, there was no gulf in class, seem to be playing for their caretaker manager.
We seem to think that hitting fast quick passes is the answer, it might be in a higher division with better players but not tonight’s line up. I’d like to see someone in mid field put their foot on the ball look up and play a killer ball - we needed a Sam Saunders type out there.
Volkes is being let off lightly by the fans, he was our big signing and he’s done very little to justify that, had a couple of chances which should have been clinically put away by a player of his experience.
Horgan isn’t the answer either, running around fast going nowhere looking busy with little end product.
I could go on but calming down now so off to bed.
By the way if you saw Lopez or Doniciean you wouldn’t complain about Grimmer.
A miserable night all round and it’s hard to see how we’re going to turn this form around if we keep sticking with the same approach.
Yes, we hit the post a couple of times, but that really doesn’t reflect the complete lack of quality in both build-up and finishing (again).
I have all the time in the world for GA and will never question his off-pitch approach but on it he continues to frustrate. I just wish he’d at least acknowledge it once in a while by admitting it was a poor performance.
*I thought Thompson’s performance was a tiny positive but perhaps I’m just clutching at straws and admire the ‘League One Kante’ a bit too much. He was everywhere.
Oh, and well done Hartlepool. For their part they completely sussed us out right from the start and did a number on us defensively.
Do I need to mention the need for a Plan B again?
No options, too slow to pass, hoof up front with little to no support for the 2nd ball. If we have no G-Mac for that "something special", then surely we have to play Anis to give us that? Vokes, I'm not yet sure what his role is & I suspect neither does he. Just looked like square pegs trying to fit into round holes. Some serious thinking to do before Saturday.
Cheers! That helps bridge the gap between the Match reports (which said we were all over them) and the pronouncements on here. Without watch a game it can be hard to tell if we were bad because we were bad, or bad because we lost.
Our journey tonight back to the South Coast just hell. M3 closed, A3 closed and to top it all M27 completely closed. Just back. The magic of the cup eh…well the irony was not lost on us showing our 2001 cup run when it still meant something. 1500 crowd, just appalling. Worst performance of the night was our esteemed manager, he has to have an off day sometimes. Playing Vokes and Akinfenwa together was just ridiculous, both going for the same ball at times. Time for a decent performance Saturday or the rot will set in.
One ray of sunshine in an otherwise dismal night both on & off the pitch was the P.A. being done by Matt Cecil. A return at last to courtesy being extended to the visiting supporters and reading their team out so you could understand the names instead of trying to relay the whole away team in 10 seconds flat. Doesn’t do any harm showing respect to the opposition, especially if you want to uphold the decent reputation as a club WW has.
Another season over before Christmas. Unnacceptable
Surprisingly poor performance and surprisingly poor crowd.
Cold night, poor form and we're in a stacked run of homes and you had to pay extra to your season ticket being some reasons. But not 1,500 poor.
That said though, their goal fell perfectly for them, whereas even in a poor display we had some huge chances.
But you did wonder how 2 big target men and Hanlan was going to work.
Roll on Saturday. Really need McCleary back ASAP.
Agreed. This team rotation is one that should stick.
Indeed. Don't know who the guy is who's been doing it the last couple of league games but he's straight out of the Smashy and Nicey DJ school. Cringeworthy.
Not surprised by the crowd tbh, lots of small factors including the weather being the worst for a while if not awful, transport options, finances and the likelihood of it maybe not being the full first team / the first team being on a bad run. We'll have big games again.
Good to see Mehmeti doing well after not having a great weekend. Hopefully this will inspire him to get a few more minutes. Vokes and Bayo together never ideal when Hanlan , Wheeler and others just offer more variety. Think the balls down the throat of the defence for Vokes to terrorise them has only worked once or twice as a tactic, need more out wide and more of the ball at times.
Difficult to not be disappointed but Horgan, have to remember he came back from international duty rather than rest and gets bypassed but he always seems to hit too many hopeful balls rather than passes to teammates. That might also be a tactic.
Frustrating game but wouldn’t say we’re in as much of a crisis as some fans on here would make out. 4th in the league and out of all of the cups is still something we’d have taken at this point in the season.
Scowen is the big worry for me - looks like he over stretched to bring a ball down which could be a hamstring injury. He’s huge for us so will tough for whoever comes in for him if he misses some time.
Taking the very raw emotions out of it, I don't think the performance was that bad! We passed the ball well at times and created several clear chances. The frustration comes from the choice of Vokes and Bayo as a front 2. Horgan was busy and probing all night, but had such limited movement in front of him, he had no options but to go sideways all the time. Vokes had a perfectly decent game in my opinion, but Bayo struggled all evening to have any sort of impact, it just wasn't his night. I still can't understand why he was kept on for so long. Likewise, to leave Mehmeti on the bench until the the final 12 minutes or so was crazy! We were crying out for someone with his dribbling skills and movement.
Assuming this is meant to be serious, the poster takes the gold medal for ridiculously over the top comments.
It’s November, we’re 4th in the table with 31pts and there are 6 months and 29 games to go. How does that add up to the season being over?
I am also very worried about a Scowen absence. He's looked a class apart.
On what you'd have taken at the start of the season, you can speak for yourself! It's a massive disappointment to me for a team this good to have a free Saturday at the start of December.
And @A_Worboys well said on the return of Matt Cecil and the courtesy of thanking the opposition fans.
Surely you know the background behind this post. It’s serious for those who only live for the FA Cup
I actually think it was pretty bad but I completely agree with you on the Vokes/Bayo point. Vokes' movement was completely hampered by having Bayo standing next to him the whole time. It was amazing to me that that change was not made at half time.
Also, what's happened to Stockdale's passing? He's gone from being a bona fide goalkeeper/playmaker to Frank Talia seemingly overnight
__> @eric_plant said:
Totally agree that the Vokes/ Bayo seemed a strange selection. Also Ainsworth doesn’t like to make early substitutions. It’s almost as if he picks a formation to win a game and feels it’s a slight on him that he might have got it wrong. Game was crying out for creativity.
@eric_plant I would agree on the 1st half. I thought we were very poor. 2nd half, considering as you rightly say we had Bayo hampering our attack (and I hate to say that, as I think he's fantastic and still has plenty to offer) we've not done badly at all in terms of chances created. The 3 times we hit the post were all following good play, it wasn't as if they came from long balls and goal mouth scrambles.
Stockdale's passing was another frustrating aspect of the evening. In fairness he was trying to do the right thing and get things moving quickly, but his radar was badly off last night.
Have you never met @LX1 ?
Vokes is definitely getting off lightly! I'm led to believe a lot of the Ikpeazu money has been spent on his contract! He's been poor, don't let the lack of the final ball cloud your judgement. He's missed chances all season. Ainsworth seems delusional about performances which is worrying when we can all see the problems clearly.
But the final ball IS the problem. We are a team set up to launch the ball into the box at the nearest opportunity and for the last few weeks our crossing, on the whole, has been really poor.
The crossing is a real critical part of our strategy as Vokes is a player who thrives on crosses into the box as opposed to just pumping it up to him and hoping he can flick it on.
I love Bayo and what he has done for our club but we can’t keep playing him now. We are kidding ourselves continuing down this route and we have moved away from the crisp fast passing game we had developed earlier in the season.
Our dip in form is really worrying and you can see the confidence starting to drain from the players. Yes we can and will recover the situation but we do need January recruits to strengthen the squad.
On a slightly different point maybe the setting up of the development squad as deflected us somewhat. Another debate maybe?
Vokes creates lots of space for Horgan and McCleary and the results can be absolutely devastating. Get those two either side of him again and you'll see just what a brilliant player he is.
Last night's formation was like asking him to play with his laces tied together
Few hours to reflect on what was a terrible showing last night. We looked clueless going forward and fragile at the back. Poor individual performances, tactics wrong throughout, subs too late. There were no positives.
I like Vokes. I like Hanlan. I like Horgan. But it’s a results game and these are amongst the highest paid players in the history of the club. We either paid a fee for them or they are on top money coming from a higher level. So as in any job it’s fair to ask for performance in relation to salary. And the stats will say they are not reaching that level. Ok it might be because of other factors tactics for example then they have a responsibility to say to the coaching staff this is what is making them under perform.
Whilst on the subject of coaching it must be an instruction from the management to not hit the line before crossing. All our crosses come from the same area. When our wide men get wide they rarely try and hit the line, looking to come back or go inside instead. This limits chances for Vokes and Bayo as crosses are almost announced and are so easy to defend.
Can’t think of any positives really. Enjoyed Anis. He learned a lot when in the Championship about releasing the ball and when to run and when to pass. He needs to learn the same lessons in league 1 but looks like he’s not going to be given a run to do so. Shame.
Vokes has not been poor in my opinion. I agree though that Vokes, Mehmeti and Hanlon might have worked out better. And as with most of the games we've lost...even playing badly we battled on and could have grabbed something however undeserved as the game wore on...so the players aren't giving up yet. I cannot remember the last time a season was 'over at Christmas' under GA so cannot comment on that. The recent run is very disappointing but it's not the end of the world yet!
Got to admit, I'd rather have Uche back up front than Vokes lately. Uche had some creativity about him as well as the ability to put it in the net, but also agree with other posters suggesting we've changed the tactic that worked so well towards the end of last season. Presumably this is supposed to have us playing to Vokes' strengths but with it obviously not really working I'd like to see him play to ours instead.
I don't think it's enough just to say "well they're paid lots so they should be better"
Players need to be used correctly at whatever level they play. You wouldn't put a thoroughbred Derby winner in the Grand National and say "well we paid a load of money for him he should bloody well work it out for himself"
Vokes is a thoroughbred footballer, one of the best we have ever had. But frankly with the team and formation we picked last night we'd have been better off with Kashket up alongside Bayo. This is not a knock on Vokes at all. I think he was probably as frustrated as the rest of us watching it