Yesterday was one of the most inept football matches I've had the misfortune to waste a ridiculous £24 to witness. Both teams were incapable of the most basic of skills associated with professional football i.e. controlling and passing a football.
Whereas I couldn't give a monkey's toss about our opponents failings, I certainly do care about our own. The need to cling to any kind of positive aspect of yesterday's debacle is an understandable human need but I left feeling utterly hopeless. The manager and players need to take a good, long, hard look at themselves if they think that was anywhere close to acceptable. Lacking confidence might be understandable after a nine-match winless run but the lack of personal pride and professionalism is not.
Watching the absurd spectacle of a goalkeeper totally out of his depth; a centre-back and striker almost struggling to move never mind run and a midfielder, touted by some as player-of-the-season; looking so uncomfortable out of position was infuriating and are all selection issues which are the responsibility of the manager. Player recruitment is also his responsibility and the decision to sign a goalkeeper, who isn't up to the required standard on a long-term deal, is coming back to bite us.
It is a damning indictment that two of our players performed so badly yesterday that some have concluded they are ready for retirement. Despite the significant level of experience in our team yesterday; none of them lead by example and failed to perform at the most basic level.
Alternative suggestions of line-ups for our upcoming matches are futile. There is absolutely no justification for Sido Jombati to have been left on the bench yesterday yet there he was.
Momentum is everything in football and we have none. We have now taken the lead in our last four games and taken just a single point. Relegation seems inevitable now with no one willing to take any responsibility either on or off the pitch. The vacuous cries of "show some positivity" are just the sound of empty vessels.
We never gave ourselves a chance of staying up in our previous two seasons in League One. To be relegated having sat in 9th place in February would be an achievement of such staggering incompetence and we would deserve nothing less.
Wow, I’ve read some over-the-top comments about the game and the season in general but your’s wins the gold medal by some distance. If I am accused of living up to my nom de plume, you most certainly have lived up to yours.
Sorry to contradict your theory Mooneyman but despite having watched literally 100’s of games at every level from Sunday League to World Cup finals, I have never felt moved to that kind of criticism!
Having just watched Pompey deservedly beat Sunderland methinks it’s going to be very very tough to get anything at all Saturday and on our current form we could be in for a pasting. Good to see Luke playing and he was very comfortable in his surroundings.
@glasshalfempty said:
Yesterday was one of the most inept football matches I've had the misfortune to waste a ridiculous £24 to witness. Both teams were incapable of the most basic of skills associated with professional football i.e. controlling and passing a football.
Whereas I couldn't give a monkey's toss about our opponents failings, I certainly do care about our own. The need to cling to any kind of positive aspect of yesterday's debacle is an understandable human need but I left feeling utterly hopeless. The manager and players need to take a good, long, hard look at themselves if they think that was anywhere close to acceptable. Lacking confidence might be understandable after a nine-match winless run but the lack of personal pride and professionalism is not.
Watching the absurd spectacle of a goalkeeper totally out of his depth; a centre-back and striker almost struggling to move never mind run and a midfielder, touted by some as player-of-the-season; looking so uncomfortable out of position was infuriating and are all selection issues which are the responsibility of the manager. Player recruitment is also his responsibility and the decision to sign a goalkeeper, who isn't up to the required standard on a long-term deal, is coming back to bite us.
It is a damning indictment that two of our players performed so badly yesterday that some have concluded they are ready for retirement. Despite the significant level of experience in our team yesterday; none of them lead by example and failed to perform at the most basic level.
Alternative suggestions of line-ups for our upcoming matches are futile. There is absolutely no justification for Sido Jombati to have been left on the bench yesterday yet there he was.
Momentum is everything in football and we have none. We have now taken the lead in our last four games and taken just a single point. Relegation seems inevitable now with no one willing to take any responsibility either on or off the pitch. The vacuous cries of "show some positivity" are just the sound of empty vessels.
We never gave ourselves a chance of staying up in our previous two seasons in League One. To be relegated having sat in 9th place in February would be an achievement of such staggering incompetence and we would deserve nothing less.
Do you also post as @clifty04 , out of interest?
Only I saw him use two exact phrases from this piece in some of his FB pieces yesterday...
Let’s hope that extra time and Portsmouth’s celebrations take something out of them! To be fair, we’re not the best team in league 1 but we have rarely suffered a real hammering.
Lest we forget how close we came to beating Sunderland. We raised our game against them in the middle of this bad run, as we've tended to against the top sides, why can't we do the same again in the next two games?
Sido and Stewart are a great defensive pairing. I don't agree Thompson has been off the boil...the games I've seen he has been good and I believe he has been ill. I agree that Paris Tyson Samuel would an effective front three with bayo as sub. It's been a hard old season but more or less what I expected (though early season success was a bonus ) and I think a lot of the people moaning about relegation now were predicting relegation before a ball was kicked. We are still in the mix and there are worst teams than ours. Fingers crossed the pompey manager will be blaming tired legs next Saturday.
I think GA has once again been a victim of his own success.
2014/15 was an incredible season, but was down in no small part to the loanees we had, plus the likes of Scowen and PCH who left before the season's end. The following season we huffed and puffed and finished midtable, which was probably a truer reflection of where the club really was at the time, but quite a few Wycombe fans got upset, apparently forgetting that we'd have all been delighted with that 12 months ago.
After getting us up, we had a cracking spell midway through the first half of the season, mainly due to the quality of our loan signings and some of us got a bit carried away at what was, to be fair, something of a false position.
Most of us expected a tough relegation scrap this season, but after being spoiled earlier on in the campaign, people who perhaps would have been delighted to be 17th at this stage in the season are instead anguished as they thought we had a shout of the playoffs or something.
I'm not denying our current form and position is concerning, I'm just saying we knew/should have known this was likely to be the case at the start of the season given our budget and resources. We're exactly where most thought we would be at the start of the season, perhaps even doing a bit better.
Two incredibly tough games coming up - frankly I'd be happy to take a single point from them - but don't forget that after that we still have to play four of the current bottom five (plus one mid-table team). I don't know what the run-in's are like for our relegation rivals, but I'd fancy ours is one of the more preferable ones.
@bookertease said:
Any recently retired quality GKs out of contract who might fancy a short-term contract and a bonus of a box of crisps if we stay up?
@bookertease said:
Any recently retired quality GKs out of contract who might fancy a short-term contract and a bonus of a box of crisps if we stay up?
@Jonny_King , I didn't entirely know what to expect, but I remember looking at the last 4 or 5 years, and seeing that no team promoted from league 2 had been relegated straight back down, with only Shrewsbury having a tight one, finishing 20th one year.
Based on that I didn't think we'd struggle.
On reflection, what a guy from work said is very true. That there aren't the "rubbish" teams you get in league 2, so a lot more of the games are close and very nip and tuck, whilst the top of the league teams are a real step up.
The loanees certainly gave us a real boost, and although it took a few weeks to see the difference, we're really seeing it now!
We've lost that bit of extra quality that would very likely have seen us get the marginal gains that would turn some of these late throwaways into another 6-7 points, and safety already.
It must have been about 6 - 8 games back we were thinking another win or 2 would see us safe! So we've had a good season all in, but it's going to be a horrible battle here on in.
Three teams in the bottom 5 to face off with in the last 5 games.
If we can get 2-3 points from these next 2 games though, what a boost that'd be!
@Malone My only worry with that would be, if we did get a few points from the next two, we'd be on a bit of a high, and might subconsciously think that the job was done, whereas in reality we would probably need a few more.
@fame_46 said:
We were very unlucky to leave with nothing but at the same time the winning goal would grace any game. Brilliant strike.
Overall we are playing well and have been throughout this poor run. The main problem we have is we are averaging a goal a game since December.
Facts are you don't win football matches averaging a goal a game unless you have the arsenal back 4 from the early 90's.
The lack of goals highlights any mistakes across the rest of the team. Allsop for example wouldve been fine last season as we were scoring 2/3 goals a game.
As well as Samuel played on Saturday, he's a defensive forward and never will be prolific. We do however have a natural finisher in Scott Kashket. Although he's not as good defensively we know if you get him in the right areas he will score goals.
With this in mind is pack the midfield with an extra man and play 4-4-2 and start Kashket with Bayo or Tyson.
Samuel's fresh legs and work rate in the last 10-15 mins off the bench might also do us some favours.
Our best player has 4 goals in 26 games. How many shots at goal on target did he have on Saturday. For all his endeavour he doesn't make the opposition keeper work hard enough and I'm making that judgement based on what I've seen across the course of the season.
John Marquis wasn't Doncaster best player on Saturday but he scored and has 19 this season already. We won't win football games without our forwards scoring goals.
We haven't won since January, the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over with the same results. On current form we are going down, hence something has to change.
I'm offering an alternative solution to what is clearly a problem at the moment. Feel free to offer a solution if you have one.
I'm not for one second suggesting that I know the answer, but based on whenever I've seen him play in the past year or so I'm not sure Kashket is it. Pains me to say it but since his long period out with injury he has never looked the same player, and is far too easily knocked off the ball for this level. I'd love for him to come in, prove me wrong and keep us up, but I just can't see him getting much joy against better defenders and haven't really seen so on any occasion when he has come off the bench this season.
Take your point @WanderingDays but I’d counter that Samuel wins countless free kicks in the opposition half and at the moment that looks like our most effective (sometimes only) way of fashioning a goalscoring chance. Sacrificing that would be a significant loss just to get Kashkett in.
I do agree Kashkett should be getting more game time. He is too often brought on out wide and/or in games where we are playing direct to Bayo. If the big man isn’t able to provide knock downs then Kashkett is totally wasted in that scenario.
I’d prefer to see Samuel start view a view to doing 70 mins hard work and making life hard for the opposition defenders. That also saves a lot of the current work done by Blooms/Gape/Bean/Thompson when our midfield are covering trying to press when the opposition pass around Bayo. Then we have Bayo and Kashkett as impact subs to change the game if needed. Alternatively, put Kashkett in the hole behind Samuel from the start. If we can feed him the ball with his back to goal in the final third then he is a potential threat and the only player we have with the ability to turn in tight spaces to open up a defence.
Samuel I’m the pitch also forces us to play the channels more and put the ball into feet. At the moment we are going up long to Bayo and the supporting players are doing too much work running up looking for flick ons and then chasing back when it doesn’t work. That has been effective in the past when we had more legs in midfield and out wide from players like Onien, Williams, Onyedinma etc. to get on to the second ball. But with the current mix it isn’t happening.
Comments
Talking of whom, this is a lovely article
https://rokerreport.sbnation.com/2019/3/22/18275468/sunderland-fan-favourite-luke-onien-is-my-young-sons-favourite-player-and-heres-why
Any recently retired quality GKs out of contract who might fancy a short-term contract and a bonus of a box of crisps if we stay up?
Yesterday was one of the most inept football matches I've had the misfortune to waste a ridiculous £24 to witness. Both teams were incapable of the most basic of skills associated with professional football i.e. controlling and passing a football.
Whereas I couldn't give a monkey's toss about our opponents failings, I certainly do care about our own. The need to cling to any kind of positive aspect of yesterday's debacle is an understandable human need but I left feeling utterly hopeless. The manager and players need to take a good, long, hard look at themselves if they think that was anywhere close to acceptable. Lacking confidence might be understandable after a nine-match winless run but the lack of personal pride and professionalism is not.
Watching the absurd spectacle of a goalkeeper totally out of his depth; a centre-back and striker almost struggling to move never mind run and a midfielder, touted by some as player-of-the-season; looking so uncomfortable out of position was infuriating and are all selection issues which are the responsibility of the manager. Player recruitment is also his responsibility and the decision to sign a goalkeeper, who isn't up to the required standard on a long-term deal, is coming back to bite us.
It is a damning indictment that two of our players performed so badly yesterday that some have concluded they are ready for retirement. Despite the significant level of experience in our team yesterday; none of them lead by example and failed to perform at the most basic level.
Alternative suggestions of line-ups for our upcoming matches are futile. There is absolutely no justification for Sido Jombati to have been left on the bench yesterday yet there he was.
Momentum is everything in football and we have none. We have now taken the lead in our last four games and taken just a single point. Relegation seems inevitable now with no one willing to take any responsibility either on or off the pitch. The vacuous cries of "show some positivity" are just the sound of empty vessels.
We never gave ourselves a chance of staying up in our previous two seasons in League One. To be relegated having sat in 9th place in February would be an achievement of such staggering incompetence and we would deserve nothing less.
Wow, I’ve read some over-the-top comments about the game and the season in general but your’s wins the gold medal by some distance. If I am accused of living up to my nom de plume, you most certainly have lived up to yours.
@glasshalffull *takes a bow
He's said relegation was inevitable before, when we were in a far worse position. He was wrong then as well
@eric_plant I'd like to suggest I am simply trying to tempt fate but we'll know either way come 7.45pm on Saturday 4th May 2019.
If that is comment about paying £24 to watch a game between two not particularly good/non-confident teams then it’s probably valid.
If it’s meant that you’ve not often seen two such inept teams you have either been very lucky or have a short memory.
I'm convinced that the full and empty glasses are really the same person à la Jekyll and Hyde!
Sorry to contradict your theory Mooneyman but despite having watched literally 100’s of games at every level from Sunday League to World Cup finals, I have never felt moved to that kind of criticism!
Nice piece, and good to see him wheeling out one of the "skills" honed with us..."feigning injury buying time"!!
Having just watched Pompey deservedly beat Sunderland methinks it’s going to be very very tough to get anything at all Saturday and on our current form we could be in for a pasting. Good to see Luke playing and he was very comfortable in his surroundings.
Do you also post as @clifty04 , out of interest?
Only I saw him use two exact phrases from this piece in some of his FB pieces yesterday...
Let’s hope that extra time and Portsmouth’s celebrations take something out of them! To be fair, we’re not the best team in league 1 but we have rarely suffered a real hammering.
Lest we forget how close we came to beating Sunderland. We raised our game against them in the middle of this bad run, as we've tended to against the top sides, why can't we do the same again in the next two games?
Well said th100.
@Malone Adam and I are different people.
Sido and Stewart are a great defensive pairing. I don't agree Thompson has been off the boil...the games I've seen he has been good and I believe he has been ill. I agree that Paris Tyson Samuel would an effective front three with bayo as sub. It's been a hard old season but more or less what I expected (though early season success was a bonus ) and I think a lot of the people moaning about relegation now were predicting relegation before a ball was kicked. We are still in the mix and there are worst teams than ours. Fingers crossed the pompey manager will be blaming tired legs next Saturday.
I think GA has once again been a victim of his own success.
2014/15 was an incredible season, but was down in no small part to the loanees we had, plus the likes of Scowen and PCH who left before the season's end. The following season we huffed and puffed and finished midtable, which was probably a truer reflection of where the club really was at the time, but quite a few Wycombe fans got upset, apparently forgetting that we'd have all been delighted with that 12 months ago.
After getting us up, we had a cracking spell midway through the first half of the season, mainly due to the quality of our loan signings and some of us got a bit carried away at what was, to be fair, something of a false position.
Most of us expected a tough relegation scrap this season, but after being spoiled earlier on in the campaign, people who perhaps would have been delighted to be 17th at this stage in the season are instead anguished as they thought we had a shout of the playoffs or something.
I'm not denying our current form and position is concerning, I'm just saying we knew/should have known this was likely to be the case at the start of the season given our budget and resources. We're exactly where most thought we would be at the start of the season, perhaps even doing a bit better.
Two incredibly tough games coming up - frankly I'd be happy to take a single point from them - but don't forget that after that we still have to play four of the current bottom five (plus one mid-table team). I don't know what the run-in's are like for our relegation rivals, but I'd fancy ours is one of the more preferable ones.
Maybe this is an option
@Jonny_King , I didn't entirely know what to expect, but I remember looking at the last 4 or 5 years, and seeing that no team promoted from league 2 had been relegated straight back down, with only Shrewsbury having a tight one, finishing 20th one year.
Based on that I didn't think we'd struggle.
On reflection, what a guy from work said is very true. That there aren't the "rubbish" teams you get in league 2, so a lot more of the games are close and very nip and tuck, whilst the top of the league teams are a real step up.
The loanees certainly gave us a real boost, and although it took a few weeks to see the difference, we're really seeing it now!
We've lost that bit of extra quality that would very likely have seen us get the marginal gains that would turn some of these late throwaways into another 6-7 points, and safety already.
It must have been about 6 - 8 games back we were thinking another win or 2 would see us safe! So we've had a good season all in, but it's going to be a horrible battle here on in.
Three teams in the bottom 5 to face off with in the last 5 games.
If we can get 2-3 points from these next 2 games though, what a boost that'd be!
@Malone My only worry with that would be, if we did get a few points from the next two, we'd be on a bit of a high, and might subconsciously think that the job was done, whereas in reality we would probably need a few more.
Agree with every word of that
Agree with dropping by some distance our best player?
yikes
I'm not for one second suggesting that I know the answer, but based on whenever I've seen him play in the past year or so I'm not sure Kashket is it. Pains me to say it but since his long period out with injury he has never looked the same player, and is far too easily knocked off the ball for this level. I'd love for him to come in, prove me wrong and keep us up, but I just can't see him getting much joy against better defenders and haven't really seen so on any occasion when he has come off the bench this season.
Take your point @WanderingDays but I’d counter that Samuel wins countless free kicks in the opposition half and at the moment that looks like our most effective (sometimes only) way of fashioning a goalscoring chance. Sacrificing that would be a significant loss just to get Kashkett in.
I do agree Kashkett should be getting more game time. He is too often brought on out wide and/or in games where we are playing direct to Bayo. If the big man isn’t able to provide knock downs then Kashkett is totally wasted in that scenario.
I’d prefer to see Samuel start view a view to doing 70 mins hard work and making life hard for the opposition defenders. That also saves a lot of the current work done by Blooms/Gape/Bean/Thompson when our midfield are covering trying to press when the opposition pass around Bayo. Then we have Bayo and Kashkett as impact subs to change the game if needed. Alternatively, put Kashkett in the hole behind Samuel from the start. If we can feed him the ball with his back to goal in the final third then he is a potential threat and the only player we have with the ability to turn in tight spaces to open up a defence.
Samuel I’m the pitch also forces us to play the channels more and put the ball into feet. At the moment we are going up long to Bayo and the supporting players are doing too much work running up looking for flick ons and then chasing back when it doesn’t work. That has been effective in the past when we had more legs in midfield and out wide from players like Onien, Williams, Onyedinma etc. to get on to the second ball. But with the current mix it isn’t happening.
be careful for what you wish for , Scott brown is getting rave reviews at port vale ....imo is not a league 1GK
Kashket played a few games ago, in a 442 and was dire, really poor and listless.