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Match day thread: Luton

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  • I thought Knight's foul was a clear red in real time but the replays did show he got the ball and the follow through wasn't particularly dangerous. Will be interesting to see if the assessors keep things consistent by rescinding it. I wonder if the fact he's a young Leicester loanee coming to the end of his contact might swing things in his favour as well. Hopefully. It was a poor ball by Fred (I think) to him in the first place, it should have just been sent out for a throw in. If it does count though we're in a real defensive mess. Fred is no left back, which probably means Grimmer on the left and Phillips in the middle.

    That last contribution of Mehmeti's typifies my doubts about him. Gets the ball in good space, runs with it, has about five Wycombe players around him all calling for a pass, keeps it, runs into a defensive wall, loses possession. It's great he has the confidence to take a penalty but did he contribute to any play that led to a shot today?

    It's interesting how little Horgan and McCleary are being called upon at the moment. I wonder how much they're in Gareth's plans for next season. I know Garath signed a new contract and maybe he's still suffering from the effects of covid (I don't know if he had it but his form has dropped off dramatically since the covid break) but it's interesting that Muskwe is being used as an attacking midfielder at the moment instead of those two. Makes me think we'll be signing him permanently in the summer.

  • @aloysius Mehmeti set up Onyedinma for a shot in the first half, which the keeper saved.

  • @our_frank ah yes, so he did. Thanks!

  • edited April 2021

    I'm with aloysius, the more I look at the relay of the red card the more I think Knight was very unlucky.

    If anything the Luton player kicked him.

    I should add that in real time I thought it looked like a red

  • One bright spark has been Fred in an unfamiliar role. He really defended well today and played with a defensive maturity and intelligence that really surprised me considering where he’s previously been employed.
    If I had a MotM he would certainly be in with a shout

  • @TheAndyGrahamFanClub said:
    Mehmeti has the capacity to be a star for sure. Taking the penalty showed some mental strength but he has a lot to learn and division 1 will be a harder learning place than the championship in some ways. He will have learn to be more effective with less time as showed today when he’s closed down quickly he becomes smothered. I have high hopes but he’s still very much a work in progress.

    Totally agree @TheAndyGrahamFanClub.
    He still has a lot to learn. Hardly surprising considering he has only just turned 20 and, until this season, had played no senior football at all. In particular, he has to learn when to release the ball. No doubt when he was playing U23 football he could beat players with considerable ease as I understand that it is much less physical and that tackling is nothing like it is in the senior game. Losing the ball on the edge of the opposition penalty area is bad enough but losing it, as he did today, not too far from our own penalty area is less forgivable.

    I’m sure Anis must enjoy playing football but his rather serious and generally undemonstrative demeanour does put a shadow of doubt in my mind.
    I used to love the fairly regular interviews with players but they no longer seem to be in vogue. He might be unexpectedly drily humorous !

  • @micra said:

    @TheAndyGrahamFanClub said:
    Mehmeti has the capacity to be a star for sure. Taking the penalty showed some mental strength but he has a lot to learn and division 1 will be a harder learning place than the championship in some ways. He will have learn to be more effective with less time as showed today when he’s closed down quickly he becomes smothered. I have high hopes but he’s still very much a work in progress.

    Totally agree @TheAndyGrahamFanClub.
    He still has a lot to learn. Hardly surprising considering he has only just turned 20 and, until this season, had played no senior football at all. In particular, he has to learn when to release the ball. No doubt when he was playing U23 football he could beat players with considerable ease as I understand that it is much less physical and that tackling is nothing like it is in the senior game. Losing the ball on the edge of the opposition penalty area is bad enough but losing it, as he did today, not too far from our own penalty area is less forgivable.

    I’m sure Anis must enjoy playing football but his rather serious and generally undemonstrative demeanour does put a shadow of doubt in my mind.
    I used to love the fairly regular interviews with players but they no longer seem to be in vogue. He might be unexpectedly drily humorous !

    I think I prefer his angry sullen demeanour more than say Fred's often casual smiley laid back demeanour.
    It's one thing being a nice guy smiley chap off the pitch,but on the pitch it's business time.

  • @eric_plant said:
    Luton exploited the extra man very well in a way we never seem to do when playing against ten.

    Disappointing first goal. I think the wall was all wrong and was more or less an open invitation to stick the ball where he did. Once they got one I think we all knew what was coming.

    Hugely proud of this lot though, and not only today. They've played at a level I didn't think was possible this season, and they've given me belief we can do so again.

    (thought Curtis Thompson was superb today, he is every inch a Championship player.....what on earth were Notts County thinking of?)

    Agree with all of this, but just wanted to mention Adeniran as well. They worked so well together.

  • @aloysius said:
    I thought Knight's foul was a clear red in real time but the replays did show he got the ball and the follow through wasn't particularly dangerous. Will be interesting to see if the assessors keep things consistent by rescinding it. I wonder if the fact he's a young Leicester loanee coming to the end of his contact might swing things in his favour as well. Hopefully. It was a poor ball by Fred (I think) to him in the first place, it should have just been sent out for a throw in. If it does count though we're in a real defensive mess. Fred is no left back, which probably means Grimmer on the left and Phillips in the middle.

    That last contribution of Mehmeti's typifies my doubts about him. Gets the ball in good space, runs with it, has about five Wycombe players around him all calling for a pass, keeps it, runs into a defensive wall, loses possession. It's great he has the confidence to take a penalty but did he contribute to any play that led to a shot today?

    It's interesting how little Horgan and McCleary are being called upon at the moment. I wonder how much they're in Gareth's plans for next season. I know Garath signed a new contract and maybe he's still suffering from the effects of covid (I don't know if he had it but his form has dropped off dramatically since the covid break) but it's interesting that Muskwe is being used as an attacking midfielder at the moment instead of those two. Makes me think we'll be signing him permanently in the summer.

    Disagree with nearly all of this.

  • @Malone said:

    @micra said:

    @TheAndyGrahamFanClub said:
    Mehmeti has the capacity to be a star for sure. Taking the penalty showed some mental strength but he has a lot to learn and division 1 will be a harder learning place than the championship in some ways. He will have learn to be more effective with less time as showed today when he’s closed down quickly he becomes smothered. I have high hopes but he’s still very much a work in progress.

    Totally agree @TheAndyGrahamFanClub.
    He still has a lot to learn. Hardly surprising considering he has only just turned 20 and, until this season, had played no senior football at all. In particular, he has to learn when to release the ball. No doubt when he was playing U23 football he could beat players with considerable ease as I understand that it is much less physical and that tackling is nothing like it is in the senior game. Losing the ball on the edge of the opposition penalty area is bad enough but losing it, as he did today, not too far from our own penalty area is less forgivable.

    I’m sure Anis must enjoy playing football but his rather serious and generally undemonstrative demeanour does put a shadow of doubt in my mind.
    I used to love the fairly regular interviews with players but they no longer seem to be in vogue. He might be unexpectedly drily humorous !

    I think I prefer his angry sullen demeanour more than say Fred's often casual smiley laid back demeanour.
    It's one thing being a nice guy smiley chap off the pitch,but on the pitch it's business time.

    Jesus.....

  • I find this board’s propensity for judgements about people’s personality based on their facial expressions during a match very odd indeed.

  • Having said that, I always found Brian Laudrup annoying just because he never sweated during a match. So ignore me.

  • Steve Long, The Wanderers wideman/striker from the late 70's and early 80's was a right old miserable cumudgeon. Always moaning, and shrugging his shoulders. For a couple of seasons people raved about the Long/Glynn partnership.
    I loved Terry Glynn, but could never take to Steve Long, he came across that he never enjoyed being on the pitch, and was the kind of neighbour who would pop your football if it landed in his garden.

  • I think any criticism of Mehmeti is very harsh. The kid has been thrown in at the deep end of a Championship relegation scrap having never played a senior game of football. He's done remarkably well, in a short space of time and is now a key player for us. Of course he has the odd lapse and occasional poor game (as he did today), but that's surely to be expected given his inexperience.

    The talent he has is undoubted and he will I'm sure go on to become an outstanding player.

  • @Wycombe85 said:
    I think any criticism of Mehmeti is very harsh. The kid has been thrown in at the deep end of a Championship relegation scrap having never played a senior game of football. He's done remarkably well, in a short space of time and is now a key player for us. Of course he has the odd lapse and occasional poor game (as he did today), but that's surely to be expected given his inexperience.

    The talent he has is undoubted and he will I'm sure go on to become an outstanding player.

    Agreed.
    He's done superbly to fight his way into a regular starting place in the championship, and I'm sure we're all hoping there's news of some 3 year deal in the offing asap.

  • @Wycombe85 said:
    I think any criticism of Mehmeti is very harsh. The kid has been thrown in at the deep end of a Championship relegation scrap having never played a senior game of football. He's done remarkably well, in a short space of time and is now a key player for us. Of course he has the odd lapse and occasional poor game (as he did today), but that's surely to be expected given his inexperience.

    The talent he has is undoubted and he will I'm sure go on to become an outstanding player.

    Don’t mistake criticism for observation. At 19 he’s about as exciting as I can remember for a while. But he’s got a lot to learn and has learnt a lot so far. I hope that the team at Wycombe can develop him and I hope he can make that development in the more frenetic league 1. So often players at that level can be seen to be luxury players if they don’t consistently deliver.

  • @TheAndyGrahamFanClub Yep, fair comment. He does have improvements to make, but the ability is there.

    I'm quietly pleased he's not been at his best in the last few games. A big end to the season and keeping hold of him for next season may have become very tricky!

  • @Wycombe85 said:
    @TheAndyGrahamFanClub Yep, fair comment. He does have improvements to make, but the ability is there.

    I'm quietly pleased he's not been at his best in the last few games. A big end to the season and keeping hold of him for next season may have become very tricky!

    Exactly right. @TheAndyGrahamFanClub and I were simply making the observation that, inevitably, Anis is very much ‘a work in progress ‘. I went a stage further and singled out an aspect of his performance which has been the only obvious and recurring shortcoming - ie judgement of when to release the ball, particularly when in defensive territory. I can’t be sure but I inferred from his post earlier this evening that @HCblue’s reservations about Anis’s long term prospects may also have been based partly on that aspect of his play.

    I have sung the praises of Anis Mehmeti repeatedly on this forum and coined the nickname Mehmessi a couple of months ago. I still owe @bluntphil a pint for mentioning that on commentary.

  • I was going to say harsh but fair criticism of Anis, he's certainly got time on his hands, don't care about his facial expressions but just a few times too many he goes for a run that isn't really on and gets caught in possession. He'll learn when a simple pass or clearance are better than holding on to it. In attacking areas these can be the magic unlocking ingredient and are preferable to hopeless punts forward but there's been a few too many that have given the ball to the opposition in dangerous areas.

    Re: The Luton comments above, as much as I don't like them they have some very good players, remember we weren't shopping in the same places as them in lower divisions either and there's massive differences in outlay. They have got some right moaning tw@ts too.

  • I thought Luton were exactly the type of side we are trying to become in the Championship, albeit with a better quality of player. They were always on the front foot, mixing it up with passing and long balls, changing formation to put us under pressure and also having some good quality in the final third. We could learn a lot from them on how to survive at this level. All of that pains me even more as when I hear the word Luton I generally shudder!

    Onto the game, I thought we had managed them really well and deserved our lead, however the way they play it was always going to be tough to hold out with 10 men let alone 11.

    As soon as Knight miscontrolled the ball I blurted out "don't jump in, stand up" - as soon as he went for it I leapt out of my chair and said "FFS, he'll be off now." I knew then that was the season over, as we were unlikely to hold out against the type of side Luton are.

    We can argue the in's and out's after the replay but in this day and age that gives the referee a decision to make and he had no hesitation brandishing the red card. We just need to take it on the chin and Knight will certainly learn from it. I'm also expecting the red to be rescinded due to the replays but completely understand in real time why it was a red and have no complaints about it being given.

    Our injury list then didn't help. I would have brought Philips on, he's done well at Aldershot and is a defender. He could have played centrally and really helped out.

    On the equaliser, Stockdale has to hold his hands up, the placement of the wall was appalling. Everyone is allowed a mistake but those mistakes grate a little more as they are basic.

    Hopefully we can keep our heads up for the last few games and sneak towards 40 points but more importantly get past 34 and equal 37.

  • No news on the appeal for Knight. I thought they were usually sorted by now

  • The view from behind the goal on the Quest highlights showed a huge amount of bend on the Luton free kick, plus a skid off the turf perhaps? Shame stocko didn’t set the wall further left but I guess he didn’t count on that much curve?

  • Seems everyone is getting behind the appeal for Knight

    https://www.comicrelief.com/big-night-in/

  • You narty boo tinker @LX1.

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