I disagree that no team at this level has the quality to play a possession-heavy game - MK under Manning spring to mind as a successful example (ok, almost successful 😂) - but I agree we're nowhere well-equipped at the moment. And if Blooms is completely set on playing this way, that raises questions about our summer recruitment - because it's probably a 50/50 split between who suits a possession game and who doesn't (and the major one who does won't be here next season, maybe not even beyond the New Year).
Max is quite rightly getting some questions for bad goalkeeping in recent weeks but as far as his distribution goes I'm not sure it was any worse than the rest of the back 5 yesterday. With little or no movement ahead of him and no target man he had the choice between banging it long to nobody in particular, passing to Keogh who demands every ball and does nothing with it or to any of the others who seem to think a ball was a mine and wanted rid of it asap
The current situation reminds me of early GA and his scuttleball period where late 0-1 defeats became almost laughably inevitable. He had to change tack (and was given time to change personnel and approach) but also had the benefit of very low expectation.
MB doesn’t have that luxury and is going to have to learn lessons in adaptability and pragmatism far quicker. It’s not panic stations yet but some tough questions are rightly being asked.
Yesterday in itself was certainly a joyless slog. Don’t think many of us would be able to handle the rest of this season turning into a joyless slog.
It seems to me that the key issue, needing immediate attention, is a decision by Matt Bloomfield and his cronies whether or not to continue with three central defenders and two wingbacks as their preferred formation.
I’m not as pessimistic as some about the feasibility of that formation being successful at League 1 level but it’s certainly not working well (understatement) currently. I hadn’t really noticed that Max was struggling with it and had lost confidence but there was clear evidence yesterday that it might be the case.
The most important factors in that preferred formation are the personnel. There have been so many permutations of the three central defenders this season, largely as a result of a disproportionate number of injuries, that it is not surprising that, positionally, there has been confusion as to who does what.
Richard Keogh has been criticised by some for being slow but, to be fair, he wins virtually every header, distributes the ball accurately (if slowly) and uses his vast experience to organise his fellow defenders.
My own personal gripe involves the wingbacks. Yesterday, in the first half especially, there seemed to be an obsession with trying to execute close interpassing movements between two or three players within two yards of the left touchline. These invariably broke down and, as a result, Harry Boyes rarely crossed the halfway line. Later in the half, he and Tafazolli were nowhere to be seen as Lewis Wing took full advantage of being in acres of space and struck what proved to be the fatal blow. (So much for Richard Keogh’s organisational skills, I hear you cry!)
I’m honestly not sure who was playing right wingback - presumably Jack Grimmer - but there was little forward threat on that side. Indeed, most of the passes towards the right touchline either went into touch or were easily intercepted by a Reading player. The best right wingback this season (Jasper Pattenden) was an unused substitute.
If only the current problems were confined to the back five and, and by extension, the goalkeeper. But the buck starts there.
Just to rub it in, my Wimbledon mate sends me an email telling me that Al-Hamadi’s two goals yesterday would have graced the Championship. Haven’t checked to see how Nick Freeman got on yesterday !
Yesterday exemplified all that is problematic with our side at the moment, made worse by the clear lack of confidence in each other & the game plan from the manager; to be fair to MB he was honest that the performance wasn't good enough & also clearly very angry that players were not doing what had been discussed & agreed in advance.
Max is a decent shot stopper & generally his positioning is ok, but as others have pointed out his distribution is at best a 5/10 though to be fair to him it is better than last season. The last 2 games his confidence has looked shot, especially in the cobbled together defence in front of him. MB needs to make a decision now as to whether to give Ravizzoli the nod.
As I guess you have gathered I am not a fan of Taf, he has had good games but he is almost as ponderously slow as Keogh & his decision making lately has been woeful. Keogh is even slower, but does read the game well & generally picks a decent pass, the problem is he slows everything down to his pace. We need to start with Forino & Low as our main centre backs, perferably in a back 4 with Grimmer & Boyes as the full backs; if MB sticks to a 5 then in the absence of Leahy, Grimmer moves to the right hand CB slot & stick with Pattenden as RWB.
Without Potts/Leahy our midfield is too deep/static & struggles to put a passing sequence together. The lack of movement is causing much of the distribution problems for the back 5 as there is far too often no obvious outlet to target. Phillips is growing in confidence & improving each game & has almost single handedly gone some way to paper over the cracks.
Up front without Vokes or Hanlan we have no one who looks comfotable holding the ball up with their back to goal, or who is prepared to run at defenders with the ball at their feet. Dale Taylor is struggling because our service is geared to a target man (still) rather than playing the ball into space behind the defence for a quick forward to run onto, this is partly his fault as he drifts deeper & deeper over the course of the game in search of the ball, rahter than stying on the shoulde rof the last defender. Lyle Taylor has done this in his cameos so far & hopefully he will play longer spells as match fitness returns. In regards to the wide men Sadlier deserves a start, GMAc is still a force to be reckoned with but drifts in too often when he doesnt have the ball & Wheels gets the ball pinged to his head rather than to his feet...
I get what Blooms is trying to develop but we just dont have quite the right mix of players to do it, yet, especially with our awful injury list & after the issues with Breckin I get why he is cautious about introducing the likes of Ward but at some point he will have no choice. He probably needs to bite the bullet & revert to a 4-3-3 as a general default formation that can flex much easier to variations ot deal with most oppositions at this level.
Finally I echo @glasshalffull this is not the time to be changing managers & we need to afford Blooms the same sort of opportunity Ainsworth had of a decent period to develop his style & build his team.
I love the idea of us playing a possession based game. But if you were a manager in the first 5 minutes of a game saw that if by playing that system the opposition were prepared to shut you down the moment you tried to play out from the back I would change tactics. Quickly. If Potts is in the side it helps no doubt, but he isn't. And thinking that Dale 'I score goals' Taylor should play some kind of number 10 creative role was embarrassing yesterday.
A stinking day from the players, a stinking day from the coaching staff. And not the first recently.
I’m not for one moment defending yesterday’s performance (and at the moment it is hard to see where we go from here), but…
A little over a month ago;
"The best team overall that we have played so far this Season in League 1.” (Quote from Posh forum)
”We were lucky to get a point.” (Darren Ferguson)
“We’ve played some extraordinary stuff in the last few games.”
”I don’t really want Gaz back, this is better football’.”
“Today was a brilliant performance again.”
”A totally enjoyable game of football.”
(Gasroom)
Apologies i’m not picking on anyone as I agree with all of the comments, but it may be worth remembering that with a nearly fully fit squad we were playing some nice, cohesive, attractive football.
Perfecting how you set up your team with a strong, if not full-strength XI is one thing, Blooms is finding out the hard way that putting together an XI from a squad shorn of key players for his favoured tactics is quite another. In bringing in a very inexperienced manager, you do so knowing outcomes like yesterday are likely to happen and take them on the chin in the hope your man develops and learns from the experience.
Those calling for Bloomfield to go would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater IMO.
Since these performances 2 things have happened. Key players injured, Vokes, Hanlan, Leahy and Potts and we have begun playing a tempo that is more like a pre-season friendly. The losing Vokes and Hanlan has hardly stripped us of goals but it does of physicality. The loss of Potts and Leahy has stripped us of creativity. But we have good players still. And yesterday good players looked bad players. Dale Taylor is now a waste of time, Wheeler must have wondered what he was doing up front in a 9 role. Etc etc etc
Bloomfield's post match interview is available on the club website. He was understandably as fed up with the performance as we were by the sound of it.
I can’t bring myself to watch it. Love Matt so to see him try and put any positive angles on yesterday would be too much. Unless he mentioned the pretty decent chilli beef pie.
@ in fairness to Matt, he's pretty honest in his assessment and doesn't hold back. Did have a moan about an offside call against L Taylor. Not sure if there was any justification there. Certainly I felt we should've had a penalty in the 2nd half, when the Reading defender basically punched the ball back to his keeper to deny Low a clear opportunity. Not really a day for moaning about the ref though (he says after moaning about the ref!).
It would have helped if you had checked the club website before posting this. Bloomfield has never ducked out of answering any awkward questions and I’m prepared to bet that he never will.
Injuries have no doubt given us a huge headache recently but you cannot play Scowen on his own in midfield. It was tough enough with just Potts and Scowen.
Playing three at the back you’ve got to have two ball seekers. De Barr played there one game and did a half decent job. I thought Clark was very good in the Wimbledon game, far better than Breckin. I’d rather have another midfield hassler who knows how to play there doing it than trying to bring Taylor or Philips deeper. Particularly if we wanted to play Wheeler up front.
The back three has worked best when we’ve had mobility there - Leahy, Forino, Grimmer. It doesn’t work with two or three of Taf, Low and Keogh. They’re just not agile or quick enough. It’s so easy to open us up.
Ainsworth stuck to a formation for far too long when we went on poor runs. Quite often injuries would force him to try something else and then it clicked for a while.
MB needs to switch it up Tuesday. We simply don’t have the personnel, at the minute, to play how he wants. Please try something else!
Finding the posts about how we were always completely sure we would prevail under Gareth...when under him at the start of the last season we were, for some posters at least, a bang average side who could kiss the playoffs goodbye after ten games...somewhat amusing.
Yesterday was bad and to some extent you also have to blame the players who are, we all know, better than that. There was a great move that GMac (?) just failed to convert and we might have had an undeserved point.
Also, 'Bloomfield and his cronies...' @micra ? A tad harsh.
Comments
I don't think it's solely the players fault. MB is a very green manager, perhaps he's not fully figured out how to get his tactical plan across fully.
I disagree that no team at this level has the quality to play a possession-heavy game - MK under Manning spring to mind as a successful example (ok, almost successful 😂) - but I agree we're nowhere well-equipped at the moment. And if Blooms is completely set on playing this way, that raises questions about our summer recruitment - because it's probably a 50/50 split between who suits a possession game and who doesn't (and the major one who does won't be here next season, maybe not even beyond the New Year).
Max is quite rightly getting some questions for bad goalkeeping in recent weeks but as far as his distribution goes I'm not sure it was any worse than the rest of the back 5 yesterday. With little or no movement ahead of him and no target man he had the choice between banging it long to nobody in particular, passing to Keogh who demands every ball and does nothing with it or to any of the others who seem to think a ball was a mine and wanted rid of it asap
Surely we can't possibly have a bigger budget than either the championship season or season after?
That's a bit harsh on Keogh. Yes he's someone I could quite comfortably outrun but he rarely wastes a ball and usually finds a man doesn't he?
Often in slow mo I know.
The current situation reminds me of early GA and his scuttleball period where late 0-1 defeats became almost laughably inevitable. He had to change tack (and was given time to change personnel and approach) but also had the benefit of very low expectation.
MB doesn’t have that luxury and is going to have to learn lessons in adaptability and pragmatism far quicker. It’s not panic stations yet but some tough questions are rightly being asked.
Yesterday in itself was certainly a joyless slog. Don’t think many of us would be able to handle the rest of this season turning into a joyless slog.
It seems to me that the key issue, needing immediate attention, is a decision by Matt Bloomfield and his cronies whether or not to continue with three central defenders and two wingbacks as their preferred formation.
I’m not as pessimistic as some about the feasibility of that formation being successful at League 1 level but it’s certainly not working well (understatement) currently. I hadn’t really noticed that Max was struggling with it and had lost confidence but there was clear evidence yesterday that it might be the case.
The most important factors in that preferred formation are the personnel. There have been so many permutations of the three central defenders this season, largely as a result of a disproportionate number of injuries, that it is not surprising that, positionally, there has been confusion as to who does what.
Richard Keogh has been criticised by some for being slow but, to be fair, he wins virtually every header, distributes the ball accurately (if slowly) and uses his vast experience to organise his fellow defenders.
My own personal gripe involves the wingbacks. Yesterday, in the first half especially, there seemed to be an obsession with trying to execute close interpassing movements between two or three players within two yards of the left touchline. These invariably broke down and, as a result, Harry Boyes rarely crossed the halfway line. Later in the half, he and Tafazolli were nowhere to be seen as Lewis Wing took full advantage of being in acres of space and struck what proved to be the fatal blow. (So much for Richard Keogh’s organisational skills, I hear you cry!)
I’m honestly not sure who was playing right wingback - presumably Jack Grimmer - but there was little forward threat on that side. Indeed, most of the passes towards the right touchline either went into touch or were easily intercepted by a Reading player. The best right wingback this season (Jasper Pattenden) was an unused substitute.
If only the current problems were confined to the back five and, and by extension, the goalkeeper. But the buck starts there.
Just to rub it in, my Wimbledon mate sends me an email telling me that Al-Hamadi’s two goals yesterday would have graced the Championship. Haven’t checked to see how Nick Freeman got on yesterday !
Yesterday exemplified all that is problematic with our side at the moment, made worse by the clear lack of confidence in each other & the game plan from the manager; to be fair to MB he was honest that the performance wasn't good enough & also clearly very angry that players were not doing what had been discussed & agreed in advance.
Max is a decent shot stopper & generally his positioning is ok, but as others have pointed out his distribution is at best a 5/10 though to be fair to him it is better than last season. The last 2 games his confidence has looked shot, especially in the cobbled together defence in front of him. MB needs to make a decision now as to whether to give Ravizzoli the nod.
As I guess you have gathered I am not a fan of Taf, he has had good games but he is almost as ponderously slow as Keogh & his decision making lately has been woeful. Keogh is even slower, but does read the game well & generally picks a decent pass, the problem is he slows everything down to his pace. We need to start with Forino & Low as our main centre backs, perferably in a back 4 with Grimmer & Boyes as the full backs; if MB sticks to a 5 then in the absence of Leahy, Grimmer moves to the right hand CB slot & stick with Pattenden as RWB.
Without Potts/Leahy our midfield is too deep/static & struggles to put a passing sequence together. The lack of movement is causing much of the distribution problems for the back 5 as there is far too often no obvious outlet to target. Phillips is growing in confidence & improving each game & has almost single handedly gone some way to paper over the cracks.
Up front without Vokes or Hanlan we have no one who looks comfotable holding the ball up with their back to goal, or who is prepared to run at defenders with the ball at their feet. Dale Taylor is struggling because our service is geared to a target man (still) rather than playing the ball into space behind the defence for a quick forward to run onto, this is partly his fault as he drifts deeper & deeper over the course of the game in search of the ball, rahter than stying on the shoulde rof the last defender. Lyle Taylor has done this in his cameos so far & hopefully he will play longer spells as match fitness returns. In regards to the wide men Sadlier deserves a start, GMAc is still a force to be reckoned with but drifts in too often when he doesnt have the ball & Wheels gets the ball pinged to his head rather than to his feet...
I get what Blooms is trying to develop but we just dont have quite the right mix of players to do it, yet, especially with our awful injury list & after the issues with Breckin I get why he is cautious about introducing the likes of Ward but at some point he will have no choice. He probably needs to bite the bullet & revert to a 4-3-3 as a general default formation that can flex much easier to variations ot deal with most oppositions at this level.
Finally I echo @glasshalffull this is not the time to be changing managers & we need to afford Blooms the same sort of opportunity Ainsworth had of a decent period to develop his style & build his team.
updated for typos
I love the idea of us playing a possession based game. But if you were a manager in the first 5 minutes of a game saw that if by playing that system the opposition were prepared to shut you down the moment you tried to play out from the back I would change tactics. Quickly. If Potts is in the side it helps no doubt, but he isn't. And thinking that Dale 'I score goals' Taylor should play some kind of number 10 creative role was embarrassing yesterday.
A stinking day from the players, a stinking day from the coaching staff. And not the first recently.
I’m not for one moment defending yesterday’s performance (and at the moment it is hard to see where we go from here), but…
A little over a month ago;
"The best team overall that we have played so far this Season in League 1.” (Quote from Posh forum)
”We were lucky to get a point.” (Darren Ferguson)
“We’ve played some extraordinary stuff in the last few games.”
”I don’t really want Gaz back, this is better football’.”
“Today was a brilliant performance again.”
”A totally enjoyable game of football.”
(Gasroom)
Apologies i’m not picking on anyone as I agree with all of the comments, but it may be worth remembering that with a nearly fully fit squad we were playing some nice, cohesive, attractive football.
Perfecting how you set up your team with a strong, if not full-strength XI is one thing, Blooms is finding out the hard way that putting together an XI from a squad shorn of key players for his favoured tactics is quite another. In bringing in a very inexperienced manager, you do so knowing outcomes like yesterday are likely to happen and take them on the chin in the hope your man develops and learns from the experience.
Those calling for Bloomfield to go would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater IMO.
Since these performances 2 things have happened. Key players injured, Vokes, Hanlan, Leahy and Potts and we have begun playing a tempo that is more like a pre-season friendly. The losing Vokes and Hanlan has hardly stripped us of goals but it does of physicality. The loss of Potts and Leahy has stripped us of creativity. But we have good players still. And yesterday good players looked bad players. Dale Taylor is now a waste of time, Wheeler must have wondered what he was doing up front in a 9 role. Etc etc etc
Wheeler set up our goal with a superb knockdown worthy of Sam Vokes himself
We deserve a post match press conference from Bloomfield. If the club has ducked out of providing one that is truly shocking.
Bloomfield's post match interview is available on the club website. He was understandably as fed up with the performance as we were by the sound of it.
I can’t bring myself to watch it. Love Matt so to see him try and put any positive angles on yesterday would be too much. Unless he mentioned the pretty decent chilli beef pie.
No way of knowing officially as the wages are hidden on published accounts.
Matt seems to have a very healthy squad size of senior players and quality.
I would be very surprised if our wage budget is sub 5M which in turn would be very close IMHO to what was spent in 20/21 and 21/22.
All guesswork of course.
@ in fairness to Matt, he's pretty honest in his assessment and doesn't hold back. Did have a moan about an offside call against L Taylor. Not sure if there was any justification there. Certainly I felt we should've had a penalty in the 2nd half, when the Reading defender basically punched the ball back to his keeper to deny Low a clear opportunity. Not really a day for moaning about the ref though (he says after moaning about the ref!).
It would have helped if you had checked the club website before posting this. Bloomfield has never ducked out of answering any awkward questions and I’m prepared to bet that he never will.
What kind of money are you suggesting?
It would help if the club publicised it on its much busier platforms. Twitter and Instagram.
Ton for fun?
Did we play "wonderful football" at any point yesterday? https://twitter.com/wwfcofficial/status/1728456046857826344?t=e9eGPP4kZJw_YnzoeOt78Q&s=19
Injuries have no doubt given us a huge headache recently but you cannot play Scowen on his own in midfield. It was tough enough with just Potts and Scowen.
Playing three at the back you’ve got to have two ball seekers. De Barr played there one game and did a half decent job. I thought Clark was very good in the Wimbledon game, far better than Breckin. I’d rather have another midfield hassler who knows how to play there doing it than trying to bring Taylor or Philips deeper. Particularly if we wanted to play Wheeler up front.
The back three has worked best when we’ve had mobility there - Leahy, Forino, Grimmer. It doesn’t work with two or three of Taf, Low and Keogh. They’re just not agile or quick enough. It’s so easy to open us up.
Ainsworth stuck to a formation for far too long when we went on poor runs. Quite often injuries would force him to try something else and then it clicked for a while.
MB needs to switch it up Tuesday. We simply don’t have the personnel, at the minute, to play how he wants. Please try something else!
You are either 'prepared to bet' or you aren't
Finding the posts about how we were always completely sure we would prevail under Gareth...when under him at the start of the last season we were, for some posters at least, a bang average side who could kiss the playoffs goodbye after ten games...somewhat amusing.
Yesterday was bad and to some extent you also have to blame the players who are, we all know, better than that. There was a great move that GMac (?) just failed to convert and we might have had an undeserved point.
Also, 'Bloomfield and his cronies...' @micra ? A tad harsh.
Decent move around the 84th minute yeah
The one where Phillips shanked the volley over? That would have been a delicious way to shut my dear neighbours up.
Yep, it was 3 passes strung together and a chance to shoot at least.
Decent lookalike near you yesterday, meant to come over
Was he/she doing accents @peterparrotface ?