Their average attendance was 9,854, just short of their stadium capacity of 10,000 so they had more than double the number of spectators that we had. Also, if you look at the top 3 clubs promoted from the Championship in the last 20 years you will see that, almost without exception, they are major clubs with big crowds and a history of playing at the highest level.
He played one game for us as a wing-back and was a bit of a liability. He basically stood on the halfway line for most of the match including the bit where the man he was supposed to be marking was scoring.
That said, I think he’s a very good player in the right position and it’s been good to see him in the team on a regular basis as he’s added something.
But my argument is that if Luton can get to the Premier League with the lowest Championship attendance, why is it so unlikely we could get in the Championship which must be an easier task.
Well, obviously we did get to the Championship in 2020 but we are one of the handful of exceptions that prove the rule. Since League One was formed 20 years ago, only 3 of the 56 clubs promoted had smaller attendances than we get (Colchester, Burton and Yeovil). No one is saying that smaller clubs can’t win promotion as we ourselves have proved, but there’s no escaping that the odds are heavily stacked against them.
Oddly enough, given the perception that we don’t score enough goals, only 3 of the 13 clubs in the bottom half of the table have scored more than Wycombe: Charlton, Wigan and Reading.
That's the problem with stats though isn't it. Can make them support any debate. plain fact though it is, we simply don't score enough. Vokes finishes that 2nd half strike/header and it's game over. Look at Peterborough, I can't remember them hanging on with gritted teeth to a one goal lead very often! 🤷♂️
I don’t disagree and I was surprised to discover that stat when I looked at the league table.Incidentally, both Charlton and Reading have conceded more goals than us which goes to show what fine margins decide games of football.
To be honest @TheAndyGrahamFanClub I cannot remember the last time I felt comfortable (ie feeling that we weren’t vulnerable to counter attacks) whilst watching Wycombe ! My point was based purely on the fact that we were playing attractive attacking football with passing mostly on the deck. From your comment, it seems that, despite that, there were at least a couple of dangerous counter attacks by Lincoln.
I’ve really enjoyed the exchanges between you and @Commoner. Very civilised and almost totally lacking the gloom and rancour (borderline hysteria even) of some of the outpourings over the last couple of days. We’ve been a very disenchanted bunch.
Key comments for me concerned substitution decisions - on and off - (both in relation to the individuals and their playing positions). The decision to play KVY at left back rather than on the right of midfield where he has seemed considerably more comfortable was mysterious. I very much agree that JJ would have been a better choice, providing the added bonus of having Leahy and KVY in midfield.
I also agree that the number of matches we’ve played over the past three weeks including the illnesses that several players have suffered must have had a debilitating effect. Earlier substitutions would have helped in that respect.
Overall, I think we’re slowly getting there. I have no doubt the post-mortems about Saturday’s end-game management will have been taking place at the training ground just as much as on the Gasroom.
Let’s hope the outcome is as consensual as it’s become (more or less !) on this excellent forum.
@micra I think that although @Commoner and I disagree on a number of specifics (the joy of watching sport) we fundamentally want the same thing - improvement and not change.
I hope above all hope that this is a learning curve and not a slow motion train crash.
It's not inconceivable that my aging mind has the timeline of the match distorted, but I genuinely don't recall feeling at all troubled until Sadlier went off. If anything I felt we would add to our lead and see out a deserved victory.
I found it a really poor substitution at the time and what happened afterwards did nothing to change my mind.
The thing is, it's counter productive anyway. I'm sure the theory is you sit deeper, defend your box, fill the gaps where the opposition can create chances and see the game out. But we're rubbish at it. We give away chance after chance after chance.
Counter-intuitive as it may sound, but the least risky thing for us to do when we have the lead would be to keep on trying to get another goal. Especially against bang average sides like Lincoln and Port Vale.
But, and it's a significant but, I do acknowledge that it's not my team out there and I'm not having to face the consequences of my in-match decisions. I feel there's a decent side waiting to break out though, and a slight change in mindset from the manager from being afraid of losing a lead to looking to increase it and put a side to bed might just be the key to unlock it
Agree @eric_plant I thought Taylor and Vokes off for another couple of attackers with fresh legs to give Lincoln some jitters would have been better, but like you the Gasroom experts cannot sack me for my decisions. The end was appallingly frustrating but we did not lose and I thought we were good for 60 mins or so rather than the unmitigated disaster others were watching. I realise this epitomises my posts on this site.
I said exactly the same half way through 2nd half.. Vokes(as much as I love him he gets tired) and Taylor or Gmac off, the 2 new boys on up front with fresh legs and a willingness to impress on.
For all the rights or wrongs of the substitutions and game management, or not, it's been rather sad to see Phillips in his last couple of game appearances more like his original self - full of helter skelter energy, running around like a maniac with no real purpose - rather than the more skillful, measured player we know he can be. Perhaps the answer might be to make him run up and down the upper car park for 20 minutes before he comes on. (So he is less "enthusiastic".)
I think the hard thing for me about Phillips is I don't know what his best actual position is. He seems like a kind of force of nature who can do all kinds of things fairly well, but it is hard to peg a spot he actually fits like a glove. Obviously not a 9, and I don't see him as a 10 (not creative enough) or 8 (not defensive enough) either. So when we have a balanced 11, it is hard to find a spot for him, perhaps.
Yep, get that entirely. In some games he seems to have done really well when his position has been structured but when he just "runs around a lot" he looks lost.
Is that him, or what he's need told to do (or not perhaps)?
Should say what I have absolutely loved about him, is he that seems to wear his heart on his sleeve.
In those poor games in December he looked really devastated by some of the negative crowd reaction and equally was trying to get some good reactions started.
Yes, I love his attitude too, and he went on an absolute tear just a little while back, so there is no doubting his talent. I agree with what you say about structure - I just scratch my head as to where he actually fits, even with that talent. It's a weird one!
I felt much the same about our tactics, I was quite animated willing us to get up the pitch and attack. Ainsworth looked to defend quite often in those early days and I think he got caught out by it.
I remember him, a few years in to management at the player sponsors dinner, saying he realised making an attacking change that forced the opposition to re-think their game plan worked more often than making a defensive change. It was a fine balance sometimes. He also suggested that once the team was confident and playing well regularly, defending leads became easier.
These two points stick in my mind, MB needs to perhaps go through those processes that GA went through early in his career. You learn through doing sometimes better than theory.
I feel whilst we are still lacking a bit of confidence and wins, we should look to attack a little more and be more positive in the last 20 minutes. We need to be higher up the pitch. Then once we have those wins and confidence is higher, we may actually be able to choose to sit a little deeper and protect a lead.
It took GA years to work out how to do this and when was the right time. That Semi Final against MK Dons (sorry I'll wash my mouth out) epitomised this.
Ditto! Fingers crossed. My heart says he can do it and logic sometimes suggests he cannot but importantly given time to learn from his mistakes and test his theories I think he can come through and be a great manager for us.
The one thing that concerns me more than anything is the amount of inexperienced players we currently have, who are also having to go through a learning curve. Sometimes experience just trumps youthful enthusiasm - hence JJ should have come on.
I feel we need to always have at least 7 players if not 8 players on the pitch with experience where possible. We finished that game with 5 players who had played a total of 136 games between them (Forino with 65), plus KVY who has only played 49 times in last four seasons. It was a tough ask. McCleary, Vokes and Sadlier have over 1200 games between them.
I remember posting on here after one of our (either Championship or promotion season) games about how it was the first time I'd enjoyed watching us all-out defend. We'd gone to a 4-4-1-1 and the two banks of four were just completely in charge - wherever one of the opposition players made a run, someone tracked them and someone else filled that hole. It was all-out defence, but I was never concerned that we'd concede as we held our shape perfectly even as players switched positions. Plus we had two out-ball options further up the pitch. I don't know if we could have pulled that off on Saturday with this group of players, but I'm sure that equaliser would have been less inevitable.
I hope I never go back through my posting history to see how many times I said 'I loved that guy'. But I loved that guy. The briefest of stays but one of the biggest impacts. And what a guy.
Comments
Their average attendance was 9,854, just short of their stadium capacity of 10,000 so they had more than double the number of spectators that we had. Also, if you look at the top 3 clubs promoted from the Championship in the last 20 years you will see that, almost without exception, they are major clubs with big crowds and a history of playing at the highest level.
He played one game for us as a wing-back and was a bit of a liability. He basically stood on the halfway line for most of the match including the bit where the man he was supposed to be marking was scoring.
That said, I think he’s a very good player in the right position and it’s been good to see him in the team on a regular basis as he’s added something.
Decent corner taker too.
You think we are not scoring goals because of Max Stryjek?
But my argument is that if Luton can get to the Premier League with the lowest Championship attendance, why is it so unlikely we could get in the Championship which must be an easier task.
Well, obviously we did get to the Championship in 2020 but we are one of the handful of exceptions that prove the rule. Since League One was formed 20 years ago, only 3 of the 56 clubs promoted had smaller attendances than we get (Colchester, Burton and Yeovil). No one is saying that smaller clubs can’t win promotion as we ourselves have proved, but there’s no escaping that the odds are heavily stacked against them.
Oddly enough, given the perception that we don’t score enough goals, only 3 of the 13 clubs in the bottom half of the table have scored more than Wycombe: Charlton, Wigan and Reading.
That's the problem with stats though isn't it. Can make them support any debate. plain fact though it is, we simply don't score enough. Vokes finishes that 2nd half strike/header and it's game over. Look at Peterborough, I can't remember them hanging on with gritted teeth to a one goal lead very often! 🤷♂️
I don’t disagree and I was surprised to discover that stat when I looked at the league table.Incidentally, both Charlton and Reading have conceded more goals than us which goes to show what fine margins decide games of football.
Really needed that thanks. This is the funniest thing I’ve read on here for absolutely ages.
To be honest @TheAndyGrahamFanClub I cannot remember the last time I felt comfortable (ie feeling that we weren’t vulnerable to counter attacks) whilst watching Wycombe ! My point was based purely on the fact that we were playing attractive attacking football with passing mostly on the deck. From your comment, it seems that, despite that, there were at least a couple of dangerous counter attacks by Lincoln.
I’ve really enjoyed the exchanges between you and @Commoner. Very civilised and almost totally lacking the gloom and rancour (borderline hysteria even) of some of the outpourings over the last couple of days. We’ve been a very disenchanted bunch.
Key comments for me concerned substitution decisions - on and off - (both in relation to the individuals and their playing positions). The decision to play KVY at left back rather than on the right of midfield where he has seemed considerably more comfortable was mysterious. I very much agree that JJ would have been a better choice, providing the added bonus of having Leahy and KVY in midfield.
I also agree that the number of matches we’ve played over the past three weeks including the illnesses that several players have suffered must have had a debilitating effect. Earlier substitutions would have helped in that respect.
Overall, I think we’re slowly getting there. I have no doubt the post-mortems about Saturday’s end-game management will have been taking place at the training ground just as much as on the Gasroom.
Let’s hope the outcome is as consensual as it’s become (more or less !) on this excellent forum.
@micra I think that although @Commoner and I disagree on a number of specifics (the joy of watching sport) we fundamentally want the same thing - improvement and not change.
I hope above all hope that this is a learning curve and not a slow motion train crash.
It's not inconceivable that my aging mind has the timeline of the match distorted, but I genuinely don't recall feeling at all troubled until Sadlier went off. If anything I felt we would add to our lead and see out a deserved victory.
I found it a really poor substitution at the time and what happened afterwards did nothing to change my mind.
The thing is, it's counter productive anyway. I'm sure the theory is you sit deeper, defend your box, fill the gaps where the opposition can create chances and see the game out. But we're rubbish at it. We give away chance after chance after chance.
Counter-intuitive as it may sound, but the least risky thing for us to do when we have the lead would be to keep on trying to get another goal. Especially against bang average sides like Lincoln and Port Vale.
But, and it's a significant but, I do acknowledge that it's not my team out there and I'm not having to face the consequences of my in-match decisions. I feel there's a decent side waiting to break out though, and a slight change in mindset from the manager from being afraid of losing a lead to looking to increase it and put a side to bed might just be the key to unlock it
he is so poor.....Dale Bloomfield must be his real name
Agree @eric_plant I thought Taylor and Vokes off for another couple of attackers with fresh legs to give Lincoln some jitters would have been better, but like you the Gasroom experts cannot sack me for my decisions. The end was appallingly frustrating but we did not lose and I thought we were good for 60 mins or so rather than the unmitigated disaster others were watching. I realise this epitomises my posts on this site.
This has to be Richie...
I said exactly the same half way through 2nd half.. Vokes(as much as I love him he gets tired) and Taylor or Gmac off, the 2 new boys on up front with fresh legs and a willingness to impress on.
For all the rights or wrongs of the substitutions and game management, or not, it's been rather sad to see Phillips in his last couple of game appearances more like his original self - full of helter skelter energy, running around like a maniac with no real purpose - rather than the more skillful, measured player we know he can be. Perhaps the answer might be to make him run up and down the upper car park for 20 minutes before he comes on. (So he is less "enthusiastic".)
I think the hard thing for me about Phillips is I don't know what his best actual position is. He seems like a kind of force of nature who can do all kinds of things fairly well, but it is hard to peg a spot he actually fits like a glove. Obviously not a 9, and I don't see him as a 10 (not creative enough) or 8 (not defensive enough) either. So when we have a balanced 11, it is hard to find a spot for him, perhaps.
Yep, get that entirely. In some games he seems to have done really well when his position has been structured but when he just "runs around a lot" he looks lost.
Is that him, or what he's need told to do (or not perhaps)?
Should say what I have absolutely loved about him, is he that seems to wear his heart on his sleeve.
In those poor games in December he looked really devastated by some of the negative crowd reaction and equally was trying to get some good reactions started.
Yes, I love his attitude too, and he went on an absolute tear just a little while back, so there is no doubting his talent. I agree with what you say about structure - I just scratch my head as to where he actually fits, even with that talent. It's a weird one!
I think @Commoner has done wonders for @TheAndyGrahamFanClub‘s blood pressure. It was all getting a bit too “Mr Angry From Purley” for me...
Spot on. That was what I was trying to put across earlier in my rather long-winded fashion.
I felt much the same about our tactics, I was quite animated willing us to get up the pitch and attack. Ainsworth looked to defend quite often in those early days and I think he got caught out by it.
I remember him, a few years in to management at the player sponsors dinner, saying he realised making an attacking change that forced the opposition to re-think their game plan worked more often than making a defensive change. It was a fine balance sometimes. He also suggested that once the team was confident and playing well regularly, defending leads became easier.
These two points stick in my mind, MB needs to perhaps go through those processes that GA went through early in his career. You learn through doing sometimes better than theory.
I feel whilst we are still lacking a bit of confidence and wins, we should look to attack a little more and be more positive in the last 20 minutes. We need to be higher up the pitch. Then once we have those wins and confidence is higher, we may actually be able to choose to sit a little deeper and protect a lead.
It took GA years to work out how to do this and when was the right time. That Semi Final against MK Dons (sorry I'll wash my mouth out) epitomised this.
Ditto! Fingers crossed. My heart says he can do it and logic sometimes suggests he cannot but importantly given time to learn from his mistakes and test his theories I think he can come through and be a great manager for us.
The one thing that concerns me more than anything is the amount of inexperienced players we currently have, who are also having to go through a learning curve. Sometimes experience just trumps youthful enthusiasm - hence JJ should have come on.
I feel we need to always have at least 7 players if not 8 players on the pitch with experience where possible. We finished that game with 5 players who had played a total of 136 games between them (Forino with 65), plus KVY who has only played 49 times in last four seasons. It was a tough ask. McCleary, Vokes and Sadlier have over 1200 games between them.
I’d say a slow motion learning curve meself.
I remember posting on here after one of our (either Championship or promotion season) games about how it was the first time I'd enjoyed watching us all-out defend. We'd gone to a 4-4-1-1 and the two banks of four were just completely in charge - wherever one of the opposition players made a run, someone tracked them and someone else filled that hole. It was all-out defence, but I was never concerned that we'd concede as we held our shape perfectly even as players switched positions. Plus we had two out-ball options further up the pitch. I don't know if we could have pulled that off on Saturday with this group of players, but I'm sure that equaliser would have been less inevitable.
The other thing we had during that promotion season was Darius Charles, who was as good a defensive organiser as I have ever seen in a Wycombe shirt
Good point, I do have the feeling he was playing in the game I mentioned above.
I hope I never go back through my posting history to see how many times I said 'I loved that guy'. But I loved that guy. The briefest of stays but one of the biggest impacts. And what a guy.