Thank YOU - Dolan - Thank YOU - Anton

[Hoop Blah]

In that we acquitted ourselves well against superior opposition whilst employing a 4-5-1 system that added defensive solidity at the expense of any real creativity going forward.

That sounds like January to me.

It sounds like Sunderland, and to a lesser extent the Chelsea game (although you have to expect their side to pepper the goal a bit more), but the rest of January wasn't about shutting out the opposition so much as getting away with them missing more chances and Federici doing a good job of keeping them out.

We were more solid, but we could, and perhaps should, have lost most of the games we won thanks to excellent late fightbacks and specifically the finishing of Le Fondre.

[P!ssed Off]

In that we acquitted ourselves well against superior opposition whilst employing a 4-5-1 system that added defensive solidity at the expense of any real creativity going forward.

That sounds like January to me.

It sounds like Sunderland, and to a lesser extent the Chelsea game (although you have to expect their side to pepper the goal a bit more), but the rest of January wasn't about shutting out the opposition so much as getting away with them missing more chances and Federici doing a good job of keeping them out.

We were more solid, but we could, and perhaps should, have lost most of the games we won thanks to excellent late fightbacks and specifically the finishing of Le Fondre.

Exactly, for the games where we got results in January we were only still in the game come the 80th minute due to Federici and luck, the midfield and defence consistently gave the ball away and did little to prevent the opposition creating numerous clear cut chances.

Against United, the midfield and defence did not give the ball away cheaply and defended as a unit. We hardly allowed United to create any clear cut chances where you were expecting them to score. We were still in the game come the 80th minute due to the work ethic of the whole team, not due to luck and exceptional goal keeping.

We can all celebrate the great late win against West Brom but we have to acknowledge that 9 times out of 10 Lukaku would have scored about 5 goals, but we were lucky and instead he hit the bar (twice I think) and put a few sitters wide.

[The Goat was fed]

I am sure just about every pundit on telly (not that I believe half the blox they speak these days, eh Mr Redknapp? Yes you James) will state that the basis for turning anything around is to stop conceding goals. We conceded a flukey one on Saturday, and Taylor made two or three more saves off the top of my head. Alright Man Utd weren't going at 100% but some of that was down to us, and it would be churlish to say it wasn't. As stated earlier, I have no confidence in us staying up, but I would settle for stop giving away goals and maybe scoring a few ourselves before the season ends.

Conceding goals isn't a problem if we play defensively, scoring goals isn't a problem if we set up in a more attacking way. Unfortunately the reason we are getting relegated is that we don't have the ability in our squad to do both. We either look disastrous at the back or blunt going forward. Let's just accept, barring a miracle of the Mighty Ducks variety, we're going down because we didn't have enough quality. No manager could have kept us up with our current squad.

[winchester_royal]

Tommy Burns - ineffectual passing style.
Eamon Dolan's first game - ineffectual passing style.

Catering staff of Tommy Burns produced Paul Brayson and Robert Fleck.
Catering staff of modern era responsible for Danny Guthrie and Adam Federici.

Call me the Compari-son of God.

Yep, completely ineffectual, it only managed to nullify the best attack in the country for 90 minutes, and push the champions elect to the point where they were time wasting for the last five minutes.

P.S. How you can compare a guy like Eamonn Dolan, considering what he has done for the academy/club, to Tommy Burns is beyond me.

[The Goat was fed]

Tommy Burns - ineffectual passing style.
Eamon Dolan's first game - ineffectual passing style.

Catering staff of Tommy Burns produced Paul Brayson and Robert Fleck.
Catering staff of modern era responsible for Danny Guthrie and Adam Federici.

Call me the Compari-son of God.

Yep, completely ineffectual, it only managed to nullify the best attack in the country for 90 minutes, and push the champions elect to the point where they were time wasting for the last five minutes.

P.S. How you can compare a guy like Eamonn Dolan, considering what he has done for the academy/club, to Tommy Burns is beyond me.

Winchy - it's ineffectual when you play football and fail to register a single shot on target. Surely there's no debate there? Big woop, we managed to stop Manchester United dicking us harder than we expected. I'm afraid at this point last season QPR were beating Arsenal away and saving their season. If this result had happened in October, I'd be much more sunny, but failing to register a shot when you need WINS not draws is inexcusable in my eyes.

The Burns/Dolan comparison was made to highlight that attractive football, if without cutting edge, is hardly worth creaming our pants about. Obviously in terms of contribution to the club as a whole, it's a daft comparison - but that's not what I was doing. They are also both of celtic origin.

[winchester_royal]

Tommy Burns - ineffectual passing style.
Eamon Dolan's first game - ineffectual passing style.

Catering staff of Tommy Burns produced Paul Brayson and Robert Fleck.
Catering staff of modern era responsible for Danny Guthrie and Adam Federici.

Call me the Compari-son of God.

Yep, completely ineffectual, it only managed to nullify the best attack in the country for 90 minutes, and push the champions elect to the point where they were time wasting for the last five minutes.

P.S. How you can compare a guy like Eamonn Dolan, considering what he has done for the academy/club, to Tommy Burns is beyond me.

Winchy - it's ineffectual when you play football and fail to register a single shot on target. Surely there's no debate there? Big woop, we managed to stop Manchester United dicking us harder than we expected. I'm afraid at this point last season QPR were beating Arsenal away and saving their season. If this result had happened in October, I'd be much more sunny, but failing to register a shot when you need WINS not draws is inexcusable in my eyes.

The Burns/Dolan comparison was made to highlight that attractive football, if without cutting edge, is hardly worth creaming our pants about. Obviously in terms of contribution to the club as a whole, it's a daft comparison - but that's not what I was doing. They are also both of celtic origin.

No, ineffective football is when you don't give yourself a chance in the game. We were in with a chance right up until the final whistle went, and if the ref had been braver we'd have had a very real chance of getting a point.

It will take time to cultivate a real cutting edge, but at OT anything that keeps you in the game is 'effective' football.

[The Goat was fed]

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. In my eyes, not registering a single shot on target can be called many things, effective is not one of them. You don't have a chance in a game if you don't shoot between the two posts that hold up a net. At best you give yourself a chance of a goalless draw.

[winchester_royal]

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. In my eyes, not registering a single shot on target can be called many things, effective is not one of them. You don't have a chance in a game if you don't shoot between the two posts that hold up a net. At best you give yourself a chance of a goalless draw.

Fair enough, we're all entitled to our own opinions.

[Hoop Blah]

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. In my eyes, not registering a single shot on target can be called many things, effective is not one of them. You don't have a chance in a game if you don't shoot between the two posts that hold up a net. At best you give yourself a chance of a goalless draw.

We created a few opportunities to score though. That's being effective even if the individuals on the end of those opportunities miss by a few inches (Robson-Kanu again).

[Royal Rother]

I can't recall anyone going OTT about it on here but I really don't understand the obstinacy in refusing to acknowledge and be at least mildly positive about the better look to our play on Saturday.

"Keep the ball...!!!" It might be a bit basic but I think to most fans' eyes it had a welcome impact.

[melonhead]

tbf it was vs a united team with 8 changes, and they treated it like a training game, and didnt really put us under the kind of pressure on the ball weve been used to this season