MATCHWATCH : Cardiff City (h) sponsored by a nice quiet evening out

[Snowflake Royal]

Did I miss something, who defends a single goal lead by putting a striker on?

For one of the best centre backs of the past 25 years, Stam can't organise a defence for sh*t.

Wasn’t a bad move. Put kerm in midfield and fresh legs up front. Just putting on defenders invites pressure. Just didn’t clear our lines well enough

+1 It was an obvious move to try and give us an outlet.

[John Madejski's Wallet]

Yeah I thought that wasn't a half bad move in theory.

Kermie was too important defending set pieces and would hold up the ball well and isn't he sort to panic into losing the ball again.

I think Stam just waited far too long to make changes (again) and Bod should have been on as an outlet sooner

[NewCorkSeth]

I was more excited for 5 mins of Popa then 85 mins of everybody else. Why does stam not play Popa always?

Aluko and Barrow are better.. Popa is crap. Why do people rate him so much on here?

They are. Barrow gets knackered around the 70 mark though and Popa is a handy sub

Fair enough. If McCleary wasnt knackered and was back to his best hes the perfect impact sub. Can attack, score, defend and crucially , is much taller than Popa.

[Hound]

Aluko and Barrow are better.. Popa is crap. Why do people rate him so much on here?

They are. Barrow gets knackered around the 70 mark though and Popa is a handy sub

Fair enough. If McCleary wasnt knackered and was back to his best hes the perfect impact sub. Can attack, score, defend and crucially , is much taller than Popa.

Yep agreed on that. McCleary also has the positional discipline which many wingers, inc our current crop, don’t have. Hoping he has got himself fully sorted out as agree is a lot better than Popa

[NewCorkSeth]

Yeah I thought that wasn't a half bad move in theory.

Kermie was too important defending set pieces and would hold up the ball well and isn't he sort to panic into losing the ball again.

I think Stam just waited far too long to make changes (again) and Bod should have been on as an outlet sooner

Yeah, big +1 to this. The players (bar a few poor clearances while under pressure) can hardly be blamed too much for that. Cardiff were strong and organised and a little bit lucky with the drop of the ball (as were we). The late changes is what got us in the end. The subs, while probably sensible, were made too late so the players coming on had little time to make an impact or catch up with the rhythm of the game.

[Snowflake Royal]

I think we got a bit of the curse of the 2-0, where we didn't quite commit fully to defending it or going for 3.

There are very few teams in this division capable of rescuing a draw from us at 2-0, now we're playing more to our potential.

[JoeyJoeJoeJnrShabadoo]

(belated) thanks

[Tilehurstsouthbank]

(belated) thanks

Thanks for your thanks.

[Snowball]

Did I miss something, who defends a single goal lead by putting a striker on?

For one of the best centre backs of the past 25 years, Stam can't organise a defence for sh*t.

Yeh I hope he is asked about that after the game

Watch the replay on Sky and see how many interceptions/blocks/defensive headers Kermie
makes after he is switched.

[bcubed]

Did I miss something, who defends a single goal lead by putting a striker on?

For one of the best centre backs of the past 25 years, Stam can't organise a defence for sh*t.

Yeh I hope he is asked about that after the game

Watch the replay on Sky and see how many interceptions/blocks/defensive headers Kermie
makes after he is switched.

You can't really argue it was a successful ploy
We gave away a two goal lead, or one goal when that change was made

Last year it seemed that Stam substitutions worked more times than most, even when they raised the odd eyebrow. This year he's very much in deficit

[Snowflake Royal]

Yeh I hope he is asked about that after the game

Watch the replay on Sky and see how many interceptions/blocks/defensive headers Kermie
makes after he is switched.

You can't really argue it was a successful ploy
We gave away a two goal lead, or one goal when that change was made

Last year it seemed that Stam substitutions worked more times than most, even when they raised the odd eyebrow. This year he's very much in deficit

We could have lost.

[bcubed]

Watch the replay on Sky and see how many interceptions/blocks/defensive headers Kermie
makes after he is switched.

You can't really argue it was a successful ploy
We gave away a two goal lead, or one goal when that change was made

Last year it seemed that Stam substitutions worked more times than most, even when they raised the odd eyebrow. This year he's very much in deficit

We could have lost.

[If you still hate Futcher]

Yeh I hope he is asked about that after the game

Watch the replay on Sky and see how many interceptions/blocks/defensive headers Kermie
makes after he is switched.

You can't really argue it was a successful ploy
We gave away a two goal lead, or one goal when that change was made

Last year it seemed that Stam substitutions worked more times than most, even when they raised the odd eyebrow. This year he's very much in deficit

It was clear that we needed to beef up the midfield and,given our current injuries, there wasn't anyone available on the bench to do it. The only other possibility would have been moving Bacuna forward but we didn't have anyone who could take over at fullback either.

It shows the fine margins that managers are judged by as people are condemning Stam but we created a number of chances as a result of JDB and Popa coming on and could've won the game with the final kick (or head)

The only thing we could really have done about their 2nd goal was put 2 people on Bamba but that's all with the benefit of hindsight and any one of their 10ft robots could've won the header