BFT ???????????????????????????????????????????

[Zip]

We have employed a third successive manager who wants us to play out from the back when we don’t have the personnel to do it.
Rafael is a poor distributor of the ball. None of our defenders last night are good passers of the ball. They are so slow at moving the ball forward.
The problem is then compounded by our midfielders who often take far too long to release the ball and regularly cut back inside with momentum being lost. Compare this with how Fulham play. Quick, first time passes and excellent movement to go with it.

When you are at home on a poor run playing a footballing team surely you expect the players to press hard. Yet we stood back and allowed Fulham to play.

We need to go back to scratch. With Swift unavailable on Saturday Gomes can play Pele at CDM, Rinomhota as a CM and Ejaria at ACM. That should make us harder to break down but the whole style of play has to be addressed. We must move the ball forward more quickly and we should close down far more quickly and stop the ridiculous marking of space which leaves opposition players with loads of space at times.

[Snowflake Royal]

Somehow stomached watching the highlights.

Being perfectly honest, I think Swift could have seen a straight red for the second yellow. He lunges high, towards the player, and seems to if not definitely leap into it, come close to coming off both feet. Totally out of control. Totally unnecessary challenge. I don't think I see much of a slip.

He just gets an awkward chest high ball and decides to chest it up rather than duck and head or try to cushion it down, then lunges after it when it inevitably pops up and away.

Absolutely moronic.

Good goal from Meite. Awful back pass from the hapless Moore. Defending all over the shop.

[Hound]

His back foot goes from underneath him, hence why his leg flies up in the air

How I saw it anyway. But yes can see why it was given

[Snowflake Royal]

His back foot goes from underneath him, hence why his leg flies up in the air

How I saw it anyway. But yes can see why it was given

I think that's generous.

IMO it's an absolute nailed on yellow, minimum, all day long.

[Zip]

As soon as Swift lunged in I knew he was off. A complete idiot.

[Hound]

His back foot goes from underneath him, hence why his leg flies up in the air

How I saw it anyway. But yes can see why it was given

I think that's generous.

Quite Possibly.

[Platypuss]

As soon as Swift lunged in I knew he was off. A complete idiot.

Gomes' fault again of course.

[Zip]

As soon as Swift lunged in I knew he was off. A complete idiot.

Gomes' fault again of course.

Gomes needs more time. Some of our supporters have short memories but he has to learn from these defeats. I believe most of the supporters are behind him but I can see that changing given the next few fixtures.
I hope he gets a couple of months to turn it around.

[Hound]

i Don’t think anyone can suggest this season has been anything short of appalling so far with the resources at his disposal

He doesn’t have long unless we bag a couple of wins. Wouldn’t call for him to go now, but likewise I’d need a lot of convincing that he is capable of turning it around. Nothing in his career suggests he will. If we don’t start to pick up in the next few games, there’s little point keeping him on. He’s had almost 40 games now

I don’t think it is a case of ‘short memories’. He did a job last season but it’s not like we flew up the table - and he had some seriously good players handed to him. His overall Ppg is pretty poor

[Zip]

What annoyed me about Andy Woolmer was his unwillingness to book a single Fulham player. Just how many times did they kick the ball away? .
Add in deliberate handballs by the same player yet nothing was said let alone the brandishing of any cards.

[Jack Celliers]

You can blame all sorts of things - the goalie gave away two goals, Moore seems to have had as dramatic a loss of form as McShane did, the ref let Fulham make too many decisions, and Swift is an idiot - but that was piss poor from the manager. You can't just move from having three centre halves to two without making adjustments somewhere. At least we showed a bit more fight in the second half.

Overall, I'm not sure where this team is heading. We have a great striker and a great midfielder in Meite and Ejaria, while Swift is in the form of his life, but there is something big missing and we aren't winning much. Maybe when Miazga is back we will stop going behind so quickly and start winning the odd game.

[SCIAG]

As soon as Swift lunged in I knew he was off. A complete idiot.

Gomes' fault again of course.

I blame Stam.

[bcubed]

What annoyed me about Andy Woolmer was his unwillingness to book a single Fulham player. Just how many times did they kick the ball away? .
Add in deliberate handballs by the same player yet nothing was said let alone the brandishing of any cards.

Don't we always get this from relegated teams who still have that Premier League arrogance? I remember Newcastle being the same years ago. And then the refs fall for all their bollox and appear very pally. God I hate some aspects of football. I'm going back to watch non league

[Millsy]

We have employed a third successive manager who wants us to play out from the back when we don’t have the personnel to do it.
Rafael is a poor distributor of the ball. None of our defenders last night are good passers of the ball. They are so slow at moving the ball forward.
The problem is then compounded by our midfielders who often take far too long to release the ball and regularly cut back inside with momentum being lost. Compare this with how Fulham play. Quick, first time passes and excellent movement to go with it.

When you are at home on a poor run playing a footballing team surely you expect the players to press hard. Yet we stood back and allowed Fulham to play.

We need to go back to scratch. With Swift unavailable on Saturday Gomes can play Pele at CDM, Rinomhota as a CM and Ejaria at ACM. That should make us harder to break down but the whole style of play has to be addressed. We must move the ball forward more quickly and we should close down far more quickly and stop the ridiculous marking of space which leaves opposition players with loads of space at times.

Good point Zip. Even with Stamball or Gomeslottery at its best, playing it out at the back has always looked dodgy. Almost every game there are dodgy moments. What often happens is they press high, we try to play it out from the back , we panic hit it back to keeper who just smashes it up field anyway. Or one of our defenders decides to do that.

[URZZZZ]

We have employed a third successive manager who wants us to play out from the back when we don’t have the personnel to do it.
Rafael is a poor distributor of the ball. None of our defenders last night are good passers of the ball. They are so slow at moving the ball forward.
The problem is then compounded by our midfielders who often take far too long to release the ball and regularly cut back inside with momentum being lost. Compare this with how Fulham play. Quick, first time passes and excellent movement to go with it.

When you are at home on a poor run playing a footballing team surely you expect the players to press hard. Yet we stood back and allowed Fulham to play.

We need to go back to scratch. With Swift unavailable on Saturday Gomes can play Pele at CDM, Rinomhota as a CM and Ejaria at ACM. That should make us harder to break down but the whole style of play has to be addressed. We must move the ball forward more quickly and we should close down far more quickly and stop the ridiculous marking of space which leaves opposition players with loads of space at times.

Good point Zip. Even with Stamball or Gomeslottery at its best, playing it out at the back has always looked dodgy. Almost every game there are dodgy moments. What often happens is they press high, we try to play it out from the back , we panic hit it back to keeper who just smashes it up field anyway. Or one of our defenders decides to do that.

Generally there are two ways to play against us. Press high and watch the defenders panic and give it away. Or sit back and watch us pass around the defence because no one has the initiative to play a forward pass. Either way it’s a lose lose

[Millsy]

One problem with the "we need to stick with first XI/formation ideas - we have too many players who have one or two good games, then fade away. The successful formations stop being successful because players need dropping so often. How many players do we really have now who'd look definite first-teamers? There are many who ought to be, but they just aren't performing.

That may well be true, but in my opinion (of course goes without saying could be wrong, I just like discussing ) is we can't just keep jumping around with formations following player form because we can guarantee every player will have off days and we'll forever be chasing shadows. I can think of very few games where everyone is on form anyway so if he's been trying to catch everyone in form it's just not worked. We'll be forever chasing shadows.

A new and confusing formation affects the whole team but 2-3 or three bad players can be mitigated by a good team performance. It takes many games for players to be totally in tune with any particular formation without even thinking about it. Just instinctively know they can pass into a certain space and someone will be there, or what is more likely to happen statistically if they pump a ball into a certain space, based on an a subconscious memory of the 100s of times they've tried that same pass in a similar situation in previous games. You can get players to intellectually understand a system before a game but in the heat of the moment with the pressure on you, shattered and confused, and the opposition flying in to crush your shins you're not going to remember and you're going to hoof it, pass it back, dither or just do something selfish or stupid. We are seeing exactly this all the time. How many times have we heard Gomes say that he just doesn't understand why the players don't do what he told them to do? Is it because they don't intellectually get it? Of course not. There's a difference between your conscious brain understanding something sat in the comfort of your dressing room and your unconscious stressed brain making you do things in a nanosecond on the pitch. The latter needs to be built up only through experience. This is why good teams almost seem like they have a telepathic link. And this is why we make kids do homework: to take something out of the slow conscious brain and embed it into the snappy unconscious so it's second nature in the heat of an exam.

For this reason I'd say the benefits of sticking with a formation and getting the players used to it far outweigh certain players having off days. Everyone knew what Stamball was all about. It was sh*t, but everyone knew their job and it got us a penalty kick away from the PL. Our team now is in my mind infinitely better than Stam's team but the players are confused. They don't know who'll be playing around them. They don't know what formation they'll be playing.

I'm labouring the point, sorry. Don't want to come across as pushy with my opinions.

[morganb]

Guess it's like working in a team in an office. If you work with the same people day in, day out then you get to know their strengths and weaknesses plus how they will react in certain situations.

If however, when you turn up at work there is a totally different team there every day then you wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable or instinctively know who is supposed to be doing what.

The team needs stability. In past seasons it was injuries that disrupted this, whereas this season it is the manager that keeps chopping and changing. Have we actually fielded the same starting 11 in two consecutive matches?

[Notts Royal]

Have we signed too many players again? Did we need to sign 3 strikers (inc Boye on loan)? Or would one of them have been adequate? It reminds me of when Clarke got in loads of players...impossible to keep them all happy.

Did Gomes sign these players? Or was he given the squad and told to roll with it? Because both him & Clement have banged on about wanting to reduce the squad size, and it looks to be pretty much net neutral. Charlie Adam doesn’t strike me as a Gomes signing for example.

What I liked about him last season was he stuck with the same team more or less. This season it doesn’t look like he has a clue what his best team is.

Once again it proves to me that a squad overhaul rarely works. Granted we needed to sign a good number of players to boost experience in the team, but we rewarded last season’s best 2 players (Meite & Rino) with places on the bench - that can’t have done those players any good confidence wise. Would’ve been better to have built around the players who did well for us previously.

To me there’s so many questions with the whole set up right now, that it’s impossible to point blame at any one decision/person. However, the tactics have been a problem so far & that is down to Gomes & his chums. I sometimes think these foreign managers complicate things with trying to outsmart the opposition with their tactics. But it’s the Championship...the football needs to be high tempo, you need to close the opposition down, you’re best ball players are not defenders...so get it in the opposition half & piss around with it there instead of your own box

[URZZZZ]

What I liked about him last season was he stuck with the same team more or less. This season it doesn’t look like he has a clue what his best team is.

Whilst his changes this season are more radical than last season, he's only kept the same team twice in 36 games which isn't great. In particular, he chopped and changed his wingers regularly last season. The only time he kept a consistent XI (usually one of Gunter/Blackett/Nelson would play depending on opposition) was our strong end to last season. Yet this season he's gone back to completely random XI's. It's strange

[Snowflake Royal]

One problem with the "we need to stick with first XI/formation ideas - we have too many players who have one or two good games, then fade away. The successful formations stop being successful because players need dropping so often. How many players do we really have now who'd look definite first-teamers? There are many who ought to be, but they just aren't performing.

That may well be true, but in my opinion (of course goes without saying could be wrong, I just like discussing ) is we can't just keep jumping around with formations following player form because we can guarantee every player will have off days and we'll forever be chasing shadows. I can think of very few games where everyone is on form anyway so if he's been trying to catch everyone in form it's just not worked. We'll be forever chasing shadows.

A new and confusing formation affects the whole team but 2-3 or three bad players can be mitigated by a good team performance. It takes many games for players to be totally in tune with any particular formation without even thinking about it. Just instinctively know they can pass into a certain space and someone will be there, or what is more likely to happen statistically if they pump a ball into a certain space, based on an a subconscious memory of the 100s of times they've tried that same pass in a similar situation in previous games. You can get players to intellectually understand a system before a game but in the heat of the moment with the pressure on you, shattered and confused, and the opposition flying in to crush your shins you're not going to remember and you're going to hoof it, pass it back, dither or just do something selfish or stupid. We are seeing exactly this all the time. How many times have we heard Gomes say that he just doesn't understand why the players don't do what he told them to do? Is it because they don't intellectually get it? Of course not. There's a difference between your conscious brain understanding something sat in the comfort of your dressing room and your unconscious stressed brain making you do things in a nanosecond on the pitch. The latter needs to be built up only through experience. This is why good teams almost seem like they have a telepathic link. And this is why we make kids do homework: to take something out of the slow conscious brain and embed it into the snappy unconscious so it's second nature in the heat of an exam.

For this reason I'd say the benefits of sticking with a formation and getting the players used to it far outweigh certain players having off days. Everyone knew what Stamball was all about. It was sh*t, but everyone knew their job and it got us a penalty kick away from the PL. Our team now is in my mind infinitely better than Stam's team but the players are confused. They don't know who'll be playing around them. They don't know what formation they'll be playing.

I'm labouring the point, sorry. Don't want to come across as pushy with my opinions.

It was a bit painful to read, but it's spot on.