Just hope Hirst comes good up front, we've got nothing else. I keep saying Flo not for me. Time to get Sadlier back just behind the lone forward. I'd play Olosunde in for Mattock. Our defence apart from left back good enough to keep us up. Lindsay & Barlaser same. Miller looks good but needs to pace himself, have something left for the 2nd half.
Just watch the highlights on ifollow and it made us look even worse.
I have Sid before we have no quality up front and therefore we try to make it a battle. We are playing against good defenders who will stoke up the high ball all day. On the very few occasions when Miller isolated the big defender with the ball on the floor he went past with ease but ran out of support. Mattock couldn’t get forward because the speed Campbell would have exposed the defence. At times when we went 442 Hirst and Smith were going for the same ball.
Leicester City do not play with a target man so I assume that they do not use Hirst that way. So are we trying to make him into what we want rather than using his skills?
Again we look a solid championship team until we get to our strikers. We’ve got to hope the rest of the team chips in with some goals.
Worryingly it’s the second away game in a row where we’ve not had an attempt hit the target despite using all three strikers available. Smith again got found out, offered nothing and committed foul after foul.
Got to make the most of our back to back home games which you’d think look winnable.
Yes we are restricted
Warne has to play ladapo and hirst in the same formation and form a parrnership that only comes in the heat and pressure a proper game brings
A message for the manger after his post match interview, there is more to football than effort. Whenever we have a poor performance we get the same comments, we cant fault the effort, the lads gave everything blah, blah blah. The minimum a player should give is effort it isn't something to base our entire strategy on. We have scored no goals away from home in the last four games except for two penalties, the last two games NOT ONE SHOT ON TARGET. It is time to try something completely different, football needs us to have the correct formation, adaptable tactics not just effort. For me the biggest weakness we have is the desire to have a big man up front and hope he can hold the ball to bring in the two wide attackers, that is not working away from home so we must look at the squad and see what other options we can try, oh and please do not bring on smith if you need a goal
-- Edited by derbymiller on Sunday 1st of November 2020 06:51:03 PM
Mattock & Smith burnt thereselfs out last time in the championship. Flo he's too lightweight. As of yet no natural replacements for them. Got to juggle the pack best we can put our strongest 11 we can out.
I know I will get shot down for this but here goes.
The average wages we pay our players are on average about 25% of the wages that the likes of Stoke, Wednesday, Norwich, Forest etc pay to theirs. As a rule footballers go where they can earn the most money.
The bottom line is that in the majority of games in this league the players in our team aren't as good man for man as the players in the opposition side.
In the latter stages of the Norwich game (in which we went toe to toe with a club with an income this year of over £100m where ours is about £13m), they brought on three quality, experienced international footballers. We brought on (with all due respect to them and I mean that) a journeyman striker (Smith), a 35 year old centre half (Wood) and a player on loan to us from a club in the same division (Josefzoon).
I am not saying that we can't aim to win. We have to do the best we can. The players and the coaching staff have to reflect on their performances and I am sure that they do. Where we can improve, we must. I am not going to be too hard on them though after what was, I admit, a pretty dull game yesterday.
What I see is that in every game this season we have been competitive. Frustrating as it is not to win more games, we have laid a foundation upon which we can build. What we have to do is find ways to create more clear cut chances against good defences without over-committing and leaving ourselves vulnerable at the other end of the pitch. That is far easier said than done. We can't buy a £5m player to do it for us, so we have to work with what we have and what we can afford.
I see glimpses of real quality in our play, far more so than I have seen in other recent seasons in this division. We are closer to looking like a genuine Championship side than at any other time in the Tony Stewart era. It isn't perfect, but we are on the right track. What I think we absolutely shouldn't do is get impatient with how things are, and throw the baby out with bathwater in the quest for better more quickly.
Totally agree with all of that Smiler. We are looking more like a genuine championship side and we are on the right track. All i want to add is this. We have fifteen players in our squad who are 28 and under. That to me says we can develop further and with this coaching set up i think we will.
You can't get out what's not there. I know apart from Wycombe we'll have the lowest budget in the championship. We've got to get recruitment more or less spot on & weed out surplus players. No sentiment got to be done. whiston01 don't you think we'd have been better keeping Cooper & Kayode who both have improvement in them. Lamy as well. What's point of Jones Thompson Clarke Vassell being here.
I like to read what posters who know a lot more than i know about the game have to say. I think 'Derby' is one of those and he makes a good point when he talks about the big man up front and holding it up to bring the wide men in. I agree that we have used this method too long, and especially away from home it is not working. Most of the time with Smith, it just means giving fouls away and putting us back under pressure. I also believe 'Villa' knows much more than i do and he made me think about the value of having both Barlaser and S. McDonald in the middle together. I have sung their praises and believe it is the must have centre midfield partnering but i now believe we possibly need the bite and energy of Wiles and Lindsay in there and hopefully that will give Barlaser more time to thread the telling pass. I know it is all about opinions but the two i have mentioned appear to know more about tactics and i thank them for their input.
I don't want to go over old ground Gwru and i am not in a position to say whether the decisions made are right or wrong. The only thing i can say about one player who i get to know a bit about is this. Kayode is finding it difficult at his current club, but it is felt he is gaining valuable experience and will come back to us a wiser and stronger player. That can only be good for the player and RUFC.
whiston01 don't grovel round other posters that doesn't sit well with me. I believe I know as much as anyone on here: Roth U. We all know Warney is a good loser. Smith I've said he left his best football behind last time in championship. Simply we are still weak wide right with Ogbene out & up front.
Smiler I do not disagree with the points you make and i do not expect us to win every game or to compete with the teams you mention financially, also I do not have all the answers I am just commenting on what I see and hear. Now it isn't about bringing in a £5m striker but the recruitment team will bring in the style of player that the management team have asked for, the best we can get for our budget. We have 3 strikers that are too similar and one that is so desperate to play when he gets on just runs around a lot and doesn't play his natural game, in my view this is because that is what is expected from the management team. Now I have to assume that Jones was injured at Forest because that substitution was an horrendous management decision. Every attack that troubled us in the 2nd half came down our left and when Jones went off they slaughtered us down that side and their goal came from such an attack. My son is a Forest fan and watched that game with me, he couldn't stop laughing at that decision. At stoke taking both McDonald and Lindsey off at the same time was insane, McDonald was injured so had to go off the logical change if we wanted to make our midfield more creative and attacking was to put on Crooks or Wiles and play them closer to Freddie and then swap Freddie for Hirst if the first change didn't create anything as he is more mobile than Smith. With Sadlier being the 3rd change to put fresh legs wide and someone that gives us something a little different. So in summary my frustrations are that we haven't recruited an variety as a main striker, not getting a shot on target (that is tactics and coaching),awful substitutions and too much focus on effort as a major measure of achievement. As i said earlier in the season in the insane world we are currently living in just being able to watch us online and us existing as a club is a godsend, but it wouldn't be football and we wouldn't be football fans if we didn't moan, or challenge what we see and we didn't get annoyed when we lose or play poorly.
Well I was right about Lindsay. Crooks not a championship player. Lamy never got a chance but can't be no worse than Flo. I give initial opinions about players so that will change. Who else on here tells me something I don't know? I'm watching away games now so get the whole picture.
It's really good to read an interesting, adult discussion between Smiler, Derby and Whiston. gwsw's contribution is like a kid in a playground trying to make a point by telling everyone how good he is and how much he knows rather than adding to a decent debate. Do us all a favour gwsw - stick to the Owls Talk forum and leave this board to people who have interesting ideas to float rather than constantly repeating the same old embarrassing trash!
I agree with a fair bit of what you say, Derby. It remains to be seen whether Hirst is actually good enough. I think he was a bit of a wild card signing for us.
I agree that we dont have enough variety to pick from up front. We all have our own views on tactics/substitutions. As with religion, we can't all be right but we all think we are the one who is.
The other thing is that I honestly dont get angry when we lose. In our history we have won less than 50% of the games we have played, and if we are still going in 100 years time that will still be true. If we play badly it is frustrating, but if we try our best and lose I can live with it. I think sometimes you have to accept that the opposition deserve the win. I thought Stoke and reading both defended very well. I enjoy watching the good players we are up against as well as our own. Ameobi (sorry if spelt wrong) was brilliant for Forest. Bannan gets stick from some Owls, but I have added respect for him because he was the one player who kept going for themin a lost cause. Danny Baath was pretty faultless for Stoke at centre half.
You are right that maximum effort should be a given, but not all teams/players deliver it. Check out Owlstalk for an example!
-- Edited by smiler on Sunday 1st of November 2020 09:57:48 PM
