Looking to give McCarthy a new deal according to Ornstein in the Athletic - as if one insufficiently good keeper on a long contract wasn’t enough…
Do we know the direction to run too at times?
Unless we improve quickly we are capable of getting beaten by any of them.
We need a bit of luck and haven’t had any. Not with decisions, not with injuries and not with jammy deflections etc.
It wasn’t a pen tonight but it was originally given and equally shit decisions were not overturned in our favour.
I just can’t recall a time like this. Infuriatingly frustrating.
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Redmond + Tella did better than Ings + Minime, said big Dave. Totally agree
Or not Barry
…and the pundits creaming their jeans over a wonderful Leeds performance. A very average team at best. They sould have been buried by HT .
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I’ve had a brilliant day today.
Then tuned in to Solent.
Showed how well Djneppo shielded the defence Saturday.
Nothing else to say after that
Exactly. We have seen enough to know that Bednarek shouldnt be playing right back and you have to assume that Ramsey was adequate cover given Valery was let go.
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We’re so predictable and our style is easy to defend against when the energy levels drop. Aside from Minamino, we’ve no real outlet at the moment. Ings is half the player he was in the autumn and Adams has never really kicked on after a bright start to the season. Problem for me is we just seem to try the same thing hoping it will work when it doesn’t. Sure we need luck, who doesn’t, but we also need flexibility in our play and approach.
Is right. Should have been buried by halftime is becoming a familiar refrain unfortunately.
It could have been very different. We were decent in the first half. Tella was impressive - our best forward. Why he went off and Adams stayed on I don’t understand. If either of Vest’s headers had gone in, if the ref had allowed Che’s goal.
The pitch didn’t help. Not sure Che had any studs, but we were falling over whenever we tried to change direction or push off quickly. You can’t play tippy-tappy football on a pitch like that and we were doing better with longer more direct passes. I also think it influenced the subs: very easy to get injured on that surface and Ralph was worried. When you look at how Romeu caught his studs and damaged himself, you can see why. Big loss and worrying.
Danny didn’t get into it. Armstrong some nice runs but no end product. Mccarthy didn’t cover himself in glory. The team selection gamble didn’t really fail as we looked far worse after the changes.
Bednarek is a good CB and useless RB. Next game must try Ramsey or three at the back with Bertrand and Djenepo as wing backs. And remember the last game Romeu was out and Jankewitz covered?
I’m worried the team have got a persecution complex now. All the VAR decisions and the non-goal tonight. There’s a desperate need for leadership and real determination. I thought we’d got that on Saturday, but it’s vanished
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I was feeling pretty depressed after that game but having just sat through a programme about the Blitz which was absolutely heartbreaking at least it has helped put things into context.
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Thought that, in the cold light of day, I’d risk trying a balanced assessment of what’s wrong.
We have gone from a confident, top six team to a fragile, nervous bunch with no confidence over the course of about 10 weeks. I include Ralph in that.
To start with injuries: of course they are the major problem. In November the team picked itself:
Mccarthy
KWP Vestergaard Bednarek Bertrand
JWP Romeu
Redmond Armstrong
Ings Adams
Since then seven of that team have had time out through injury and suspension, in almost every position. Add in likely deputies of Smallbone, Obafemi, Walcott, Diallo (injured) and Valery, Long, Vokins (rashly sent out) and the squad simply couldn’t cope. Ralph has had the options of square pegs in round holes or inexperience, usually both at once. The bench has vanished as a Plan B.
That’s bad enough but we’ve also suffered from more than a few bad decisions that have hurt us. Handballs, offsides, penalties, ref blowing/not blowing his whistle have impacted results and, more importantly, confidence. Once a sense of injustice sets in it becomes an underlying draining emotion. I can understand how the normally philosophical Ralph has shown signs of this but he has to lead in positivity, but he’s looking down, understandably.
Another factor in the background is just how unsettled Danny and Ryan are over contracts. It can’t help and it’s a Catch 22. When things are going well and they’re having good games there is the conflict between being happy as part of a successful team and coping with the pressure if a greedy agent encouraging a greedy move. When things start to go wrong, they start to think they’d be better off elsewhere.
I still think the team.are one of two good wins away from picking up, but at the moment that’s easier said than done. But it can be done because we are still playing good football, at least in patches. We really need a bit of luck!
My biggest worry is Ralph keeping his focus, staying confident and positive and not sinking into the blame game, but he’s taking a lot of knocks. Take last night as an example. He was frustrated that we didn’t capitalise on good chances in the first half. We could have been two or three up. And he saw silly defensive lapses put us on the back foot. And for those he will be inclined to blame players, but it’s a delicate balance. Then there were the decisions. The VAR pen was probably right, but it still gives the feeling of “here we go again”. If it’s approached as asking if a “clear and obvious error” was made, do you get the same result? Plenty of recent very quick VAR checks deciding the ref may have been wrong, but not clear and obvious. Not happening for us, though. And the non whistle blowing was very questionable. Add to that a disgusting pitch which clearly gave Ralph and the players worries over injuries (definitely the cause of Romeu’s injury) and affected our ability to play our game and it’s easy to complain that everything is against us. But having a persecution complex won’t solve anything.
Even with injuries we can put out a team which, on a level playing field (both figuratively and in actuality) can give anyone a game. How badly we need Nigel’s blue line. Move on. Stay positive.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if Ralph did a Lennon. He sounds completely done in. Hopefully he stays and works to put it right. If matches ended after 45 minutes we would be fine but for a while now we just don’t seem to be at it in the second halves. The system is great when it works, but even then there are times when it leaves the back four exposed and we have to ride our luck. We played a more contained game against Chelsea and probably need more of that for a while. If Romeu’s ankle is as bad as it sounds were are in the crap. It is looking more and more like a poor decision to send so many back out players on loan, especially as Vokins and Valery aren’t getting the game time they were supposed to need. Strangely enough I think we will do better against Everton, mainly because Ralph will have to do a “Chelsea” and hopefully we will have enough to see the season out. But what of next season? With no money to rebuild the squad depth, where do we go from here? Tella and Smallbone both show promise. Perhaps were are about to see what Jankewitz is made of. It’s all looking a bit fragile at the moment but the main thing is that Ralph gets his mojo back.
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I honestly can’t imagine how Valery got farmed out. I really can’t. The only thing I can think is that they genuinely thought they had a signing practically done and dusted which ended up backfiring.
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No it’s very strange isn’t it? The argument about game time doesn’t work as he clearly would have got more game time here. Can only imagine it was all about the cash.
I’m wondering about the wisdom of continuing the high energy/high press game on heavy, winter pitches. Our passing doesn’t work so well on heavy pitches and the injuries have been mounting up. Is it a coincidence that things went better on harder pitches that had been freshly watered?
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Have just watched the first half how we are not three nil up is a mystery to me Tella should have scored, the penalty should have been given, Adams goal should have stood, Vestergard should have scored with his header.
Do I need to torture myself with the second half?
Yes. It will just make our next win all the sweeter.
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