Ronio Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 After news about Lees about to sign for us, I decided to watch the game again where we destroyed leeds 6-0 to check out how he did, despite us giving them a right beating. Got me me thinking looking at the lineup of that game, that we are not that far off from being a decent team able to compete in the top half of the division and who knows maybe the playoffs. The team that played: Kirkland Palmer Loovens Llera Reda Maguire Lee Semedo Maghoma Wickham Nuhiu In goal we have brought in Westwood, definitely an improvement on Martinez. The recent signing of Lees has improved our defense and is a player who has great potential for the future. Could be a key player for years to come, an improvement on Llera. Now Reda's gone, we have Helan and Mattock as a suitable replacements. The midfield players are all still here, Semedo signing a new contract and with Maguire, Lee and Maghoma looking to improve on last season. Hutchinson has also been brought in giving us more options in midfield and defense. Antonio should hopefully be over his injury problems last season. Upfront, Nuhiu I'm sure will get more goals this season than he did last time round in a new league, country and environment. Madine coming back is an added bonus. So basically up to this point, you could say we are in a better position than we were at that game. The final piece of the puzzle is having someone like Wickham in our team. That is mainly where we are lacking, a 20 goal a season striker and a few reinforcements to give us that extra depth. What do fellow fans think? How far off are we from really competing in playoffs? . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dore Owl Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 To be fair though Leeds were utterly dreadful in that match which made us look a lot better than we actually were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maddogbob Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Depth is the problem. We seem to have very few options should we get injuries/suspensions/or we want to try a different approach. We aren't there yet and were probably about 3-4 decent players off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrickyTrev Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Connor Wickham. Very VERY big difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eightace Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 And lavery did some damage too and he's out for a bit. We do have a reasonable first 11 but they were a bit inconsistent. We'll be ok but I was hoping for a bit more than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee A Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 "The midfield players are still here" That's quite a telling little extract from your OP for me, we didn't finish where we did for no reason, and finish the season with 6 wins from 20 league matches for no reason Those players in that midfield, along with Palmer and Nuhiu etc are decent, honest and hard working players and I like them all, but imo as a collective unit they just don't quite have the quality to take us to the very top end of this division They're good enough to keep us in it and their work rate and professionalism could even see us settle into the middle of it, but for me a fair bit of quality needs to be added to both the team and the squad, for us to really be able to consider promotion, we're a long way off as it stands Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gurujuan Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 After news about Lees about to sign for us, I decided to watch the game again where we destroyed leeds 6-0 to check out how he did, despite us giving them a right beating. Got me me thinking looking at the lineup of that game, that we are not that far off from being a decent team able to compete in the top half of the division and who knows maybe the playoffs. The team that played: Kirkland Palmer Loovens Llera Reda Maguire Lee Semedo Maghoma Wickham Nuhiu In goal we have brought in Westwood, definitely an improvement on Martinez. The recent signing of Lees has improved our defense and is a player who has great potential for the future. Could be a key player for years to come, an improvement on Llera. Now Reda's gone, we have Helan and Mattock as a suitable replacements. The midfield players are all still here, Semedo signing a new contract and with Maguire, Lee and Maghoma looking to improve on last season. Hutchinson has also been brought in giving us more options in midfield and defense. Antonio should hopefully be over his injury problems last season. Upfront, Nuhiu I'm sure will get more goals this season than he did last time round in a new league, country and environment. Madine coming back is an added bonus. So basically up to this point, you could say we are in a better position than we were at that game. The final piece of the puzzle is having someone like Wickham in our team. That is mainly where we are lacking, a 20 goal a season striker and a few reinforcements to give us that extra depth. What do fellow fans think? How far off are we from really competing in playoffs? . If you're telling me that we are about to sign Conor Wickham, or his equivalent, then you might be right, we are not far off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronio Posted July 31, 2014 Author Share Posted July 31, 2014 If you're telling me that we are about to sign Conor Wickham, or his equivalent, then you might be right, we are not far off Yeah, the way I see it we need that level of quality up front, there was a chance to get Fryatt we missed that one. Wickham not sure what's going to happen with him at sunderland. I'm just hoping that once the takeover is finalised, we can go out and make signing a striker a priority. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WalthamOwl Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 How did Lees look in the game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronio Posted July 31, 2014 Author Share Posted July 31, 2014 How did Lees look in the game? To be honest, he didn't look like he was on top of his game, his positioning was awful at times, but he was playing on the right side of a back three. Put in some decent challenges and then was substituted at half time. So pretty hard to judge him based on 45 mins where we dominated them. I have high hopes for Lees. Think he will be a reyt player. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WalthamOwl Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 To be honest, he didn't look like he was on top of his game, his positioning was awful at times, but he was playing on the right side of a back three. Put in some decent challenges and then was substituted at half time. So pretty hard to judge him based on 45 mins where we dominated them. I have high hopes for Lees. Think he will be a reyt player. Thanks appreciate that info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ka58 Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 (edited) After news about Lees about to sign for us, I decided to watch the game again where we destroyed leeds 6-0 to check out how he did, despite us giving them a right beating. Got me me thinking looking at the lineup of that game, that we are not that far off from being a decent team able to compete in the top half of the division and who knows maybe the playoffs. The team that played: Kirkland Palmer Loovens Llera Reda Maguire Lee Semedo Maghoma Wickham Nuhiu In goal we have brought in Westwood, definitely an improvement on Martinez. The recent signing of Lees has improved our defense and is a player who has great potential for the future. Could be a key player for years to come, an improvement on Llera. Now Reda's gone, we have Helan and Mattock as a suitable replacements. The midfield players are all still here, Semedo signing a new contract and with Maguire, Lee and Maghoma looking to improve on last season. Hutchinson has also been brought in giving us more options in midfield and defense. Antonio should hopefully be over his injury problems last season. Upfront, Nuhiu I'm sure will get more goals this season than he did last time round in a new league, country and environment. Madine coming back is an added bonus. So basically up to this point, you could say we are in a better position than we were at that game. The final piece of the puzzle is having someone like Wickham in our team. That is mainly where we are lacking, a 20 goal a season striker and a few reinforcements to give us that extra depth. What do fellow fans think? How far off are we from really competing in playoffs? . Without doing us a disservice cos we were excellent - Leeds were also awful.Plus we had a superb forward in wickham who's gone now. I don't think you can use this as a benchmark unfortunately. With the present squad we are a way off play off standard but for me capable of mid table. Edited July 31, 2014 by ka58 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronio Posted July 31, 2014 Author Share Posted July 31, 2014 Without doing us a disservice cos we were excellent - Leeds were also awful. Plus we had a superb forward in wickham who's gone now. I don't think you can use this as a benchmark unfortunately. With the present squad we are a way off play off standard but for me capable of mid table. leeds were awful because we were excellent. Llera looked a bit shaky in that game, other than that it was an excellent team performance. Yes Wickham had a massive impact, that's the point of the OP, we need a striker of similar quality that can put them goals away and I think we will be more than alright as a team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 After news about Lees about to sign for us, I decided to watch the game again where we destroyed leeds 6-0 to check out how he did, despite us giving them a right beating. Got me me thinking looking at the lineup of that game, that we are not that far off from being a decent team able to compete in the top half of the division and who knows maybe the playoffs. The team that played: Kirkland Palmer Loovens Llera Reda Maguire Lee Semedo Maghoma Wickham Nuhiu In goal we have brought in Westwood, definitely an improvement on Martinez. The recent signing of Lees has improved our defense and is a player who has great potential for the future. Could be a key player for years to come, an improvement on Llera. Now Reda's gone, we have Helan and Mattock as a suitable replacements. The midfield players are all still here, Semedo signing a new contract and with Maguire, Lee and Maghoma looking to improve on last season. Hutchinson has also been brought in giving us more options in midfield and defense. Antonio should hopefully be over his injury problems last season. Upfront, Nuhiu I'm sure will get more goals this season than he did last time round in a new league, country and environment. Madine coming back is an added bonus. So basically up to this point, you could say we are in a better position than we were at that game. The final piece of the puzzle is having someone like Wickham in our team. That is mainly where we are lacking, a 20 goal a season striker and a few reinforcements to give us that extra depth. What do fellow fans think? How far off are we from really competing in playoffs? . Miles away. Look at the teams who will almost certainly be challenging at the top. The squads they are assembling, not just the starting 11, are far superior to ours. That team that beat Leeds did really well that day. I'd compare the team in the last four games, and decide whether we have really strengthened from there. Arguably, no. We lack depth and quality. We look like a team of grafters, which will take us so far, but we are missing the class everywhere that the top teams need to have. And if we pick up more injuries, it looks pretty bleak. I'm hoping/expecting we are going to add at least 4 more players to this current squad. We could then look at top half as possible, otherwise it's another season in the bottom third. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gurujuan Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Miles away. Look at the teams who will almost certainly be challenging at the top. The squads they are assembling, not just the starting 11, are far superior to ours. That team that beat Leeds did really well that day. I'd compare the team in the last four games, and decide whether we have really strengthened from there. Arguably, no. We lack depth and quality. We look like a team of grafters, which will take us so far, but we are missing the class everywhere that the top teams need to have. And if we pick up more injuries, it looks pretty bleak. I'm hoping/expecting we are going to add at least 4 more players to this current squad. We could then look at top half as possible, otherwise it's another season in the bottom third. You, my man, are talking sense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthefish2002 Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 That game v Leeds was a once a season game where everything just slots into place. I would take a sample of at least 6 or 7 games to get a true worth of how good a team is. Looking at that team it is a mid table team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H2Owl Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Depth is the problem. We seem to have very few options should we get injuries/suspensions/or we want to try a different approach. We aren't there yet and were probably about 3-4 decent players off. Yep. We can field a competitive 11 but after that we really are scraping the barrel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
just visiting Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 leeds were awful because we were excellent. Llera looked a bit shaky in that game, other than that it was an excellent team performance. Yes Wickham had a MASSIVE impact, that's the point of the OP, we need a striker of similar quality that can put them goals away and I think we will be more than alright as a team. When Smith came on at the start of the second half and we reverted to 4-4-2, I thought, even at 2-0, there was still something in the game for us. The sending off ended the contest, we gave up and it could of been 7,8,9 really. Not a game where I'd be judging Tom Lee's performance but Brian McDermott's formation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WalthamOwl Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Miles away. Look at the teams who will almost certainly be challenging at the top. The squads they are assembling, not just the starting 11, are far superior to ours. That team that beat Leeds did really well that day. I'd compare the team in the last four games, and decide whether we have really strengthened from there. Arguably, no. We lack depth and quality. We look like a team of grafters, which will take us so far, but we are missing the class everywhere that the top teams need to have. And if we pick up more injuries, it looks pretty bleak. I'm hoping/expecting we are going to add at least 4 more players to this current squad. We could then look at top half as possible, otherwise it's another season in the bottom third. Someone talking sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul.. Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Still have the match available for download if anyone wants to relive it and/or assess Lees although obviously not the best match to do so! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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