oldishowl

Yep. This is a key issue and one that needs to be addressed. In most games we give away more free kicks than we get. We also pick up a lot of cards. Our disciplinary record ain’t good. But we not a dirty side, if anything we are short of a few cloggers and get bullied too much. But we are totally naive. Experienced players like Bannan and Hutch lose their heads and make stupid tackles. They then moan at the ref and get on the wrong side of him. This does us no favours and if I was the manager I wouldn’t put up with it Generally this is the same throughout the team in terms of naivety but these two are by far the worst.

I watched 10 mins of Preston against Stoke on telly midweek and saw that they swamped midfield. They did the same yesterday. They played a back 4 , a lone striker and the other 5 basically played in midfield. Our system was totally naive. I presume our plan was to get the ball to our wingers but because we lost midfield and our fullbacks rarely crossed the halfway line this never happened. The only way to get further up the pitch if you have lost midfield is route one and this is what we were left with. You need 3 centre midfield players but the wide players need to also be capable of coming inside to both help the midfield and support Fletcher. When they come inside the full backs can get forward. At the moment we are getting nothing from our fullbacks in an attacking sense because the wingers are occupying the space they need to move into. Hence we are playing with a back 5 including Hutch who is also very limited in what he brings to the game. Back to your point. Yep the attacking midfielders need to get further forward but they can’t because we get left with a big hole between them and the back 5. It’s like watching school kids

It was a ridiculous decision to play Murphy instead of Reach yesterday. And it’s not hindsight, I said so in the matchday thread yesterday morning. As expected we were outnumbered and totally outplayed in midfield while having two out and out wingers who didn’t get any ball . I have no idea how Bullen expected us to win the game but to be fair although we were awful they wouldn’t have scored without the stupid pens

I saw Hector get bullied at Rotherham last season

As you understand it What does that mean

Defensively apart from Odubajo we did well. Lees wasn’t bullied, won his fair share, it’ impossible to win them all. How many saves did Westwood actually have to make? Tactically they played 4 in a diamond in midfield and this allowed them to control the game. We did nothing in midfield where all 3 looked very limited. Bannan and Lee can play but are too weak, Hutch doesn’t contribute enough. Like to see the times he touched the ball compared to Pearson. We desperately need to give Luongo a game in midfield to see if he can improve us. FF didn’t look interested until Nuhiu came on. Their gamesmanship, cheating is outrageous but we have experienced players who continually fall for it. Giving away ridiculous fouls when all they need to do is stay on their feet. The referee wasn’t great especially his timekeeping. Second half Odubajo was down at least 2 mins, 5 subs and he held his arm up to say he had stopped his watch at least 10 times but only came up with 5 minutes added time. How many times did their players go down, stop the game and forcing the ref to go to look at them. . At least 6 second half. Unbelievable.

It’s typical Wednesday really. After finally moving to 433 and getting players to fit it quite a few teams seemed to be playing a diamond in midfield as an effective way of countering teams playing it. Luton did it to us first half and I have noticed Charlton and PNE having success with it. It will definitely be a clash of tactics tomorrow. Of course we will stick with 433 but it will be very tough and there is a danger we get overrun in centre midfield and fail to get our wingers in the game

I think you have inadvertently hit on Fox’s problem. He has ability though I would question his athleticism. His main issue however is that he looks like a rabbit in headlights when he is on the pitch and doesn’t appear to display any confidence or dominance. In contrast Reda appeared to love every minute out there, wasn’t concerned about his weaknesses and looked to bully people and play to his strengths. You just can’t afford to be reticent on a football pitch

Every manager has their favourites. If Reach is 100% fit and we have 3 of the central midfielders fit then I would start Reach wide right on Saturday. For me Murphy was poor first half and hasn’t done anywhere near enough to be guaranteed the shirt, especially away from home. The problem first half last night was Bannan and Reach tried to press while Hutch dropped deep leaving a massive hole in central midfield. Hutch needs to be more positive in both his positional play and his passing or we are going to struggle to play with the momentum we need

I don’t know what his level of fitness is yet but Luongo needs to be starting when he is fully fit. He is mobile, strong and enough ability to make us better.

I agree with you he had a poor first half. One of the problems we had tonight was they played a diamond in midfield and we desperately needed our fullbacks to get forward and cause them problems. It didn’t happen.

One of the problems first half was that every time Hutch got the ball he passed it backwards We don’t get a lot out of our fullbacks going forward, for various reasons, we therefore need Hutch to be more positive

100% hindsight

We don’t have a big back 4 compared to many and I would play Iorfa to improve that. Hope he is still available

Are you Carlos? Bullen said we need to take it steady with Lee because he is coming back from serious injury. As yet he hasn’t done the full 90 mins in the league He is therefore unlikely to start 2 games on Saturday/Tuesday . If he can all well and good . However if we want to start him in one I would pick the home game and play the more physical Luongo at Millwall. There are 43 games after Saturday, would be great if Lee is available for all of them.