My Balanced View

[Animis]

56 minutes ago, theowlsman said:

 

I’ve been praying and praying for the return of Lee.

 

If he gets himself back to fitness, our season changes overnight.

 

Most underrated player ever to wear a Wednesday shirt. Not by us obviously.

 

We miss him because we haven't replaced him over the last 12 months. We have a decent replacement in sorts with Onomah but he gets dropped, unlike some others whose places seem granteed.

[torryowl]

3 minutes ago, theowlsman said:

 

His defending was an absolute disgrace last night. The worst back pass I’ve ever seen in my life.

 

Then after Thorniley’s error, alongside Dawson, he failed to provide an effective 2nd line of defence. 

 

But before you continue down the wrong avenue of attack, introducing “faking it” and “smiling smugly to himself” suggesting in a sly way, that these words came from me, and not you, you need to remember how I championed Lees and Lee for England recognition at their pomp, thus recognising what a fully functioning Tom Lees is all about.

 

If he gets back to that level, we’ll all be happy. Last night he was shocking.

 

 

ok so you've explained the disgrace  so tell me what makes you think he didn't care or that he wasn't interested ?...…

[Southie_Owl]

1 minute ago, Animis said:

 

We miss him because we haven't replaced him over the last 12 months. We have a decent replacement in sorts with Onomah but he gets dropped, unlike some others whose places seem granteed.

 

I think Onomah was only dropped last night as he’d played in midweek for the England under 21’s. I’d be amazed if he doesn’t start at QPR 

[Animis]

23 minutes ago, East Yorks Owl said:

 

I thought Palmer largely played as I would expect; poor execution with his passing and little imagination on the ball, but in fairness he seemed pretty solid defensively.  

I agree that Penney had a poor game and he looked low on confidence last night. That said as a young player he’s bound to have the odd wobble, but I reckon we’ve all seen enough already to know he’s got the ability to play at this level. 

With regard to Palmer as brutal as it sounds, I personally don’t think he’s a good enough footballer for the level we are playing at. For anyone who’s played plenty of football as you start to play at a higher level, there can come a time when you feel that the game and players around you are quicker in mind and body on the ball; for me Palmer often looks that fraction of a second too slow to react.  The game doesn’t come naturally to him and it’s almost like he’s playing to a rule book rather than on instinct. 

 

Agree with this, and i still find it hard to believe and baffling that after six years post promotion, including three of spending that has brought us to the brink of FFP breaches, we still have Palmer as first choice right back.

 

I'd laugh it it wasn't so serious.

[Quist]

I agree with a lot of the points made by the OP. In partcular agree with the points made re Palmer, Thorniley, Pelupessy, Fletcher, Hector, Penney,Reach, and Joao. think Bannan tried but was ineffective against power and muscle of opposition his charging about everywhere did not help as we lost shape of team but could see why he did this. Some games are ones where his talents will be negated and Middlesborough are one of those.

 

However last few season wse were vulnerable to balls in the box and lost lots of goals to crosses. To counter this we use a really high line. This means players at back have to be more decisive and not to dwell on ball as they can be quickly encountered by energetic midfield. Lees has struggled all season with distribution and many goals conceded are due to us not implementing high line tactic correctly. He is like Palmer can defend but poor at distribution.especially when put under pressure.

 

The high line defence puts extra pressure on goalkeeper as they are required to do a lot more interception nad passing of the ball. In the Leeds game dawson made more completed passes than any other player in side. They also have to cover alot more ground. the role of goalkeeper has changed like lots of other roles in side, Westwood distribution was never great and the way we play would not suit him  I am not saying he did not have qualities but think way we play would not be to his strength.

 

Dawson stood no chance with either goal tonight.

[theowlsman]

Just now, torryowl said:

ok so you've explained the disgrace  so tell me what makes you think he didn't care or that he wasn't interested ?...…

 

There were plenty of benchmarks on the pitch. Some like Pelupessy were throwing themselves into tackles all over the place. In the first half, Thorniley was defending like a tiger.

 

Lees was nowhere near that level of committment.

 

 

[Wakefield owl]

12 hours ago, pazowl55 said:

Dawson's only real weakness is his ability to come for crosses. Flaps virtually everytime and your right that doesn't inspire confidence in the defence in front of him.

But we are not conceding goals as a result of his errors though are we it's through terrible, terrible defending. Something that doesn't come from him.

 

He is not to blame for the lack of a clean sheet this season.

 

A keeper has to take part of the blame as he’s an integral part of the defence that can’t keep a clean sheet.

 

Perhaps one of the reasons our defence is poor is because they don’t have confidence in the keeper?

[Animis]

2 minutes ago, Southie_Owl said:

 

I think Onomah was only dropped last night as he’d played in midweek for the England under 21’s. I’d be amazed if he doesn’t start at QPR 

 

I'm sorry but it's these comments that I struggle with in modern football. Pulis moaned all week about half his team playing mid-week but still played most of them - and still won.

 

A youngish professional footballer can't play two games in a matter of three days - really?

[torryowl]

8 minutes ago, Wakefield owl said:

 

A keeper has to take part of the blame as he’s an integral part of the defence that can’t keep a clean sheet.

 

Perhaps one of the reasons our defence is poor is because they don’t have confidence in the keeper?

..I don't see thorniley letting that ball bounce or lees giving the ball away was anything to do with lack of confidence in dawson . if the'd have done there job it's reasonable to think that dawson would have kept a cleen sheet , same with the daft penalty at Bristol ……...I think he's been let down by those in front of him far more often than they have with him . 

[Southie_Owl]

14 minutes ago, Animis said:

 

I'm sorry but it's these comments that I struggle with in modern football. Pulis moaned all week about half his team playing mid-week but still played most of them - and still won.

 

A youngish professional footballer can't play two games in a matter of three days - really?

 

Not saying I agree with it, just guessing that was the reason. Maybe he got a slight knock in the week so didn’t want to be risked, and we didn’t have anyone else good enough to be on the bench instead. Seeing as we were 0-2 down at home and only brought on Nuhiu, I would say Jos hasn’t got too much faith in the youngsters being good enough yet 

[Wakefield owl]

8 minutes ago, torryowl said:

..I don't see thorniley letting that ball bounce or lees giving the ball away was anything to do with lack of confidence in dawson . if the'd have done there job it's reasonable to think that dawson would have kept a cleen sheet , same with the daft penalty at Bristol ……...I think he's been let down by those in front of him far more often than they have with him . 

 

I wasn’t blaming him directly for either of the goals but it’s the overall situation with our defence and I’m concerned that our keeper is a significant factor.

[SiJ]

What irks me the most is we handed the game to Boro. 

 

They're a big lump of a side and if you hand them chances as we did, then the game is going to only end one way. 

 

They aren't particularly great going forward and Pulis brand football makes my eyes bleed...and we gave them the flipping win. 

 

Would it also kill us to actually get at teams? We are so passive. 

 

 

[SiJ]

Oh, and can we please stop giving the f*cking ball away. 

 

The number of times we give it away when under little pressure from the opposition is infuriating. 

[Kevan]

Various posters have made good points in this thread.  For me, Tom Lees cost us a point with that ridiculous back pass to a red shirt.  Why he didn't just put it in the stand when he new  he was under pressure, I can't understand.  However, whilst in general over the past few seasons he has defended very well indeed, putting his body in the way of everything, he has NEVER in my view looked comfortable on the ball, in any sort of constructive way.  If our tactics are going to continue to be playing the ball out from the back, then the principal, defender who needs to do that is Hector, not Lees.  Only having one defender who can do this, is probably a reason to change the way we play in any case.

 

Back to last night's horror show, to me there was nowhere near enough intelligent running off the ball by the midfield and forwards, to create a good angle for a pass, that would threaten the opposition.  Joao was awful, - just didn't seem interested and when he did get the ball, nearly always gave it away or lost the challenge.  It was always going to be a battle against 'Boro and quite simply we didn't have enough players that we up for that battle.

 

 We have had too many performances this season already, in which we have been "off the boil" and in this division, we will be caught out when that happens.  I think we can forget a play-off place unless we are fortunate enough that the likes of Lee and Hooper return to fitness and Forestieri recovers and stays fit too.  Without those players we simply have insufficient creativity to be able to challenge for a play-off place.  Also there are times when playing out from the back is an option and other times when it's clear the opposition forwards are too close to our defenders.  The key here is for our players to recognise which times are which and play accordingly.  If we continue to take those kinds of risks, we will always be under pressure and not surprisingly our possession statistics will be poor compared with other teams.  I've never been hung up on possession, because it's what you do with the possession that counts, but if the opposition has high levels of possession in our defensive third, by winning possession from our under pressure defenders, we will suffer, exactly as we have been doing so far this season, - in the form of goals conceded.

 

I guess overall few of us expected to be in the top 6, but I really don't see us maintaining that position with our current tactics and currently fit squad.

[Bark1062]

13 hours ago, agentwalker said:

Can't really blame Penney tonight. First half he got passed hospital ball after hospital ball. He had a couple of runs at their full back in the first half and failed, I think that just killed his confidence at running at him.

Shotton had him in his pocket, could read him like a book,when they pressed us it was difficult for Penney with shotton, Howson and downing overloading that area.

[Bark1062]

13 minutes ago, Kevan said:

Various posters have made good points in this thread.  For me, Tom Lees cost us a point with that ridiculous back pass to a red shirt.  Why he didn't just put it in the stand when he new  he was under pressure, I can't understand.  However, whilst in general over the past few seasons he has defended very well indeed, putting his body in the way of everything, he has NEVER in my view looked comfortable on the ball, in any sort of constructive way.  If our tactics are going to continue to be playing the ball out from the back, then the principal, defender who needs to do that is Hector, not Lees.  Only having one defender who can do this, is probably a reason to change the way we play in any case.

 

Back to last night's horror show, to me there was nowhere near enough intelligent running off the ball by the midfield and forwards, to create a good angle for a pass, that would threaten the opposition.  Joao was awful, - just didn't seem interested and when he did get the ball, nearly always gave it away or lost the challenge.  It was always going to be a battle against 'Boro and quite simply we didn't have enough players that we up for that battle.

 

 We have had too many performances this season already, in which we have been "off the boil" and in this division, we will be caught out when that happens.  I think we can forget a play-off place unless we are fortunate enough that the likes of Lee and Hooper return to fitness and Forestieri recovers and stays fit too.  Without those players we simply have insufficient creativity to be able to challenge for a play-off place.  Also there are times when playing out from the back is an option and other times when it's clear the opposition forwards are too close to our defenders.  The key here is for our players to recognise which times are which and play accordingly.  If we continue to take those kinds of risks, we will always be under pressure and not surprisingly our possession statistics will be poor compared with other teams.  I've never been hung up on possession, because it's what you do with the possession that counts, but if the opposition has high levels of possession in our defensive third, by winning possession from our under pressure defenders, we will suffer, exactly as we have been doing so far this season, - in the form of goals conceded.

 

I guess overall few of us expected to be in the top 6, but I really don't see us maintaining that position with our current tactics and currently fit squad.

Absolute 100% agree with this.