Just calm down, stop spitting venom.

[billyblack]

8 minutes ago, Belfast Owl 2 said:

 

Where did you read that?

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/garry-monk-confirmed-plans-sheffield-16878971

 

No sorry. He said he wasnt going to. Said he was going to work with what we had already. 

[Belfast Owl 2]

1 minute ago, billyblack said:

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/garry-monk-confirmed-plans-sheffield-16878971

 

No sorry. He said he wasnt going to. Said he was going to work with what we had already. 

 

ah so you were making it up then?

 

 

[billyblack]

1 minute ago, Belfast Owl 2 said:

 

ah so you were making it up then?

 

 

Ive just it wrong and apologised. What do you want. Tw#t

[shezzas left peg]

14 hours ago, OwlBiSeeinThi said:

I doubt it's Monk.

The same characters playing the same way regardless of how they are told to play.

Time for a decent number of them to go.

Can't agree more bud. 

We need to bring in fresh faces full of leadership and ambition. Most of these players know they'll never play Premier league, so theres probably very little incentive to bust a gut week in and out to get there. 

[quinnssweetshop]

4 losses in 5  Brilliant it ain't 

[Lawrie’s Left Peg]

2 hours ago, oldishowl said:

So what style of play would you play with our squad at present.?

It sounds really easy to define this style of play 

In terms of formation 4-3-3 as we are strongest at CB, our FB are ok, we are weak in midfield and we need to create more up top. 
 

The 2 best teams in the country play 4-3-3 so there is your blueprint. No need to reinvent the wheel. 
 

Therefore you either play the Liverpool way or the City way. 
 

The Liverpool way: Attacking full-backs who provide the width; 3 high energy but limited midfield, 2 inside forwards. When fully fit this equates to. Westwood, Iorfa, Lees, Borner, Fox, Lee, Hutch, Luongo, Harris, Fletcher, FF. Given that Fletch is out long term and FF ??? Then Winnal and Murphy come in. 
 

The City way: Defensive midfielder (pivot), 2 attacking midfield, 2 outside forwards who provide the width. When fully fit this equates to: Westwood, Palmer, Iorfa, Borner, Fox, Hutch, Lee, Bannan, FF, Fletcher, Harris.

 

Key to both systems is a high press and default tactic of hitting the wide or narrow channels as quickly as possible in transition.  Positionally, this requires brave management to keep the inside/outside forwards in advanced positions (the exact opposite to GM current approach)   

[oldishowl]

So basically the team and formation we played Saturday and at Leeds. And at West Brom.

 

Your formation is only as good as your players.

Monk said quite clearly on Saturday that we lost it first 10 mins because we were tip tapping it about at the back instead of getting it down the channels.

So I think it’s pretty clear he expected us to get behind them and press high up the pitch.

 

Both Luongo and Lee were supposed to be playing high up the pitch but once Bannan decided to drop deep we were done.

 

 

Where are these attacking full backs you talk about.

Only Iorfa has got the energy and for all his darts forward I haven’t seen him deliver a quality ball yet.

 

We have one striker who can play the lone striker role and he is injured.

 

We do need a style of play, and I wouldn’t disagree it could be 433 like most clubs but we are miles away from the manager being confident he can rely on the players to do the job consistently as was shown with the polar opposite performances at Leeds and Saturday.

[NorthernOwl]

On 19/01/2020 at 09:46, Mr Farrell said:

 

This.

 

The squad is littered with serial bottlers going right back to the play offs.

 

It's nothing new, and criminal it hasn't been addressed.

 

I think 8 of Saturdays starters either weren't here or weren't regular starters during the playoffs. 

[NorthernOwl]

On 19/01/2020 at 13:39, pussface said:

We’ve been saying this for 3/4 transfer windows though.

 

Truth is we have an average squad and no finances to sign anything other than cheapies, freebies and loans.

 

Hard to see us doing anything other than stagnating in mid table for the foreseeable future. Unless we manage to get another bruce type in. 

[pussface]

1 minute ago, NorthernOwl said:

 

Truth is we have an average squad and no finances to sign anything other than cheapies, freebies and loans.

 

Hard to see us doing anything other than stagnating in mid table for the foreseeable future. Unless we manage to get another bruce type in. 

My fear as well. We had two very expensive shots at the moon and missed.

[mcmigo]

4 hours ago, Lawrie’s Left Peg said:

In terms of formation 4-3-3 as we are strongest at CB, our FB are ok, we are weak in midfield and we need to create more up top. 
 

The 2 best teams in the country play 4-3-3 so there is your blueprint. No need to reinvent the wheel. 
 

Therefore you either play the Liverpool way or the City way. 
 

The Liverpool way: Attacking full-backs who provide the width; 3 high energy but limited midfield, 2 inside forwards. When fully fit this equates to. Westwood, Iorfa, Lees, Borner, Fox, Lee, Hutch, Luongo, Harris, Fletcher, FF. Given that Fletch is out long term and FF ??? Then Winnal and Murphy come in. 
 

The City way: Defensive midfielder (pivot), 2 attacking midfield, 2 outside forwards who provide the width. When fully fit this equates to: Westwood, Palmer, Iorfa, Borner, Fox, Hutch, Lee, Bannan, FF, Fletcher, Harris.

 

Key to both systems is a high press and default tactic of hitting the wide or narrow channels as quickly as possible in transition.  Positionally, this requires brave management to keep the inside/outside forwards in advanced positions (the exact opposite to GM current approach)   

Our defence, including our centre backs, have been shambolic at times this season.  I dont think it is the strongest part of our team by any means.

 

QPR, Stoke, Cardiff, Blackburn games to name but a few where we have conceded absolute pub team goals. 

 

Our midfield gets a bad press, and the defence let off the hook for some reason.  

 

 

[Mr Farrell]

26 minutes ago, NorthernOwl said:

 

I think 8 of Saturdays starters either weren't here or weren't regular starters during the playoffs. 

 

We aren't talking just about one disastrous performance. There have been numerous involving more of the bottlers.

 

We also have several of the failures stealing a wage and not bothered about playing.

[NorthernOwl]

3 minutes ago, Mr Farrell said:

 

We aren't talking just about one disastrous performance. There have been numerous involving more of the bottlers.

 

We also have several of the failures stealing a wage and not bothered about playing.

 

But my point is Saturdays team was largely not the failures from the playoff days as you suggested. Are you saying the players we have recruited since are also all bottlers and failures? 

 

Maybe the simpler explanation is that they are just not very good.

[NorthernOwl]

11 minutes ago, mcmigo said:

Our defence, including our centre backs, have been shambolic at times this season.  I dont think it is the strongest part of our team by any means.

 

QPR, Stoke, Cardiff, Blackburn games to name but a few where we have conceded absolute pub team goals. 

 

Our midfield gets a bad press, and the defence let off the hook for some reason.  

 

 

 

Probably because we were conceding less than one a game on average prior to the Blackburn game. 

[Mr Farrell]

5 minutes ago, NorthernOwl said:

 

But my point is Saturdays team was largely not the failures from the playoff days as you suggested. Are you saying the players we have recruited since are also all bottlers and failures? 

 

Maybe the simpler explanation is that they are just not very good.

 

My issue is with the squad as a whole not the 11 on the pitch on Saturday.

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, mcmigo said:

Our defence, including our centre backs, have been shambolic at times this season.  I dont think it is the strongest part of our team by any means.

 

QPR, Stoke, Cardiff, Blackburn games to name but a few where we have conceded absolute pub team goals. 

 

Our midfield gets a bad press, and the defence let off the hook for some reason.  

 

 

 

20 minutes ago, NorthernOwl said:

 

Probably because we were conceding less than one a game on average prior to the Blackburn game. 

 

This is it, our defensive record was very good prior to the Stoke game and Dawson wasn't having too many shots to face in most games - we looked solid. Since Christmas we have looked shaky regardless of who has played and every one of the defenders has made costly errors. 

Maybe we are coming under more pressure since then because we have no effective way of holding the ball up and keeping possession. Blackburn certainly played on the belief we couldn't keep the ball in their half, even when it was 11 v 11 they pressed us high up the pitch to good effect. 

[mcmigo]

31 minutes ago, hirstyboywonder said:

 

 

This is it, our defensive record was very good prior to the Stoke game and Dawson wasn't having too many shots to face in most games - we looked solid. Since Christmas we have looked shaky regardless of who has played and every one of the defenders has made costly errors. 

Maybe we are coming under more pressure since then because we have no effective way of holding the ball up and keeping possession. Blackburn certainly played on the belief we couldn't keep the ball in their half, even when it was 11 v 11 they pressed us high up the pitch to good effect. 

We dominated possession vs Cardiff and Hull and lost. Possession isn’t really a big issue for us. As you note, our defending has been dreadful for a month including the capitulation v Stoke. 

The Cardiff game especially we lost due to shambolic defending by Lees, iorfa and Palmer.

The route back to better points returns are sorting the defending out again. We were scoring enough to get into 3rd when defending well, albeit with an inform Fletcher.

 

[Mus]

Sorry I wish I could be more positive but I think this club is going downhill.

 

I hope I am proved wrong!

[Mus]

Cannot believe this post. it wasn't just yesterday's performance, its been a while now.  Three games over Christmas, all the points dropped after ninety minutes.

 

Wake up and smell the coffee, we are a very poor side.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, mcmigo said:

We dominated possession vs Cardiff and Hull and lost. Possession isn’t really a big issue for us. As you note, our defending has been dreadful for a month including the capitulation v Stoke. 

The Cardiff game especially we lost due to shambolic defending by Lees, iorfa and Palmer.

The route back to better points returns are sorting the defending out again. We were scoring enough to get into 3rd when defending well, albeit with an inform Fletcher.

 

 

I think Cardiff weren't too concerned about us having possession because they were winning and we weren't a persistent threat while the Hull game both sides were pretty useless in possession. Perhaps rather than possession in general what I should have referred to was possession in the opposition half, particularly the final third. Against Stoke we barely got in or around their penalty area until we changed shape 2nd half and early on against Blackburn we couldn't get forward, as Monk alluded to after the game. Fletcher was key to us being more of a threat and we need another option in now.

Cardiff and Hull allowed us to have more of the ball once they were in front, it didn't make any difference as I am sure their staff were as aware as we are of our woeful record when we concede the first goal.

 

Completely agree about the shambolic defending as I said, all our defensive options have made poor costly individual errors of late. Injuries haven't helped but as I said in a different thread, Monk needs to decide on his preferred line up at the back which should help cohesion and cut down on the mistakes.