Fight to stay up, or fighting to be in the shop window?

[Guest domSWFC]

Fantastic performance from the lads today. Complete masterclass... But where has this quality, work rate and clinical finishing been all season? 

 

Are the lads showing they are willing to fight to keep us in the league? 

 

Or have they accepted we are down, and just don't want to play in League One, so playing for a move?

 

[S36 OWL]

A lot of out of contract players putting themselves in the shop window. 

[WhiteOwl91]

Think there’s a lot to be said for momentum as well though. 
 

We started well, bit of luck, Cardiff off the pace, we took our chances and all of a sudden they feel 10 foot tall. 

[Geedee]

I don't care just keep fighting 

[Holmowl]

A third option....

 

Good players, picked in their best positions, instructed to show attacking intent, and a proper striker on the pitch.

 

It never was rocket science. We are where we are because of Monk, Pulis and Thompson.

[Guest whowantstoberich]

Makes no difference, whatever the motivation is find it again for the next game and the rest! 

[Bluesteel]

Possibly both. It’s in their interests to keep us up or play well trying.

 

I think when the chips are down the doubt creeps in and then in some cases it must be easy to think, ah well, I’ll be off anyway.

 

But I do think DM was right when he said they just needed a result to turn the corner.

 

We saw it in 2000 when shreeves was manager. Beat Chelsea, Leicester only went down by a few points after being dreadful all season. Teams sometimes get that late shot in the arm, wigan did and thumped some team 7 nil this time last season. But it wasn’t enough.

 

6 points with 7 to play doesn’t sound insurmountable though ha!

[McRightSide]

Players given freedom to actually play by a positive manager morelike

[trevdi9]

shop window or not , now they have set the Bench mark , they have to live up to it 

 

[Buddy Repperton]

5-0

[gurujuan]

A tremendous all round performance, but yes, a tinge of sadness that they haven’t produced that sort of performance before. It all seems a bit too late. I agree with Holmowl, a simple change of tactics has enabled Rhodes to operate successfully as a lone striker, with Windass playing just behind. When we use Paterson as a striker, the temptation was, to float the ball into the box, hoping he could win it 

Keeping it on the ground, and playing balls into feet, is the sort of service Rhodes requires. To be honest, it suit most of our players, in fact pretty much all footballers would prefer to play that way. When we failed to replace Fletcher, we should have played the ball into to feet from the off, instead of the dreadful percentage game. It’s a more precise way of attacking.

[Tommo_]

5 hours ago, Holmowl said:

A third option....

 

Good players, picked in their best positions, instructed to show attacking intent, and a proper striker on the pitch.

 

It never was rocket science. We are where we are because of Monk, Pulis and Thompson.

 

Harsh on Thompson, his hands were tied.

[Holmowl]

5 hours ago, Tommo_ said:

 

Harsh on Thompson, his hands were tied.

He deserves less criticism than Monk and Pulis, but he definitely went off the rails in the second half of his brief spell. 

[Noleafclover]

Doesn't matter really as long as the results are there. 

[N0rtherner]

11 hours ago, domSWFC said:

Fantastic performance from the lads today. Complete masterclass... But where has this quality, work rate and clinical finishing been all season? 

 

Are the lads showing they are willing to fight to keep us in the league? 

 

Or have they accepted we are down, and just don't want to play in League One, so playing for a move?

 

I wouldn't mind if they all played for a move the next 7 matches! 

I hope any scouts watching considers their performance over the entire run-in and not just on single standout performance.

[bobness]

10 hours ago, whowantstoberich said:

 

Makes no difference, whatever the motivation is find it again for the next game and the rest! 

 

What if the motivation was playing on Sky? 

[Manwë]

Neither.

 

Everything clicked yesterday, the moon was aligned with Jupiter and Socrates, Feng Shui, Goobly garbly.  It happens, and it was beautiful.

 

But it's not a switch that our players can flip, either subconsciously or not.  "Right lads, I need a new club so I think we should play like Barcelona today".  "Ok, agreed, but I'm thinking more like Liverpool last season".  "Sounds good".

 

I'm not saying we were lucky, we were excellent, beyond it even.  But if that team is genuinely capable of dicking Cardiff 5-0 any day of the week by choice, then we'd be Top 2 over the course of 40 games.

 

It was a great victory, the best in years, long may it continue.  As one of the few yet to give up on the season, it's three welcome points.

[Southie_Owl]

13 minutes ago, bobness said:

 

What if the motivation was playing on Sky? 

Good news is we’re on sky again in the next game.

 

Also we finally have a highly rated manager and coaching team who are getting the best out of their players which may help a little too. 

[Teddy Nickelarse]

47 minutes ago, Noleafclover said:

Doesn't matter really as long as the results are there. 

100%. Hopefully, unlike after the terrific performance against QPR last season, we can follow it up. Let's hope we are the club that goes on a crazy run to make the last ditch escape........ or at least goes down with a bang rather than a whimper.

[Teddy Nickelarse]

20 minutes ago, Manwë said:

Neither.

 

Everything clicked yesterday, the moon was aligned with Jupiter and Socrates, Feng Shui, Goobly garbly.  It happens, and it was beautiful.

 

But it's not a switch that our players can flip, either subconsciously or not.  "Right lads, I need a new club so I think we should play like Barcelona today".  "Ok, agreed, but I'm thinking more like Liverpool last season".  "Sounds good".

 

I'm not saying we were lucky, we were excellent, beyond it even.  But if that team is genuinely capable of dicking Cardiff 5-0 any day of the week by choice, then we'd be Top 2 over the course of 40 games.

 

It was a great victory, the best in years, long may it continue.  As one of the few yet to give up on the season, it's three welcome points.

I think that this post trumps all others in this thread.