jules_darby

Nonsense. Confidence starts from the back. A talkative and confident presence in nets calms them in front of him Evidence A - last season when Grandad went in nets Dixon distributes well and is an alright shot stopper but he doesn’t impose himself on the defence like Gilkes (and our 2 CB’s aren’t talkers - see IE’s own comments on Rico), nor does he inspire confidence. Just cos there’s other issues doesn’t make the GK role unimportant; especially when we create fuck all. I was told that wasn’t important last week on here too 👀👀

Aye I thought/hoped for the same

The fact that we haven’t got options is the issue

IE is very, very naive Izzy at RB shows it he sees the best in a lot which is great…and if he actually learns he could be a top drawer manager; just a bit worried he’s too stubborn a fucker As I said earlier on the thread; I think it’ll be sticky for a couple of months. Let’s see if he can recreate last Jan with support from our board…

Annoying thing is that Pompey are dogwank

He doesn’t suit the way we are playing. Agreed. Not a personal attack on the lad for me but most of the time we may as well have 10 men

Happened a lot this last few weeks that. We’re v soft except Rico/MJ/Lee for me

Ok let’s flip that… What is he creating for himself and/or others?

Almost 70 mins and we’ve had 1 shot on target I was told on here last week that going forwards wasn’t an issue The data begs to differ

Not his fault massively but the Keeper just Int good enough at this level Feels like we’ve a youth player in nets he’s no presence #1 priority in Jan for me

That’ll be not playing a right back at right back then 😕

🤣 Feel if we break through it will likely involve DJ and/or Dapo. Nice combinations from them “These are shite” anything could happen here still though

Fine here pal. We’re growing confidence a bit here aren’t we prob concede now 🤣

Looked a pen to me that. Though he did prob foul their lad first 😇

Scrappy. And it’s 2 pretty poor teams this. We still look at 6s and 7s at the back & disjointed going forwards Sadly I’m not sure this ‘dodgy spell’ is over yet However, more positively, I think & have faith that we’ll be strong after Xmas/Jan again. Could be attritional for a couple of months I’m afraid lads

Can’t be. Where’s all the Wiggin players?

Those stats look decent going forwards in the end but with about 15 mins left we’d had 2/3 on target IIRC. When you’re 2 down that’s not gonna help. the step up in pace/urgency certainly changed that, but there’s a few reasons why we went, what was it 350+ mins without scoring recently - now there’s a damaging and crucial stat That said, I’m sure we’ll improve

But they are when it’s like that every week, and our shots on target is always really low. The reality is that despite the possession we don’t create that much I think that may change post Xmas but it’s where we are right now

Whilst we were huff and puff for long spells, even when we were clearly devoid of confidence for that middle hour of the game, I don’t think it ever looked like players weren’t trying. Not at all for me

I don’t think it’s bad at all And I’m still firmly behind Evatt I think a few tweaks would still see us improve though

I’d take that but we’d need the premise of a big season next year to keep the few quality players we have for this level

I don’t think we are clamouring for a switch to hoofball or “gerrit forwards” as such, but of us moving it with more decisiveness and movement off the ball, as we did (as you say) in the latter part of the game yesterday I think you can play football and show urgency at the same time, but yesterday from their first goal until the 75/80th minute we didn’t do that, hence we created v little. In fact with 10/15 mins left I showed my phone to my father in Le who was sat next to me and we’d had 2 shots on target all game according to SkyBet. It seems about right 🤷🏽‍♂️ Lots of mirroring of early last season before we found our stride when we seemed to press go only in the dying embers of games

I get that, and I thought Bakayoko was going to be our option for that but he’s been playing wide. My issue however isn’t the height of the crosses, it’s more the timing The amount for of times we don’t cross it when we could (ground or airborne), allows them to set and our runners come to a halt is scandalous - then how often are we passing it around a crowded box and get nowhere? A lot is the answer KL’s goal came from a move from deep hence him still moving ‘on to the ball’; KL to Isgrove, early ball in from him, when that was too long John drives it in and KL is still on the move. I like ‘proper football’ as much as the next person but moving it quickly always gets the opposition thinking and panicking more Yesterday, and recent games, have had shades of the first half of last season about them; if we can bolster the squad similarly to last year then I see no reason why we can’t push on a bit, but we aren’t going to tika-taka around teams in League 1 with much success (and without conceding) with this lot as it stands - we’d be better being a wee bit more pragmatic at times

Same. Terrible for me

It’s an odd statement indeed IMO: Isgrove puts in a shift but his delivery is poor. John the better of the 2 for us IMO. We have to stop conceding shit goals where we’re nowhere near 2nd balls. They were a big side today and at times we were out-muscled; similar to Wigan who were faster and stronger than us; Rico, Williams and poss Bakayoko aside we are worryingly physically weak IMO. Kachunga is particularly powder puff. Although he made a decent double save, Dixon doesn’t command at all either; if we want to progress (next season maybe) then we need a better keeper for sure. Sadly I’d say the same for Doyle; I like the lad but he isn’t good enough for the top end of league 1 for me. I also fear we are overly laborious going forwards; we got the best change out of it by playing the diag over their fullback’s heads and had them on the turn but too often we didn’t play it in when we could - Isgrove particularly guilty. We then turn back/cut in and by then our runners have stopped and they’re all back in position, the box is crowded and inevitably we get blocked out. Our decision making and execution in the final third is so bad. Final worry for me is the huge over-reliance on Dapo. Give it him, stand and watch - been the same the last 3 games. It’s not fair to put it all on his shoulders. Promisingly we stuck with it but if we want to push on, we need half a dozen better players