Wanderlust

Ah well - that's Vale down isn't it?

Can you whinge about Dan too please?

Paris gets himself into some great shooting positions but it seems he's always aiming for the top bins and invariably curls it over. Frustrating as we can see the shot that's on. and if he can sort that out he'd get plenty of goals.

My mistake - they beat them last week.

Good save from Baxter. Vale throwing the sink at us - they have to. Fortunately for us, Dan is coming on.

Lincoln in 6th but still have to play Oxford. Tasty.

Beauty. Exactly what I expected Williams to do 5 minutes ago.

Vale are taking the piss now. They know we can't score so they've put on a 16 year old at LB and now a 17 year old We've hit the post, the bar and had a shot blocked by our own player - all that's missing is a goal line clearance from the ref.

Ogbeta injured in warm up FFS so Ash on bench. Playing OK but still taking risks at the back. Thought the goalie cleaned out JDC with a high boot and I was screaming for a pen and red card but now I'm not sure - will have to look at the replay. Could go either way this if it carries on like this. Need a fair rub of the green and we're not getting it. Not our day so far - again.

Taylor in the middle at the back. Needs to have a good one today for his prospects next season wherever that will be (doubt it will be with the Baggies)

Leicester WBA has been unbelievable so far. Leics got a scrappy lead, Vardy dived for a pen and hit the post with it but the Baggies should have scored 7 or 8. Unbelievable misses from 6 yards but there was one bit when Chowdry blocked a shot on the line with the goalie beaten and the follow up hit the goalie, it loops towards the top bins and Chowdry managed to head it over from underneath the bar. How Leics are leading is impossible to comprehend - it's been like our sitters showreel. And Vardy nicks a second on a rare Leics break.

A bit of common sense there. If folk are looking for reasons why we haven't walked the league, everything mentioned leads back to the same thing - we aren't ready. And I include the inability to overcome injuries, bad luck, attitude, tactics, players, fixture congestion, poor refs etc etc.

Question is where is our spare man? Upfield? Stood on a post not marking anyone? Trying to block a low cross? There has to be a spare man somewhere.

No idea whose fault it is, but it drives me bonkers watching it. Direct strike from the corner like yesterday is always a danger, but even if the ball goes into the mixer and is headed away there needs to be someone there to pick it up.

Outthought......but not by Paul Hurst. Can't remember who first came up with this but it was before Xmas and loads of teams have been using that template since. However it's a negative tactic inasmuch that if they match us up to frustrate us, they have the same problem that we have. So it comes down to individual performances and winning the second balls etc - it reduces the game to a battle. And that means that the passers and ball players that Evatt has tried to recruit have to be at the top of their game i.e. playing their tippy tappy under extreme pressure to play through them. That's why we win against teams that try to play football against us and lose to shithouse teams like Wigan - and Derby the other week. And why Maghoma with his tight control showed everyone else how to do it. It's the same old issue we discussed last season - we're trying to play like Barca/City with League 1 standard players.

There is absolutely no point in slagging off the players. Every one of them has turned in good performances before so we know they're OK but collectively they weren't on the same wavelength tonight and when that happens, passes go astray, frustration rises and performances go downhill. Whether or not there was a collective bad attitude/lack of respect for the opposition going into this we'll never know, but the focus they showed against Pompey (after going a goal down) just wasn't there. Somehow they've got to find that "cup final" mentality again for the playoffs.

It's happened throughout the season TBH. Doesn't matter where we finish, we have to beat them all.

We've seen it plenty of times before against teams in the bottom half as I mentioned earlier. Has to be a psychological attitude thing - which could be laid at Evatt/his team's door - or players believing their own hype.

Yup. If Posh beat us.

Nicely done.

Why didn't Ogbeta head that in? Terrible decision.

Don't know what's happened to Dempsey since he came back from injury - nothing like the player he was.

..but better than Dempsey and Ogbeta

FFS

What the fuck.?