Jump to content
Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

Mantra

Members
  • Posts

    3,165
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    6

Everything posted by Mantra

  1. Excited for tonight and hopes are up which means we probably lose, COYW keep the run going
  2. Good time to be hitting top form, but on the other hand, a run of fixtures like this can stunt that momentum. Will need to rotate the squad a fair amount between 23 December and 13 January.
  3. that link up play for the first goal is bloody beautiful
  4. Be interesting to look back at Thomason's career in 10 years' time. He turns 23 in January...Wonder what the lad's ceiling is. He has improved so much already, at the very least he will be a solid Championship quality player if his development continues at anywhere near the same rate as it has the last few years.
  5. Best performances under Evatt, absolute domination.
  6. Great win that, couldn't believe my eyes when Thomason rattled one in from outside the box. Seen him sky those chances a few times. The lad has come on leaps and bounds and to my mind is the most determined player to improve in the squad. No wonder Bristol offered £1m for him. Maghoma was boss, was like Dempsey when fully fit but with even more pace and skill. Would love to keep him on next season. Sheehan also bossed it, always offering himself to the back 3 and dribbling into space to link up defence and attack. Loving the way we're playing again, getting back to our best, just gotta keep up the momentum and positivity now. Playing Oxford away at the end of the month presents a great chance to leapfrog them.
  7. Didn’t watch last night as was busy but sounds like a great win Very happy for Thomason though, took his goal well. Quickly becoming one of my favourite players in this team. Has come on leaps and bounds and it’s a good story of him coming from non league and proving himself. He must have a steely determination to improve as much as possible and make the most of his career. Didnt think Sheehan was up to it last season but he’s been very good so far this year. How did JDC do at LWB?
  8. No clue what to expect. A good performance would be a start. Performances of late have been poor or average. If santos starts then that’s a major boost. Dempsey out is a miss but not been at his best with the injury anyway. Excited to see what Paris can bring if he plays in Dempsey’s absence. Evatt says we have trained really well - similar to pre Wembley. Let’s hope it shows on the pitch on Saturday.
  9. Pretty sure Evatt said earlier in the season - I think after the Wigan defeat(again paraphrased) - 'we've brought in technical players and those types lack that grit. The players who have grit lack technicality. The ones who have both are in the premier league'. I think that's a bit of a false dichotomy to be honest. There's no reason why we can't recruit players with more aggression and directness to help give us another dimension. Maybe that was the thinking behind signing big strikers like Bod, Dan and Jerome. Equally there's no reason in my mind that a 'gritty player' can't play within a technical focused team, as long as he's instructed to keep it simple and let the technical players do the mojo.
  10. Not sure to be honest - some stats may count passes and crosses as separate. However, it may just be that he crossed it in, someone missed the tap in but it fell to another player on the Wales team, hence 100% accuracy...
  11. 😂😂 when I posted it and saw how long it had become I thought, no one is gonna read this but it was too late to go back! Cool graphic @desperado never seen one like that. I love tactical stuff but the initial point of my post before it became an essay was just to observe that more in-depth tactical instructions have now kind of made flair players and moments even rarer as they’re not a reliable source of goals week to week compared to a system or structure that players can slot into. In a way that’s a bit sad as players are under much stricter direction than previously meaning they have less freedom to express themselves.
  12. That's the way football is going, some would say sadly. xG and data means it's much rarer to see individual flair and skill and shots from outside the box - especially at the top level. Everything now is about positional play and working chances in a more formulaic manner. I agree with you in the sense that for all Evatt's admiration of the Pep style of play, it's not as effective as we'd all like. I think a lot of that is down to the quality of players who are instructed to emulate elite-level tactics but they're non-elite players. There's a good clip of Evatt from last season saying 'it takes longer to do it this way and it's harder but it'll be a more sustainable success throughout the pyramid... whereas the more traditional direct teams in league one that have success will struggle in the Championship.' (paraphrased). I think that's an arguable statement either way rather than a fact. I do think Evatt's tried to change things subtly this season. It looks as though the wingbacks sometimes tuck in now, especially Randell, to try and overload the midfield. It also looks as though we are playing with a midfield shape of a deep playmaker and two advanced 8s who all rotate. As opposed to 2 deep and one advanced midfielder considering that Dapo and Shoretire didn't manage to make that work. Probably only Kieran Lee managed to be effective in that role for us. We are top of the possession stats most weeks, whereas last season I think we actually sacrificed possession for a substantial part of the season - there's another Evatt clip from last season where he says 'I think we've become too transitional and need to get back to keeping the ball more'. (paraphrased) As a result, we have some nice passing moves and tell our centre backs to play with patience to try and bait a press so we can play through the lines with short passes but it seems to break down far too often on the edge of the opposition box. Not sure what's happened to our edge of the box shots from the midfielders. Dan is really struggling to trap the ball and link up on the edge of the box. Our strikers in general are still missing too many chances or not being effective enough overall. There's still lots of positives to our play and we are one of the best teams in the league when we're on it but so far the form of the team has been below par and the standard of play overall has not been good enough.
  13. As I just alluded to in the Carlisle matchday thread I don't even think it's possible. We've got too many strikers and no wingers other than CMG and maybe Randell at a push. . Baxter; Jones, Santos, Toal, Iredale; . Sheehan, Thomason CMG, Dempsey, Randell . Charles Is probably the only one I can see working. If Iredale gets injured then Randell has to drop back. But then if Randell injured, or CMG injured - who do you play on the wing? Possibly only other option is Dacres-Cogley. If you play Charles alone up front, we have Bod, Jerome, Victor, Nlundulu warming the bench. Try 4-4-2 you have the same issues for the wingers, maybe a bit easier to get Cogley in as a wide midfielder rather than an out and out winger. But then you've got a midfield two of very similar players, Sheehan, Morley, Dempsey, Thomason, Maghoma. Morley and Thomason good passers but not good ball carriers. Dempsey and Maghoma, good ball carriers but not great passers. Sheehan slowly turning into my favourite midfielder as he's got a bit of both about him but very lightweight and in a midfield partnership would need someone with him that can do some of the dirty work, which we don't have.
  14. On Evatt - I've been a big supporter of his all the way up until the last few games. We still don't look like we've pulled ourselves together since the Wigan defeat, which in itself was extremely disappointing considering that the exact same thing happened 2 seasons ago. We actually played well in the first few games of this season and I had hope that we would push on again this season in a 'weakened league' and look at securing top 2. That's still technically within reach but on performances alone we look far from capable of achieving that. He signed a new contract in May extending his tenure to June 2026 so I doubt he's on the chopping block yet but my faith in him is slowly waning. I don't like how we've put all our eggs in the 3-5-2 basket, we lost Dapo who I thought was our best player and we have the same strike force as last season that wasn't good enough at putting the ball in the net. There's no way I can even see us changing formation either to try something new because we simply don't have the personnel for it as we have no wingers other than CMG and no defensive midfielder. It's not all the formation though, the style of play has become boring and rigid. We are supposed to be a forward-thinking and positive team but as many have noted we are far too 'patient'. I don't feel that excited any more about the season, I feel like we are good enough to get playoffs but not good enough to get autos and so it feels like I'm just waiting for Spring to come until we actually have some tangible sense of our position in the league. I think Evatt and the players can turn it around and are capable of putting a good run together to get us back on track but the performances currently aren't breeding much confidence for the players nor fans to go off.
  15. Didn't watch the game yesterday only seen the highlights. Judging from those short snippets it looks like we were a bit unlucky with the goals:- Second penalty call looks harsh to me; Conceding a huge deflected effort; Then conceding while keeper was up from the corner. However, judging from the consensus of comments on here, it doesn't sound like we deserved anything from the game even if there was some misfortune with how the goals were conceded. And it doesn't look like we created much either.
  16. First half was shocking. Second half much better but still quite poor relative to what we're capable of. Fair play to Stevenage, decent side who made it very difficult for us at times. Iredale motm for me, won the pen, scored then put a lovely ball to Sheehan for the assist and made some good tackles even on a yellow card.
  17. Think he's just being careful with him since his injury tbh
  18. We still look a shadow of the team that was on a hot streak pre-wigan, that really damaged the confidence of the players and supporters - plus the current injury situation isn't ideal. Evatt will be safe in a job as long as he keeps us in at least play-off contention but the crowd was very flat first half, and I think a fair amount of supporters after the Reading result came to this game still a bit deflated. Jones has gone from Mr Reliable to getting a lot of criticism. Victor, despite his goals so far divides opinion and I hear a lot of people slagging him off at the game and online. Thomason, Iredale, Nlundulu, Jerome and Williams also divide opinion and have a lot of doubters Feels like we're not really getting the best out of the team. Dempsey, Santos, Charles and Dacres Cogley are all vital at the moment and undroppable.
  19. Aye, agree with you patience is wearing thin already, which I understand but also took Sunderland, Sheff Utd, Sheff Wednesday a fair few attempts to get out of this division. It's not a formality that we should get promoted, although this is certainly our best chance to since FV came in, or it should be. Never looks likely after a loss like today but I'll keep the faith and hope Evatt can rally the players to turn it round. January might be another big one for us and wouldn't be surprised to see a return to a 4-3-3
  20. Missing chances, yes. Poor subs, easy to say after today. Been times where Evatt has thrown the big strikers all on at the end and it's worked. Seen a few calling him stubborn for always sticking to the same type of substitution plan but doesn't really irk me personally. People slagging him for bringing Jerome on, when Nlundulu has offered little to show that he should be subbed on ahead of him. Can say Bodvarsson should've come on first but not sure he's fully fit yet. Brittle mentality, is hard to argue with after the Wigan defeat and the capitulation today. But still only 7 games in. Easily stopped playing our style, vs Wigan yes, today not for me...
  21. Not to discredit the feelings of disappointment but first half we played well and the game should've been out of sight. Dion should've scored second half too. The general performance was decent in the second half (in my opinion) up until we conceded that long range effort from Savage, then we just seemed to fall apart. Not sure why Thomason is getting pelters, thought he played well and kept things ticking in midfield nicely, isn't a match winner but his progress is clear as day to me. Meltdown was always coming after a capitulation like that but we really we should've won that game and I do feel there is a bit of overreaction right now. Ref didn't help either. I agree that Evatt got it wrong with the subs and our strike force doesn't look up to scratch at the moment. Worry is starting to niggle at me slightly but can certainly turn it around. Strikers need to start shooting first time. Dion tried a fake-shot and totally miscontrolled it when he could've just had a crack, and no idea why Victor felt it necessary to try and control the one that fell to him kindly. No way Reading deserved to win 2-1
  22. Does what he wants our Ian
  23. That's what I thought I saw, I reckon it's one of those where if enough people in the home crowd scream 'HANDBALL', it makes the ref/assistant think there's something in it. Happened so fast, no way the ref or assistant could 100% tell either way.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.