Peterborough (H)

[Farrelli]

5 hours ago, Johnnyrotten said:

I've not read any other comments but I've just watched it and its never a red.  A yellow yes, if that's a red the game's gone.

That is a definite red card. He really had to stand up there but jumped in and can have no complaints 

[Casino]

3 hours ago, gonzo said:

 

JDB needs to be starting 

Hate calling players but I barely noticed if Thomason was even playing. 

 

Santos is our most important player btw. 

Sou much sense and so much shit in one post

 

[Casino]

2 hours ago, Mantra said:

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. 

Dempsey is teflon

There, Ive said it

 

Dont mind him, fwiw

[Ani]

People can argue about the red, IMO it was fair enough, but if he got way with it we are an incredibly Ill disciplined team.

We seem to pick up 4-5 bookings every week, and are now adding reds to the collection.

Legohead has been booked 7 times alone, it is still September FFS. I think apart from Morley and JDB who ain't played much every outfield player has been booked at least once. Evatt can blame refs as much as he wants.

By next week we will have 4 players suspended for games this season and as mentioned it is only Sept FFS. If we keep it lit up it is only going to drag us further down. 

 

[RoadRunnerFan]

Our 3-5-2 struggles against top level league one wide forwards to such an extent that we looked more solid with 10 men second half cos of 4 at the back. 

10 & 17 today took the piss as much as Humphrys and Lang ( started @ 10 but kept drifting wide) did for Wigan first half. Fair enough they didn't take chances wigan did. 

Maybe need to think about Jones &/or Iredale at wingback in these games if we are to play 3-5-2. 

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by RoadRunnerFan

[RoadRunnerFan]

15 minutes ago, Ani said:

People can argue about the red, IMO it was fair enough, but if he got way with it we are an incredibly Ill disciplined team.

We seem to pick up 4-5 bookings every week, and are now adding reds to the collection.

Legohead has been booked 7 times alone, it is still September FFS. I think apart from Morley and JDB who ain't played much every outfield player has been booked at least once. Evatt can blame refs as much as he wants.

By next week we will have 4 players suspended for games this season and as mentioned it is only Sept FFS. If we keep it lit up it is only going to drag us further down. 

 

Agree with this to an extent but think we are having a rough time with refs. 

Most weeks we have more ball, less fouls but more bookings. Was the same against Wigan. 

[TM Trotter]

Red right in front of me. Absolutely no question - appalling and needless challenge. Jones has been mostly terrible this season. Nice ball to JDC for the assist 1 min before though. 

Dempsey lucky to not get sent off with his early 2nd half tackle too. As Casino said, Teflon. Fucking abysmal today but I have barely seen his shocker mentioned.

A few slating Thomason again, shock. Odd. I thought he was one of our better players.

Loads of talk about the 4 at the back second half being more solid. Ignoring the luck we had with the woodwork, I wouldn't say its a fair comparison, with us having the wide attackers dropping in to make it a 6 man defence.

Would love to see more of Bod next week. And yes... my optimistic call of a Dan screamer proved why I am not a betting man. 

Anyway. Massive credit to see out the second half onslaught and take a point. Especially for a side that has no backbone, or something...

[Tombwfc]

2 hours ago, Mounts Kipper said:

My concern is the team aren’t playing in the Evatt style,  there seems to to be a lack of confidence in the squad and it’s Evatts job to get them playing out from the back and play his preferred possession based game, we are failing badly on those 2 fronts.

He has to get both wingbacks further up the pitch and more often and in particular Williams who’s a chocolate fire guard defensively, the team is set up for the 2 wing backs to get to the byline and we aren’t doing it enough. 

We have to get through this sticky patch and keep on the coat tails of the top 2, if our current form continues I don’t think we make top 6 and if that happens then Evatts position has to be questioned. 
 

 

 

I think it'd be more than questioned. Finishing 7th or lower in this league, with our resources, would make this among the poorest seasons we've had in recent memory. But we're miles away from that.

I thought today was going to be the referendum on whether we've had a good or bad start to the season. And it probably has summed it up in that the answer is clearly 'both'.

[Leyther_Matt]

Said at the time it was a clear red and the replays are beyond question on that one. Late, studs up, over the ball. Ticks every box. The fact it took place in a completely unnecessary part of the pitch at a critical point in the game just underpins how pivotal it was. And I’m sure Jones knows it, too.

Pleasantly surprised with how well we did as a back four as you wouldn’t have Iredale or Cogley down as natural full backs, but Forrester was a rock and Baxter made a couple of decent saves again (as did his left hand post!)

Thomason was Thomason. Looked neat and tidy at times, but always capable of a misplaced pass and the booking was thick as fuck, even by his standards.

Stumbling across Nlundulu as a right sided midfielder was an unexpected success and JDB’s cameo was comfortably his best of the season.

Stick the clock on the middle ribbon every now and then like they did with the team announcements and it might not feel like I’m trying to watch telly in the house across the road from us. Big fan of showing the 2017/18 goals pre match so if they can build up the video content and get the odd replay shown then we might get back to where we were 25 years ago! Traffic not too bad considering the size of the gate, too. 

[Biggish Dave]

14 minutes ago, Leyther_Matt said:

Said at the time it was a clear red and the replays are beyond question on that one. Late, studs up, over the ball. Ticks every box. The fact it took place in a completely unnecessary part of the pitch at a critical point in the game just underpins how pivotal it was. And I’m sure Jones knows it, too.

Pleasantly surprised with how well we did as a back four as you wouldn’t have Iredale or Cogley down as natural full backs, but Forrester was a rock and Baxter made a couple of decent saves again (as did his left hand post!)

Thomason was Thomason. Looked neat and tidy at times, but always capable of a misplaced pass and the booking was thick as fuck, even by his standards.

Stumbling across Nlundulu as a right sided midfielder was an unexpected success and JDB’s cameo was comfortably his best of the season.

Stick the clock on the middle ribbon every now and then like they did with the team announcements and it might not feel like I’m trying to watch telly in the house across the road from us. Big fan of showing the 2017/18 goals pre match so if they can build up the video content and get the odd replay shown then we might get back to where we were 25 years ago! Traffic not too bad considering the size of the gate, too. 

Cogley was used as a full back for 2 seasons in Birkenhead so not an unnatural position for him.

[Leyther_Matt]

1 minute ago, Biggish Dave said:

Cogley was used as a full back for 2 seasons in Birkenhead so not an unnatural position for him.

I’d rather forget he played for that lot 😅

[Stig]

Reading through other posts on here:

-Agree completely we need to switch to a back 4. Forester and Toal centre backs, Cogley and probably Iredale (just edges Williams defensively, but it's not a great choice) full backs. Difficult question then is 433 or 442, and with Bodvarsson back I'd be tempted 442 with a narrow midfield 4, just to get him up top with Dion. Bit of a 50/50 though, just anything other than 532!

-Disagree with the Thomason criticism. We lose that game comfortably without him. Only player who can put a tackle in and the amount of tracking of their number 10, even when we had 3 centre backs. He was practically last man at times. Yes I agree he looks ungainly at times (last min when he couldn't sort his feet out and passed it straight out) but I'm struggling to see what people have been watching if their immediate response is to criticise Thomason. He was our best player yesterday 

[Eddie]

14 minutes ago, Stig said:

Reading through other posts on here:

-Agree completely we need to switch to a back 4. Forester and Toal centre backs, Cogley and probably Iredale (just edges Williams defensively, but it's not a great choice) full backs. Difficult question then is 433 or 442, and with Bodvarsson back I'd be tempted 442 with a narrow midfield 4, just to get him up top with Dion. Bit of a 50/50 though, just anything other than 532!

-Disagree with the Thomason criticism. We lose that game comfortably without him. Only player who can put a tackle in and the amount of tracking of their number 10, even when we had 3 centre backs. He was practically last man at times. Yes I agree he looks ungainly at times (last min when he couldn't sort his feet out and passed it straight out) but I'm struggling to see what people have been watching if their immediate response is to criticise Thomason. He was our best player yesterday 

Biggest myth going this. He can’t tackle.

Agree on tracking his man well, disagree on everything else.

The reason he loses the ball so much is because he passes to where he thinks players are / should be, most of the time without looking. The reason he doesn’t look is because he has to concentrate on his first touch because he’s poor on the ball, at least 4 times yesterday he just put the ball into empty space, one of which led to their goal.

Sometimes it looks brilliant, the right footed first time ball up the wing to Dempsey, but when he’s in that deep lying role and is constantly under pressure he just isn’t comfortable enough to help us play out from the back with short neat passes.

Sheehan should be in that role - he was nowhere near as effective yesterday because to get on the ball he was relying on Thomason getting it to him. If we’re going to play out from the back then Sheehan has to take the ball off the defence.

Hopefully Morley takes his chance next week.

 

[tomski]

Doesn’t feel like any lessons have been learnt since last season.

No one disputes the Jones red.

JDB looked like he had something else to bring when he came on.

Did well not to lose but but it wasn’t a heroic backs to the walls job for me. We had no ambition/intent to nick it. 

Think Cogley is head and shoulders above the rest.

Once Nlundulu stopped trying to dummy the ball and let it go out thought he played well. 

If and when he kicks on it will be like magnum in zoolander. 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2023 by tomski

[Biggish Dave]

Thomasons a funny one for me, this is a massive season for him. He either cuts out the silly bookings/giving away possession too cheaply at times which he could do with experience - or he's destined to never be better than average L1 at best.

Getting our injured players players back pronto is vital. We need a settled side which has to include Santos, Toal, Maghoma and Bod imo.

[Stig]

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Biggest myth going this. He can’t tackle.

Agree on tracking his man well, disagree on everything else.

The reason he loses the ball so much is because he passes to where he thinks players are / should be, most of the time without looking. The reason he doesn’t look is because he has to concentrate on his first touch because he’s poor on the ball, at least 4 times yesterday he just put the ball into empty space, one of which led to their goal.

Sometimes it looks brilliant, the right footed first time ball up the wing to Dempsey, but when he’s in that deep lying role and is constantly under pressure he just isn’t comfortable enough to help us play out from the back with short neat passes.

Sheehan should be in that role - he was nowhere near as effective yesterday because to get on the ball he was relying on Thomason getting it to him. If we’re going to play out from the back then Sheehan has to take the ball off the defence.

Hopefully Morley takes his chance next week.

 

I get the criticism of his touch. A touch good enough to then be able to turn past the midfielder pressing him is definitely missing from his game, but you put Sheehan in that role and we'd be bullied out of the game. It's not just tackling, it's physicality he offers.

The issue really is we're trying to use 1 defensive midfielder to basically do all defensive tracking and all distribution from our keeper/defence, and none of our midfielders are particularly capable of both. E.g. drop Sheehan or Morley there and the touch and passing will be tidier but we'll get easily overrun.

For me Thomason's physicality offers something different to the rest, but play to his strengths, not putting him in tight passing positions all game.

[gonzo]

Swear we are a team of thickos.

Theres only Sheehan, JDB and Santos with any kind of footballing brain.

Passing in to danger, taking the wrong option, not getting Charles away quicker.

 

[radcliffe white]

7 hours ago, Casino said:

Folk are just making shit up now

And only idiots swallow it

It was early ish

dragged his shot wide so much to aim at 

[only1swanny]

Felt is was a yellow, just a late challenge, not malicious.. very daft for a captain 

But if that was a red, then their challenge on DN was a red too.. it's the inconsistency that's the issue..

Which of our player hit our bar with their clearance.. heart was in my mouth, think was Iredale?

I do think that our 5 3 2 is covering some cracks with defence, i don't think we would cope with a back 4 as we don't have proper full backs anymore. Most of the second half we had 6 in the back line, with Charles staying in out back third and being taken out of the game. Even DN played most of his game along the back line. 

[gonzo]

8 minutes ago, radcliffe white said:

It was early ish

dragged his shot wide so much to aim at 

We talking the vic one from outside the box?

Im just glad we got a shot away instead playing pinball round the edge of the box.

[Biggish Dave]

Watched the sending off again, Jones is lucky not to have a serious injury himself leading with his left leg.

If he'd have led with his right, it's a yellow. Being left makes it red, more studs on show

[gonzo]

Wonder how the bloke who ran on the pitch feels this morning?

[only1swanny]

3 minutes ago, gonzo said:

Wonder how the bloke who ran on the pitch feels this morning?

I'd imagine he's got a sore neck, dragged him off with a full nelson, 

that said took enough of them.

[radcliffe white]

19 minutes ago, gonzo said:

We talking the vic one from outside the box?

Im just glad we got a shot away instead playing pinball round the edge of the box.

Yeah that’s the one should be hitting the target 

[tomski]

4 minutes ago, gonzo said:

Wonder how the bloke who ran on the pitch feels this morning?

I’d assume he came as a one off. What an odd game to do it in. Surely no one is surrendering 3 years to do that