Carlisle (H)

[JimmyRiddle]

The last half an hour the wingbacks were a total waste of time. We spent so much time moving the ball from side to side and Carlisle were content to leave our wingbacks as the spare man knowing we'd do fuck all. It hinders us.

Once the opposition goes like that Evatt needs to react, and go 3 4 3, or 4 3 3 get 3 strikers on across the penalty box and start try drag their centre half's around a bit and play more through the middle.

We have had this issue all the way through Evatt's tenure, he hasn't a clue. Is anyone sure what type of football he is trying to achieve, because it is clearly too hard to implement consistently and too easy to stop from the opposition.

Teams are already leaving us behind in the league. 

[barrycowdrill]

11 minutes ago, Mounts Kipper said:

If we move the ball quicker the opposition have to sprint to fill the gaps and they tire quicker, we didn’t do that yesterday, and to compound the situation we let them score and gave them something to hold onto. 

Yes get the principle but we never move the ball quickly. That’s the whole issue and my point. When your CBs and keeper have the highest number of touches in the game it completely highlights where the theory is miles away from the practical 

[Mounts Kipper]

17 minutes ago, barrycowdrill said:

Yes get the principle but we never move the ball quickly. That’s the whole issue and my point. When your CBs and keeper have the highest number of touches in the game it completely highlights where the theory is miles away from the practical 

Aye sometimes the execution doesn’t follow the plan and if opposition sit deep it becomes virtually impossible…. That’s when you need a plan B… 3 of the bottom 5 sussed we don’t have plan B and took 9 points, hopefully when we get Gomes and Maghoma back that’ll give us a plan B. 

[masi 51]

No plan b

 

look back in when he is gone

[Eddie]

We scored late goals because teams were knackered. Teams were knackered because we played with a higher intensity and moved them around more.

Now when you watch us, on the face of it we still have control of the ball for the majority of the game, with 60/65% possession, but so much of it is spent at a stand still or walking pace trying to get our players into specific positions like chess pieces that the opposition constantly has little periods to get their breath back. Once you add in stoppages when the ball is out of play then you just don’t see them tiring like we used to see.

In fact, we look more knackered because it’s so easy to hit us on the break with our wingbacks pushed up and weak midfield that we have to do plenty of sprinting to try and recover.

We’ve had periods like this before, where it looks like there is so much wrong with the team that it could never change, but it has. My worry is that most of the time Evatt has been forced into that change, but now we just don’t have the options to play a different way.

The other difference is that we have always had a player that can dig us out of the shit with a moment of brilliance (Dapo). The amount of times we’d be completely stale but he’d cut in off the left and stick one in the bottom corner from 25 yards, we just don’t have anyone that can do that anymore.

[Rizlar]

24 minutes ago, masi 51 said:

No plan b

 

look back in when he is gone

Cracking book 📚 

[globaldiver]

26 minutes ago, masi 51 said:

No plan b

 

look back in when he is gone

 

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

It's not the biggest thing, I know, but it really makes me cringe when the announcer thanks the away supporters for attending, especially when we're losing

[ErnestTurnip]

People like to say IE is stubborn but it could as easily be that he just doesn't know how to make the changes he needs to coaching wise and tactically.

He's not been at it a long time and throw in man management as another issue to be dealt with and he's far from the finished article yet.

If that's the issue then it's obviously more concerning than a personality trait. Most of our fans aren't arsed about him developing as a manager they just want to be in the Championship tomorrow, which you can understand.

[tomski]

1 hour ago, Lt. Aldo Raine said:

It's not the biggest thing, I know, but it really makes me cringe when the announcer thanks the away supporters for attending, especially when we're losing

Haha said something similar yesterday. I think it stemmed from losing to a poor team (who deserved to win fully) and not having anyone else to blame like the ref etc. 

[Mantra]

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.

[Mantra]

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.

[tomski]

2026😳

[frank_spencer]

This may be sacrilege compared us to the filth but the MoTD coverage last night showed them playing very much like we were lots of sideways and backwards passing but no real attempts to play the ball forwards or direct.

They ended up relying on going all out and scrambling 2 goals in injury time. We didn't even try all out get the ball in the mixer type stuff and conceded another. When we had Dion, JDB and Dan on and we're still pissfarting around playing it sideways trying to play through all 11 behind the ball.

Not good enough and none of the missing players could've changed that if that's the way we're going to be playing 

[Tonge moor green jacket]

10 hours ago, Wanderlust said:

... we conceded the two decisive goals after Thomason was subbed.

Not the first time this season.

However, the change for Morley was understandable given we needed more creativity. 

Goes back to not changing the approach on occasions- why not put an extra midfielder on if we're struggling to get past a packed defence, and maybe use them to shoot from a bit further out.

Not sure we always need three centre halves.

[Stig]

2 hours ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

Not the first time this season.

However, the change for Morley was understandable given we needed more creativity. 

Goes back to not changing the approach on occasions- why not put an extra midfielder on if we're struggling to get past a packed defence, and maybe use them to shoot from a bit further out.

Not sure we always need three centre halves.

He hadn't even got his yellow card at this point so no idea why you'd make that sub... Bringing Morley on for Williams, then moving Iredale to left back, in a 442 would have been a better move. Instead just left us empty in midfield

[Tonge moor green jacket]

1 hour ago, Stig said:

He hadn't even got his yellow card at this point so no idea why you'd make that sub... Bringing Morley on for Williams, then moving Iredale to left back, in a 442 would have been a better move. Instead just left us empty in midfield

I agree.

Obviously we want to win the game, but there's a balance between leaving yourself too open in order to do so. Of course had it paid off, and we'd won 2-1, he'd have been lauded, but it's the apparent inability to do anything other than replace one for another and keep the same system come what may that is both frustrating and concerning. 

[Johnnyrotten]

9 hours ago, Lt. Aldo Raine said:

It's not the biggest thing, I know, but it really makes me cringe when the announcer thanks the away supporters for attending, especially when we're losing

especially when he not only thanks them for coming but "creating a great atmosphere".   There would have been a great atmosphere without them if the team had turned up.

[MickyD]

10 hours ago, masi 51 said:

No plan b

 

look back in when he is gone

You may be gone a while

[ianofcleveleys]

2 hours ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

I agree.

Obviously we want to win the game, but there's a balance between leaving yourself too open in order to do so. Of course had it paid off, and we'd won 2-1, he'd have been lauded, but it's the apparent inability to do anything other than replace one for another and keep the same system come what may that is both frustrating and concerning. 

Arteta was recently quoted as having used about 40 formations within one game. Now that may be overthinking the game to a large degree but it shows in sharp relief Evatt's stubborn reluctance to stray from one formation, one style and one tailored recruitment process over a season, never mind a game or half a game.

Evatt may protest otherwise but we have one way of winning a football match and more teams in L1 are wise to it 

[TM Trotter]

Hands up, I didn't go to the game, and I haven't seen any "highlights". (Montenegro is properly lovely, btw gents.)

I understand it was shit, we were done by a team on their big day out, we're too easy to play against, Evatt is stubborn, etc, etc. Fair, I'll take the word of everyone who went.

But fuck me, I am absolutely baffled by the Evatt Out sentiment from some on here. Aye, let's pot a bright young manager trying to emulate the best tactician of the modern era on a beans-on-toast budget. Sure, OK... so who is coming in to rocket us to promotion? I wonder what Nigel Adkins is up to these days? Maybe even Mick McCarthy, because he likes an aggressive DM and loves to "get it in the fucking mixer"? 

Bearing in mind the season isn't 1/4 through... it's all a bit fucking knee jerk this. Hey, maybe forget me mentioning Adkins and McCarthy - Pep will be available soon as City lost to Wolves and Arsenal this past week(!) Be reyt.

2 week break, we go again, with some new faces back in contention. Enjoy the ride. We'd be bored if we won every week. 

Love,

A holidaying happyclapper 

[woolli]

17 minutes ago, TM Trotter said:

Hands up, I didn't go to the game, and I haven't seen any "highlights". (Montenegro is properly lovely, btw gents.)

I understand it was shit, we were done by a team on their big day out, we're too easy to play against, Evatt is stubborn, etc, etc. Fair, I'll take the word of everyone who went.

But fuck me, I am absolutely baffled by the Evatt Out sentiment from some on here. Aye, let's pot a bright young manager trying to emulate the best tactician of the modern era on a beans-on-toast budget. Sure, OK... so who is coming in to rocket us to promotion? I wonder what Nigel Adkins is up to these days? Maybe even Mick McCarthy, because he likes an aggressive DM and loves to "get it in the fucking mixer"? 

Bearing in mind the season isn't 1/4 through... it's all a bit fucking knee jerk this. Hey, maybe forget me mentioning Adkins and McCarthy - Pep will be available soon as City lost to Wolves and Arsenal this past week(!) Be reyt.

2 week break, we go again, with some new faces back in contention. Enjoy the ride. We'd be bored if we won every week. 

Love,

A holidaying happyclapper 

Are you cheese or spider in disguise? You didnt see the dross we served up! Nothing knee jerk! 98 per cent on here will tell you the same. You happy clappers talk so much shit!

[Mounts Kipper]

8 hours ago, frank_spencer said:

This may be sacrilege compared us to the filth but the MoTD coverage last night showed them playing very much like we were lots of sideways and backwards passing but no real attempts to play the ball forwards or direct.

They ended up relying on going all out and scrambling 2 goals in injury time. We didn't even try all out get the ball in the mixer type stuff and conceded another. When we had Dion, JDB and Dan on and we're still pissfarting around playing it sideways trying to play through all 11 behind the ball.

Not good enough and none of the missing players could've changed that if that's the way we're going to be playing 

It was same at Barnsley in the play offs we were toothless, abject and didn’t even try to lump it forward or chuck the kitchen sink at it, utterly pathetic, it was the same against a poor Carlisle team. 

[JimmyRiddle]

5 minutes ago, Mounts Kipper said:

It was same at Barnsley in the play offs we were toothless, abject and didn’t even try to lump it forward or chuck the kitchen sink at it, utterly pathetic, it was the same against a poor Carlisle team. 

After the play-offs Evatt admitted we hadn't scored enough goals to go up and he would sort it?.

So what's changed, we play in exactly the same way as we have since he has been here, every team knows it, he varies nothing. (Rhetorical, not aimed at you MK)

We have a worse squad than last season and are going backwards. Why have a style of.play that time and time again is too easy to stop??? It's madness.

Edited October 8, 2023 by JimmyRiddle

[woolli]

1 minute ago, JimmyRiddle said:

After the play-offs Evatt admitted we hadn't scored enough goals to go up and he would sort it?.

So what's changed, we play in exactly the same way as we have since he has been here, every team knows it, he varies nothing.

We have a worse squad than last season and are going backwards. Why have a style of.play that time and time again is too easy to stop??? It's madness.

You had better be careful what you say on here, you will get dogs abuse for telling the truth!