Galway saint

Angus Gunn

Even the goal that was offside - how did he not get that over the bar ?

Gunn doing a good Bazanu impression

I fear we haven’t yet given up on the Bazanu experiment ( or more accurately trying to recoup some of the stupid fee we parted with) so it might end up being a stop gap for a year until he is ready to return to letting in shots for Saints. I don’t wish the lad ill but hope we don’t see him next season as it will be tough enough staying up without him between the sticks.

Thought fraser was good in that LWB role at wembley

Football is a funny game Against Cardiff and Leicester and Stoke we folded and lacked resilience yet somehow we stopped the decline away at Leeds and built again from there. Sometimes no rhyme and reason for it but by the time we got to Wembley we had resilience in bucket loads. The crux of it was he managed to get the defence back to what it was doing during the unbeaten run and we suddenly looked very solid and compact again. The Wembley game reminded me of WBA away in the league.

Fantastic day out. Started badly however when Kingx tube was closed due to a flare being left off and ended up in Euston underground with several hundred/thousand leeds fans. Could only get better from there. Took my two boys and absolutely brilliant memories. The 20 minutes after full time was incredible. Thought we were in control for the most part and defensively were excellent. Fair play to RM for setting up the team as he did and thought the whole defence was very disciplined. The contrast to Leicester away was remarkable really and a special shoutout for Adam A who I hope goes onto score a shed load in the premier league and also Alex McCarthy who played a big part in seeing us over the line.

good game again today he’s looked solid and steady without him playing these last three ganes we could well be in a very different place

Prior to his achilles injury he was out for several months with a hamstring injury so by the time we start next season he won’t have played any meaningful football for 18 months.

got two tickets but up in the gods

It’s a football forum. People can pose hypothetical questions and you can see it’s prompted some decent discussion. Fine we can’t form any firm conclusions but it’s worth a question, albeit maybe on the Bazunu thread. For what it’s worth I think we would have lost with him in goal but that’s because I view him as a dreadful keeper

You must be watching a different Bazanu to the one i’ve watched this season and last. I entirely agree they were not amazing saves but it’s shows how poor he has been that a keeper showing solid glove work looks so good in comparison. I’m really glad we have AMC in goal at this stage of the season

those were my thoughts exactly

Rachel Brown Finnis I have nightmares about her and drury teaming up

I agree to a point and we can quickly go from being in control to all at sea. The subs don’t help. However we lost the Ipswich game because our keeper conceded two or arguably three goals he shouldn’t have conceded. It’s a relief RM’s hand was forced by the injury and perhaps privately he has conceded the same. I think the 3-5-2 better suits the players we have and compensates for the fact we have only 1 decent CDM, albeit a very good one at that. I feel more optimistic after yesterday as we looked in control of a game for the first time in a while, but that optimism can quickly evaporate.

Good to see some flexibility from RM less possession but more control

about time

As I see it, if we are promoted his brand of football will get us annihilated. If we don’t go up he will have a worse squad but frankly most of the division is pretty poor so we may be ok again for the play offs. We would likely continue to concede far too many goals to challenge for the automatic spots and it seems difficult to see otherwise. It all feels a bit flat at the moment. I feel the first third of the season was about him making the system work with new players, the second third it was working and the final third has been a real disappointment and if you were being critical of him it’s shown up his limitations as a manger and coach. The whole set up of the side is wrong at the moment.

Ipswich is a said that hit back very quickly

No but equally if he does think that he doesn’t need to describe him as one of the best in the league.

The wheels have come off really since February and we are limping to the end of the season. A lot of that is down to the coach and the way we play. The refusal to change approach means we have become easy to play against yet he persists and seems to have run out of ideas. If he’s willing to be more pragmatic then fine let’s keep him but otherwise what’s the point ? Equally it’s not his fault he wasn’t given a fit central striker and another proper CM to play alongside Downes. I’m not sure he really thinks Bazunu is one of the best keepers in the league and I wonder how much pressure he was put under to keep playing him. If he genuinely does think he’s one of the best keepers in the league then he should go for that alone. He’s ultimately a relatively young coach learning the ropes but he has some serious flaws in his coaching. If there is someone better out there then I wouldn’t be overly concerned if we changed managers

I think what’s changed is that we’ve lost momentum since February and the 4-3-3 possession game has been shown to have serious deficiencies defensively. The Leicester game was horrific and I think people would like to RM change his approach to address those deficiencies , rather than just change the personnel with no clear plan. He clearly is a good enough manager to get this team into the playofffs but we seem to have ran out of steam at the wrong time.

‘strong track record’ - must have missed that amongst the mid table finishes

he can deliver 64% possession and still somehow concede 5 goals and have no shots on target - genius

Here’s the thing last season Swansea conceded 64 goals. The most in the top 10 and only four more clubs conceded more. We will concede a similar amount. For most of the season we have had a core group of defenders of KWP, JB, THB, Bree, Manning and JS. That’s three full internationals and the England U21 captain. That’s a pretty decent group for this level and we won’t have anything comparable next season if we miss out on promotion. How on earth have we conceded the same goals as Swansea. I really think there needs to be a serious conversation whether or not we go up about how and why we have conceded so many goals with that group of players. The way the team is set up and coached seems all wrong to me and teams have clearly worked us out. They press high and put us under pressure knowing we will eventually give the ball away. They can do that without fear of us going long or over the top because we will always play out from the back because that’s ‘our’ philosophy. The fact you can have 64% possession and still concede 5 goalsand have no shots on target in a game against your promotion rivals should be a massive red flag that your football philosophy isn’t working