Galway saint

I’m not sure if it’s the players or direction from the coaches but it was very apparent last night for a couple of the goals that the defenders were standing off.

what can you say after that shit show?

I think the problem is the system assumes you have players who are very comfortable on the ball and are excellent off the ball. We have good players but they aren’t Man City level. We have now conceded over 60 goals and we have conceded 3 or more 9 times in a season. That’s beyond abysmal. I really don’t understand a footballing philosophy that can see you have 67% possession yet concede 5 goals and have none on target. That suggests you don’t know what to do with the ball nor what to do when you don’t have the ball. It’s becoming now very apparent that any half decent side will typically score 2 plus goals against us and that means we are in deep trouble. We need to move it far more quickly but the midfield is a total cluster fuck really. Maybe try downes, charles and aribo to give us some backbone and move it forward though them far more quickly how many times do we make subs and it falls apart into some shapeless mess? i’ve lost count

Spot on - we lose the ball so often between the 18 yard line and half way and once we do we are overrun it’s panic stations

the midfield has been the problem all season with the lack of control against decent sides

that’s really good news

When you look at the bench if he’s not prepared to use Charles we have no other DM options so can’t change tack if we are under the coach. That’s a product of recruitment. FD is a good player but he’s not Kante and we should have found someone comparable with the resources we have. Instead of recruiting 85 wingers we would have been better off recruiting another decent DM, if RM didn’t fancy Charles. I don’t know if that’s down to RM or Wilcox or both. Equally I don’t know if RM would be prepared to change his approach but we are very brittle unless we are on the front foot and which you can’t be all the time.

More gutted about this than the result for some reason. He’s been a good player ( not great but good) for us and I enjoyed watching him play. He showed his quality in the Preston game where he looked a class apart. Made the goal look easy. If he’s played his late game for us then best of luck to him - would have been nice for him to sign off in the play of final but wasn’t to be.

I’m just not sure a 4-3-3 formation provides a solid defensive platform. It’s the midfield that’s the problem for me that when we are going forward it’s feet but going the other way not so good.

Gutted about that result and for Stu. Feels very flat. We should have been out of sight in the first half and you can’t blame RM for the team missing so many opportunities. Looking ahead to the play offs the second half of games are becoming a problem for us as we cant sustain our performance for 90 minutes ( or even 60) and RM is too wedded to 4-3-3 to shut up shop. Really needs to be more pragmatic. We are too often descending into a bit of a shapeless mess post subs. It doesn’t feel like there is any great plan beyond get a couple of fresh wingers on and take Aribo off. Maybe that’s all the personnel allows for but I still don’t think we have the right blend and structure in midfield for that final third of the game. Can you see us beating a decent side over two legs ? Maybe but at the moment we are likely to concede 3 or 4 over the two legs on current form and we too often cave under pressure - again I think that’s the formation as much as anything

We can either play Lumley or AM for the next few games. Baz is out of the picture for 10 months and we are going to have to buy a new keeper next season whatever league we are in so it’s unfortunate for Baz but I think it accelerates the inevitable need to buy a new keeper because Baz in my view isn’t a top level keeper

time will tell how AM does but I can’t see we are losing much in goalkeeping terms as Baz was performing well below standard and it might mean we are now more direct from the back

Hopefully this means we are more direct with our play out from the back - certainly looked so last night

He was nothing short of sensational tonight

some half of football

come on !

decent team and looks the most balanced - maybe swap fraser for brooks

We are trying to implement the city model with on the whole championship players

preston away was a decent save. apart from that and WBA can’t recall others but could be wrong. he started out as an outfield player and that what he still looks like to me. he’s part of the ‘possession’ based football philosophy that we have invented at saints where being good at distribution is more important than keeping the ball out of the net

agreed to some degree and you can’t have it your own way all the time but it’s a pattern that repeats itself so it’s worth considering why if we want to improve as a team

What I don’t get it’s how we can go so quickly go from being in control of a game to it being panic stations and backs to the walls. Even in a game at 2-0 we are a ten minute spell away from all the good work being undone. Not sure if that’s the players or RM. I think a lot of it is to do with the midfield set up and formation and it’s been a problem for some time. We struggle to control games and we should be able to do better with the players we have. Even against sides like Birmingham and Huddersfield it was seat of the pants stuff. All the subs post 60 mins don’t help team cohesion either.

watched the second a few times and it’s not one of his worst ( from the angles i’ve seen) but yet another to file in the ‘ could have done better’ category. i can’t remember the last time he made a decent save - WBA away perhaps. seems the club and management are happy with a keeper who doesn’t make saves and lets in a lot of goals he should keep out. i like blackmore but on solent today he said that baz was good with his feet and a good shotstopper but was not confident coming off his line. where on earth has he seen evidence of good shot stopping. we are now nearly two years into this folly and hopefully we won’t make it a third but I’m far from convinced. we just need to cut our losses as a decent replacement would be an easy way to cut the number of goals we concede.

that’s a great post - sums it’s up. last time we properly controlled a game was WBA but as you say we won and we are back in it if we beat preston on tuesday

incredible stuff

win next two and we are back in it