Back From The Game Thread.

[up and away]

That wasn't the difference IMO. They had five across the middle -and three in CM. Easy to understand NA's wish not to be overrun away from home after only 10 mins-and Morgan gave us a bit more coverage. For me, it was a waste that both Jos and Fonte had to mark Maynard.

 

We have seen this several times now, give our midfield an edge and we create, give our midfield more than that and we dominate. When we don't have an edge or are playing catch up it all just stagnates because we don't have the option of pace in the right place to get something out of the game. After watching the Bristol Millwall game last week, Adomah was the one tearing holes in the opposition and for that reason I feel we should have given him special attention, lining up Chaplow on that side for support and having the option of Harding (was he fit) on the bench as cover for that job. Ricky just does not work in these conditions and Lallana becomes limited (especially when not 100%), Guly never got going. Put pace in there and we can have options.

 

Hammond has tendeccies for going off the boil for periods and I would just rest him until he is fully charged, then he does dominate. When Hammond is off the pace, I would far prefer him on the bench and Morgan into the middle, using one of the back up full backs in midfield if Chaplow is not available. Seems hard on De Ridder, but if we don't have control of midfield he will not see hardly anything of the ball anyway, best to leave him for impact.

 

In this sort of game and with that form, I don't believe there is much we can do to influence matters. Best to keep things tight and rely upon a set peice to break the dead lock. Take the good when it's there and just accept these things will happen occasionally. One thing that intrigued were Adkins comments about how exceptionally well things had gone in training during the week. I don't expect we left the performance on the training ground but it was a major puzzle to Adkins.

[Window Cleaner]

Personally thought Fox had a nightmare in the second half. On two occasions he backed off over 10 yards and still couldn't stop Adomah who reminded me of AOC. Hope there aren't too many more fast tricky wingers around.

 

Our Left side causing problems then, Fox isn't as good a defender as Harding (my opinion of course) but he's vastly superior going forward.If the whole left side being troubled by a decent wide player then Fox can't contribute as much to the attack.

A lot of our goals have come from crosses from our full backs and if they're pinned down then we're probably going to come up short.

[Saint_John]

From Dave Merrington's commentary, I got the impression that we should have brought another winger on (i.e. De Ridder) for Chaplow instead of Schneiderlin....

That a BIG problem I have with Dave, he gets ONE thing in his mind and repeats it every few mins.

 

For example last year at Charlton we had both Adam & Alex taken off injured and Dave went ON and ON and ON about getting Jason back from his loan (it wasn't possible because of the terms of the loan), but Dave kept repeating the same thing over and over again.

 

Yesterday he kept going on about bringing on Steve instead of Morgan (after 5 mins). He must have mentioned it at least 20 times yesterday and has since been repeated by a few on here as "the reason" for the defeat.

 

The balanced view from him should have been to say that it would have left us OUTNUMBERED in central midfield by 3-2 and if we lost the central midfield battle it could had been a bigger defeat. (I can remember back in AP days where we played with 2 wide players and only 2 CENTRAL midfield players we had lots of problems playing against sides like swindon because they used to pack the central midfield with 3 players, from memory our results were 0-1, 0-3 and (DW manager) 0-3, 0-1 before Nigel came in and COMPETED for central midfield against sides like that).

 

imo Dave has a big problem sometimes because he only has ONE IDEA and there are often another view point to his against his argument, but it never gets mentioned.

[Window Cleaner]

That a BIG problem I have with Dave, he gets ONE thing in his mind and repeats it every few mins.

 

For example last year at Charlton we had both Adam & Alex taken off injured and Dave went ON and ON and ON about getting Jason back from his loan (it wasn't possible because of the terms of the loan), but Dave kept repeating the same thing over and over again.

 

Yesterday he kept going on about bringing on Steve instead of Morgan (after 5 mins). He must have mentioned it at least 20 times yesterday and has since been repeated by a few on here as "the reason" for the defeat.

 

The balanced view from him should have been to say that it would have left us OUTNUMBERED in central midfield by 3-2 and if we lost the central midfield battle it could had been a bigger defeat. (I can remember back in AP days where we played with 2 wide players and only 2 CENTRAL midfield players we had lots of problems playing against sides like swindon because they used to pack the central midfield with 3 players, from memory our results were 0-1, 0-3 and (DW manager) 0-3, 0-1 before Nigel came in and COMPETED for central midfield against sides like that).

 

imo Dave has a big problem sometimes because he only has ONE IDEA and there are often another view point to his against his argument, but it never gets mentioned.

 

Anyway didn't Morgan set up Lallana with a very smart piece of play only a few minutes after he came on,the manager can't

foretell that our (in theory) guiding light can't bury a sitter.We created quite a few chances apparently once again we couldn't take them.Isn't that what got us relegated the last time we were in the Championship? James made some decent saves, don't think Kelvin had much to do.

[redder freak]

That a BIG problem I have with Dave, he gets ONE thing in his mind and repeats it every few mins.

 

For example last year at Charlton we had both Adam & Alex taken off injured and Dave went ON and ON and ON about getting Jason back from his loan (it wasn't possible because of the terms of the loan), but Dave kept repeating the same thing over and over again.

 

Yesterday he kept going on about bringing on Steve instead of Morgan (after 5 mins). He must have mentioned it at least 20 times yesterday and has since been repeated by a few on here as "the reason" for the defeat.

 

The balanced view from him should have been to say that it would have left us OUTNUMBERED in central midfield by 3-2 and if we lost the central midfield battle it could had been a bigger defeat. (I can remember back in AP days where we played with 2 wide players and only 2 CENTRAL midfield players we had lots of problems playing against sides like swindon because they used to pack the central midfield with 3 players, from memory our results were 0-1, 0-3 and (DW manager) 0-3, 0-1 before Nigel came in and COMPETED for central midfield against sides like that).

 

imo Dave has a big problem sometimes because he only has ONE IDEA and there are often another view point to his against his argument, but it never gets mentioned.

Thanks for explaining that!

[shurlock]

Anyway didn't Morgan set up Lallana with a very smart piece of play only a few minutes after he came on,the manager can't

foretell that our (in theory) guiding light can't bury a sitter.We created quite a few chances apparently once again we couldn't take them.Isn't that what got us relegated the last time we were in the Championship? James made some decent saves, don't think Kelvin had much to do.

 

We created much less than we did -say at Cardiff. I counted five or six -Lallana's saved shot, the blocked shot, Schneiderlin's overhit through ball which should have put Guly through 1 on 1 but sent him wide, Fonte's free header, Fonte's pullback for Guly in the 6 yard box which he had to dig out and De Ridder's shot just inside the box. In reality, some of these were only half chances.

[Window Cleaner]

We created much less than we did -say at Cardiff. I counted five or six -Lallana's saved shot, the blocked shot, Schneiderlin's overhit through ball which should have put Guly through 1 on 1 but sent him wide, Fonte's free header, Fonte's pullback for Guly in the 6 yard box which he had to dig out and De Ridder's shot just inside the box. In reality, some of these were only half chances.

 

Nothing at all for Lambert then? must have been a disappointing day for him.

[shurlock]

Nothing at all for Lambert then? must have been a disappointing day for him.

 

I might be wrong but I cant remember him having a shot.

 

Of course, he plays in a deeper role to begin with and is busy supplying others -one reason why he probably doesn't get as many goals from open play as he could (and why I think he would work well with a player like LJ). But yesterday, and not enjoying much in the air, he was dropping deeper and deeper -at times, picking the ball up from our CBs.

[up and away]

That a BIG problem I have with Dave, he gets ONE thing in his mind and repeats it every few mins.

 

For example last year at Charlton we had both Adam & Alex taken off injured and Dave went ON and ON and ON about getting Jason back from his loan (it wasn't possible because of the terms of the loan), but Dave kept repeating the same thing over and over again.

 

Yesterday he kept going on about bringing on Steve instead of Morgan (after 5 mins). He must have mentioned it at least 20 times yesterday and has since been repeated by a few on here as "the reason" for the defeat.

 

The balanced view from him should have been to say that it would have left us OUTNUMBERED in central midfield by 3-2 and if we lost the central midfield battle it could had been a bigger defeat. (I can remember back in AP days where we played with 2 wide players and only 2 CENTRAL midfield players we had lots of problems playing against sides like swindon because they used to pack the central midfield with 3 players, from memory our results were 0-1, 0-3 and (DW manager) 0-3, 0-1 before Nigel came in and COMPETED for central midfield against sides like that).

 

imo Dave has a big problem sometimes because he only has ONE IDEA and there are often another view point to his against his argument, but it never gets mentioned.

 

Whistling Dave has to be about the worst commentator out there, with only his affection for Saints keeping him in there. Going back to a time when we had a choice, Flash was like night and day in comparison.

 

Dave has this soft spot for Kelvin which regularly produces dividends when he goes into praise mode. I remember one evening game last season (?) where he was praising Kelvin for coming off his line so quickly 5 minutes earlier, acting as another defender for balls played over the top. Before he could finish the sentence he was interrupted by the commentary "they've played a ball over the top, Kelvin hesitated and it's in the back of the net." We then lose Dave for 5 minutes as he takes in everything going on around him.

 

You get to like anyone that keeps bringing you good news as we have had of late, but Dave is a poor man's Sid Waddell, without the charisma.

[Ian the Red]

Think everyone is missing a couple of points here: BC scored two hugely deflected goals apart from that what did Davies have to do except failed to hold a cross? Fonte missed an absolute sitter, Lambert had no service, hardly receiving the ball in any areas that were dangerous; Guly was simply poor: Hammond was worst; AL tried to over complicate; we did not have any width until SDR came on and overrall we played very poorly. We have lost; we didnt deserve to win. In my opinion NA needs to freshen up the starting line up on Tuesday.

 

Worst performance this season for me, maybe we were a little over confident, maybe we trying to walk the ball into the net too often, maybe BC closed us down too quickly. We were due a poor performance and now we had it so it is very important to put in a performance on Tuesday.

[Stu Man Do]

Personally I thought we could have moved Guly to Right Mid and SDR to play alongside Lambo to give us some pace. For me MS is not dynamic enough to do the job Chappie has been doing for us and this stunted our entire game plan.

[cambsaint]

Although I don't see many games I'm a little worried.

Reading we should have lost; Coventry turned the tables on us and Bristol beat us and according to all reports dominated.

All the other managers will be watching and it looks as if we have a weakness agianst being closed down aggressively, and against pacey forwards.

If we are serious about promotion this year then imo we need to try to buy a couple of class players in Jan, pref a good central defender and a fast attacking midfielder.

If we get up then they are even more necessary.

I hope this doesn't appear negative, but we must guard against complacency-this team isn't the finished article.

[JRM]

My biggest concern about this game is i can see skates away being very similar to Bristol City, type of ground, atmosphere and team who will get at us, must admit i am worried about it and can see us losing unless we can show more fight on the road

[Nutwood2]

I blame their 'pom pom' girls. They deliberately took Guly's mind off the job in hand and it worked a treat! Good to see Kip Keino there. Legend! We were poor. Can't afford to stroll around like that again. Onwards and upwards on Tuesday.