Other Games 23/24

[sfc4prem]

By the way, some proper pessimists on here. Take a break and get some fucking perspective. Still got a great chance of promotion this season.

[Lee On Solent Saint]

4 minutes ago, sfc4prem said:

By the way, some proper pessimists on here. Take a break and get some fucking perspective. Still got a great chance of promotion this season.

Absolutely. So what if we end up in the play offs. Pressure will be on whoever who end up facing, not just us. Hull and West Brom are beatable, even Ipswich aren't Real Madrid. I'd wager Norwich would be a tougher game.  Over two games, I'd fancy us to beat anyone. Then the final, what's not to love?

[tdmickey3]

Leeds form is incredible and credit must be given for that, it’s just losing against BC, Hull and Millwall that has cost us, we should have beaten them all.

We have also drawn against teams we should have beaten.

Now playing best players in proper positions and becoming harder to score against in the playoffs is what Martin should be doing from now on, not twatting about with formations and personnel .

One shitty loose defensive performance in the playoffs and it’s over

Question is will he learn? 

[danjosaint]

No he won't he's far to clever

[Jack]

14 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

Leeds form is incredible and credit must be given for that, it’s just losing against BC, Hull and Millwall that has cost us, we should have beaten them all.

We have also drawn against teams we should have beaten.

Now playing best players in proper positions and becoming harder to score against in the playoffs is what Martin should be doing from now on, not twatting about with formations and personnel .

One shitty loose defensive performance in the playoffs and it’s over

Question is will he learn? 

What’s wrong with Stephens playing CB when out of possession and CM when in possession, and THB playing RB out of possession and CB in possession, and us using a statue of Ryan Manning at LB instead of an actual football player? 
 

Some people need to manage their expectations IMO

[Turkish]

Who else is buzzing for the Newcastle v Tottenham friendly in Melbourne 3 days after the season ends? That is the real cup final right there.

[LaptopSaint]

Of the other three in the top four, who would you most/least like to face in the playoff final? 
I think Leicester will be shattered if they don’t go up autos… Leeds would be tense. Ipswich meh. 

[Galway saint]

you can take all this tactical crap and set fire to it.

what will get us through will be bravery and not just any old bravery but bravery on the ball.

the sort of bravery that means you refuse to hit the acres of space behind the opposition as they press us high in our own half but instead pass it sideways and backwards to your teammate putting the team under enormous pressure until we inevitably concede.

if we are brave enough we will win the play offs and if we aren’t brave enough we won’t but whatever happens, I’m sure RM will be ready go again next season to make sure we are even braver.

all this bravery crap reminds of peter cooke on clive anderson impersonating graham taylor talking about ‘motivation, motivation, motivation, the three Ms’.

[skintsaint]

Few more twists and turns to go yet, I've not given up auto promotion.......just yet.

[FarehamSaintJames]

I don’t think it’s being pessimistic, it’s being realistic.

Away from home against the top three, two of which are scoring freely at the moment, the other can switch it on and be intense when they choose to against us who are prone to recently shipping a few goals.

I think most of this will depend on if he shoehorns in Jack Stephens. If he does then we definitely won’t be making that top two which some still seem as feasible. 😅

[trousers]

4 hours ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

Leeds were seventeen points behind Leicester on New Year’s Day I just read! Mad!

Yep... And we were 13 points behind Leicester... Who, of course, were in an "unassailable" position.... 

[Saint86]

7 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

well, there we go.

 

Should still be our manager, and we should still be in the premier league. Sad times but wish him all the best!

[AlexLaw76]

6 hours ago, trousers said:

Yep... And we were 13 points behind Leicester... Who, of course, were in an "unassailable" position.... 

yep, just the 9 points and a vastly superior goal difference ahead right now.

at least we are brave though 

[Lighthouse]

7 hours ago, trousers said:

Yep... And we were 13 points behind Leicester... Who, of course, were in an "unassailable" position.... 

If Leicester hadn’t been in the cup and had beaten us at the KP this weekend, Leeds could in theory have won their only draw at Huddersfield and still been behind them in the table. That’s literally winning every game for three months and still not being top of the table.

If you need to be literally perfect for 1/3 of a league season just to be within a couple of points, I would say it’s not unreasonable to call that “unassailable”.

[CB Fry]

We've come a bloody long way from Leeds United just being a bit-part player in our glorious march to the Championship title. I thought they were just there to beat Leicester, to rein them in a bit and then stand aside for us big boys to take the title.

[Turkish]

31 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

If Leicester hadn’t been in the cup and had beaten us at the KP this weekend, Leeds could in theory have won their only draw at Huddersfield and still been behind them in the table. That’s literally winning every game for three months and still not being top of the table.

If you need to be literally perfect for 1/3 of a league season just to be within a couple of points, I would say it’s not unreasonable to call that “unassailable”.

If Millwall hadn't changed manager just before we played them we might have beaten them, If Carvhlo had chosen us instead of Hull we might have beaten them too, Then we'd only be 3 points behind Leeds with two games in hand. You can invent all the fake scenarios you want, its doesn't change the fact it could and has been done.

Edited March 18 by Turkish

[Turkish]

5 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

We've come a bloody long way from Leeds United just being a bit-part player in our glorious march to the Championship title. I thought they were just there to beat Leicester, to rein them in a bit and then stand aside for us big boys to take the title.

Same with Ipswich, they were just going to slip away quietly, stand aside a let us take our rightful place at the top of the table come May. 

[notnowcato]

18 hours ago, whelk said:

Funny how whenever a Championship side gets beat it’s a gulf in class yet ignored when the sides beat PL sides. see plank Martin Keown

Harsh on planks

[Lighthouse]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

If Millwall hadn't changed manager just before we played them we might have beaten them, If Carvhlo had chosen us instead of Hull we might have beaten them too, Then we'd only be 3 points behind Leeds with two games in hand. You can invent all the fake scenarios you want, its doesn't change the fact it could and has been done.

There’s nothing fake about the fact that Leicester have a game in hand because of the Cup and are only behind on 1 GD. If they do beat us, that still gives them a 3 point head start on an 8 game run in.

[Turkish]

28 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

There’s nothing fake about the fact that Leicester have a game in hand because of the Cup and are only behind on 1 GD. If they do beat us, that still gives them a 3 point head start on an 8 game run in.

Well it is because you're making up the outcome of results to try to prove your point. You could easily say if we hadn't thrown away a load of games, Watford, Huddersfield, Norwich where we conceded soft late equalisers and beaten Rotherham and Millwall at home and then beaten Leicester instead of your prediction of losing we'd be 5 points clear at the top with a game in hand. We didn't even need to be perfect in that scenario, we could have still lost to Hull and Bristol City. 

[OldNick]

10 hours ago, Saint86 said:

Should still be our manager, and we should still be in the premier league. Sad times but wish him all the best!

He was shot, I was recalling our FA cup semi final performance against Leicester just yesterday, no masterplan there but he was frightened to take a risk. 

[OldNick]

58 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Well it is because you're making up the outcome of results to try to prove your point. You could easily say if we hadn't thrown away a load of games, Watford, Huddersfield, Norwich where we conceded soft late equalisers and beaten Rotherham and Millwall at home and then beaten Leicester instead of your prediction of losing we'd be 5 points clear at the top with a game in hand. We didn't even need to be perfect in that scenario, we could have still lost to Hull and Bristol City. 

You could say that if we hadn't a keeper who has a terrible lack of concentration problem, we may be top 2 now. Add to that a manager who imo thinks he's very smart and tinkers with the team constantly. Leeds and Ipswich dont change winning teams.

The other thing that I dont see mentioned.

We seem to average 70+ % possession a game and score 2-3 goals the opposition have 30% and also score 2-3 goals. What would happen if they had 70% !!!!!

[Charlie Wayman]

15 hours ago, sfc4prem said:

By the way, some proper pessimists on here. Take a break and get some fucking perspective. Still got a great chance of promotion this season.

Play the ball not the man. Everyone has a different point of view. Take a chill pill!

[Turkish]

31 minutes ago, OldNick said:

You could say that if we hadn't a keeper who has a terrible lack of concentration problem, we may be top 2 now. Add to that a manager who imo thinks he's very smart and tinkers with the team constantly. Leeds and Ipswich dont change winning teams.

The other thing that I dont see mentioned.

We seem to average 70+ % possession a game and score 2-3 goals the opposition have 30% and also score 2-3 goals. What would happen if they had 70% !!!!!

Indeed. Pretending other scenarios might have played out is pointless. The fact is automatic promotion was in our own hands and it looks like we’ve screwed it

[Tamesaint]

2 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Indeed. Pretending other scenarios might have played out is pointless. The fact is automatic promotion was in our own hands and it looks like we’ve screwed it

How was automatic promotion in our own hands? 

[vectraman]

34 minutes ago, OldNick said:

You could say that if we hadn't a keeper who has a terrible lack of concentration problem, we may be top 2 now. Add to that a manager who imo thinks he's very smart and tinkers with the team constantly. Leeds and Ipswich dont change winning teams.

The other thing that I dont see mentioned.

We seem to average 70+ % possession a game and score 2-3 goals the opposition have 30% and also score 2-3 goals. What would happen if they had 70% !!!!!

I’d say we don’t score enough with our 70% possession - 2 or 3 goals per game should be 4 or 5 goals. The issue is and has been for the last 4 seasons we are weak up front. Can’t take the chances we create and we fix that by buying a forward who was already broken, to not play alongside Che barn door Adams. 
Adam Armstrong has proved he’s a decent championship striker (which we knew) but even he misses plenty. Regardless of how we go up (which we hopefully will) we would need to buy two quality strikers to have any chance of staying up, which we almost certainly can’t afford and therefore our eternal create lots can’t finish them Problem will continue. 

[Ted Bates Statue]

15 hours ago, Turkish said:

Yes they have. 

Sholing have won loads in the last ten years, but it doesn't mean people are going to get envious over their trophy cabinet.

[HKsaint]

5 minutes ago, vectraman said:

I’d say we don’t score enough with our 70% possession - 2 or 3 goals per game should be 4 or 5 goals. The issue is and has been for the last 4 seasons we are weak up front. Can’t take the chances we create and we fix that by buying a forward who was already broken, to not play alongside Che barn door Adams. 
Adam Armstrong has proved he’s a decent championship striker (which we knew) but even he misses plenty. Regardless of how we go up (which we hopefully will) we would need to buy two quality strikers to have any chance of staying up, which we almost certainly can’t afford and therefore our eternal create lots can’t finish them Problem will continue. 

RM explains: keeping possession is not for scoring goals, but for not conceding goals, my son. 

[DT]

1 hour ago, OldNick said:

He was shot, I was recalling our FA cup semi final performance against Leicester just yesterday, no masterplan there but he was frightened to take a risk. 

Bit harsh to get shot for it though

[Turkish]

42 minutes ago, Tamesaint said:

How was automatic promotion in our own hands? 

Weren’t we second not long ago with the rest of the top 3 still to play or did I make up that scenario too?

[Turkish]

53 minutes ago, Ted Bates Statue said:

Sholing have won loads in the last ten years, but it doesn't mean people are going to get envious over their trophy cabinet.

I doubt there would be as much local interest if their aim every season was 17th in the Southern League. 

[Tamesaint]

30 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Weren’t we second not long ago with the rest of the top 3 still to play or did I make up that scenario too?

You are not making any scenario up. It is a fair point and we were in the top 2 - but only for a very short period. Leicester, Leeds and Ipswich have been in the top 2 for much longer this season....and at least one of them is going to throw automatic away when it has been in their own hands. 

[Turkish]

3 minutes ago, Tamesaint said:

You are not making any scenario up. It is a fair point and we were in the top 2 - but only for a very short period. Leicester, Leeds and Ipswich have been in the top 2 for much longer this season....and at least one of them is going to throw automatic away when it has been in their own hands. 

It's quite simple. We closed the gap, We were second, we have our three direct promotional rivals to play. It was in our hands now it isn't. Despite this myth that we needed perfect form to go up we didn't. We simply needed to beat teams near the bottom and hold into leads in the last 5 minutes of games, which is what teams who go up tend to do.

Edited March 18 by Turkish

[Tamesaint]

8 minutes ago, Turkish said:

It's quite simple. We closed the gap, We were second, we have our three direct promotional rivals to play. It was in our hands now it isn't. Despite this myth that we needed perfect form to go up we didn't. We simply needed to beat teams near the bottom and hold into leads in the last 5 minutes of games, which is what teams who go up tend to do.

But all teams can make the same point. Last week for example Ipswich were leading after 95 minutes  but still lost. Leicester lost at home to QPR. Every supporter can point out instances where their team didn't win when expected or conceded last minute goals. 

In my view our defeats in September were when we lost the chance of automatic - in particular losing to Ipswich and Leicester. We were in a state of disarry then. A new system for the players to learn, players in, players out. If we don't go up this year, hopefully next September will not be as traumatic. 

[Turkish]

18 minutes ago, Tamesaint said:

But all teams can make the same point. Last week for example Ipswich were leading after 95 minutes  but still lost. Leicester lost at home to QPR. Every supporter can point out instances where their team didn't win when expected or conceded last minute goals. 

In my view our defeats in September were when we lost the chance of automatic - in particular losing to Ipswich and Leicester. We were in a state of disarry then. A new system for the players to learn, players in, players out. If we don't go up this year, hopefully next September will not be as traumatic. 

 

You are going to be dissapointed then. We will lose about 10 current first team players, the loans will go back, Armstrong and Adams are out of contract, KWP will probably finally get a better offer. So we will start next september is exactly the same place as we were this season. The run of form in september was crap, but there were still 36 games left to play when we lost at Middlesboro. Yeah teams will always lose the odd game but team that want to succeed dont usually look back at about 20% of their games in a season as game where they should have won but didn't.

Edited March 18 by Turkish

[Tamesaint]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

 

You are going to be dissapointed then. We will lose about 10 current first team players, the loans will go back, Armstrong and Adams are out of contract, KWP will probably finally get a better offer. So we will start next september is exactly the same place as we were this season. The run of form in september was crap, but there were still 36 games left to play when we lost at Middlesboro. Yeah teams will always lose the odd game but team that want to succeed dont usually look back at about 20% of their games in a season as game where they should have won but didn't.

I agree that without promotion we will lose players. There will be ins and outs but hopefully there will be no need to  introduce a new system. There should be enough players left who know what is expected of them and know how to play Russball. 

Edited March 18 by Tamesaint

[hypochondriac]

2 hours ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Play the ball not the man. Everyone has a different point of view. Take a chill pill!

Sometimes you even get a number of different points of view from the same poster...

[Lighthouse]

2 hours ago, Turkish said:

It's quite simple. We closed the gap, We were second, we have our three direct promotional rivals to play. It was in our hands now it isn't. Despite this myth that we needed perfect form to go up we didn't. We simply needed to beat teams near the bottom and hold into leads in the last 5 minutes of games, which is what teams who go up tend to do.

Of course we didn’t need perfect form, that would be preposterous. All we needed was a bog standard, straight forward 14 wins and 1 draw over the last 3 months and we’d be third in the table.

 

[FarehamSaintJames]

We blew it when we decided to tinker and shoehorn Stephens into weird positions and play the likes of Smallbone or Rothwell as holding mids when we had a perfectly capable one in Shea Charles sitting on the bench having not really put a foot wrong.

Those three defeats against poor opposition have to be tactically some of the worst decisions we’ve seen in recent years. Especially at this time of the season.

I’m sure they’ll be a lot of tinkering now because of the heavy fixture schedule - but top two - don’t hold your breath. I wouldn’t even be confident going into the play offs at the moment. 
The three above us are above us for a reason and I would see are performing a lot better than we are.

[OldNick]

3 hours ago, DT said:

Bit harsh to get shot for it though

I think he could have deserved it lol

[Patches O Houlihan]

What's even more impressive is that Leeds have only conceded 3 goals across all their league games in 2024

Edited March 18 by Patches O Houlihan

[OldNick]

15 minutes ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

We blew it when we decided to tinker and shoehorn Stephens into weird positions and play the likes of Smallbone or Rothwell as holding mids when we had a perfectly capable one in Shea Charles sitting on the bench having not really put a foot wrong.

Those three defeats against poor opposition have to be tactically some of the worst decisions we’ve seen in recent years. Especially at this time of the season.

I’m sure they’ll be a lot of tinkering now because of the heavy fixture schedule - but top two - don’t hold your breath. I wouldn’t even be confident going into the play offs at the moment. 
The three above us are above us for a reason and I would see are performing a lot better than we are.

Play offs I think are going to be fine, getting through to Wembley is a different story.

I believe the keeper has cost us too many last 5 minute goals to lose us the win, and also the mistake against Millwall put us in a bad position. Its not only him, but last season he was left in the firing line after mistake after mistake. He is young and will progress, we will take the mistakes, he will learn and then other clubs will gain from his experiences with us when he as become more polished. 

i still cant get my head around that the keeper has to be good with his feet but paper over they rarely makes a save. I truly hope Bazunu does make it to the big time but it is to a cost to us. He is still very young of course.

 

[The Cat]

38 minutes ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

We blew it when we decided to tinker and shoehorn Stephens into weird positions and play the likes of Smallbone or Rothwell as holding mids when we had a perfectly capable one in Shea Charles sitting on the bench having not really put a foot wrong.

Those three defeats against poor opposition have to be tactically some of the worst decisions we’ve seen in recent years. Especially at this time of the season.

I’m sure they’ll be a lot of tinkering now because of the heavy fixture schedule - but top two - don’t hold your breath. I wouldn’t even be confident going into the play offs at the moment. 
The three above us are above us for a reason and I would see are performing a lot better than we are.

We only lost 1 league game when Stephens started.

Charles started against Bristol City and was so poor he got dragged off at half time. That's probably why he didn't start against Hull.

"Tactically some of the worst decisions we have seen in years" is a stretch considering how bad we were last season.

Tinkering - it's called rotation and is fine when teams win but as soon as they don't the manager is accused of "being too clever". This is the most ridiculous phrase anyone uses on here because it insinuates the poster sat on their arse behind a screen knows more about football than a professionally trained manager. 

Half the posts on here make me wonder why people bother supporting a team. We've won an absolute crap load of games this year, seen some crazily exciting matches and some amazing goals.

But for some reason people don't seem to enjoy any of that and spend all their time pointing out negatives. It's very weird.

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

Of course we didn’t need perfect form, that would be preposterous. All we needed was a bog standard, straight forward 14 wins and 1 draw over the last 3 months and we’d be third in the table.

 

 What about all the other games this season though? For some reason you seem to think the season only started 14 games ago.  Done those points count? It’s absolutely preposterous to think we should be beating the team 18 points adrift at the bottom of the table at home. . Or that we should be winning going into the last few minutes against a bottom half teams when we’re leading with a few minutes to go. Enough points there to see us top with games in hand. Preposterous, absolutely preposterous 

Edited March 18 by Turkish

[Holmes_and_Watson]

21 minutes ago, The Cat said:

This is the most ridiculous phrase anyone uses on here because it insinuates the poster sat on their arse behind a screen knows more about football than a professionally trained manager.

That's a bit harsh on the data analysts, updating the coaching team as the games progress. 🙂

[washsaint]

31 minutes ago, The Cat said:

We only lost 1 league game when Stephens started.

Charles started against Bristol City and was so poor he got dragged off at half time. That's probably why he didn't start against Hull.

"Tactically some of the worst decisions we have seen in years" is a stretch considering how bad we were last season.

Tinkering - it's called rotation and is fine when teams win but as soon as they don't the manager is accused of "being too clever". This is the most ridiculous phrase anyone uses on here because it insinuates the poster sat on their arse behind a screen knows more about football than a professionally trained manager. 

Half the posts on here make me wonder why people bother supporting a team. We've won an absolute crap load of games this year, seen some crazily exciting matches and some amazing goals.

But for some reason people don't seem to enjoy any of that and spend all their time pointing out negatives. It's very weird.

10000% this - this is the most exciting season in years and we are seeing true, consistent attacking football for the first time since Nicholl (IMO).  We may not go up this year, but the entertainment value has been immense and it's lovely to actually win a load of games as opposed to trying to hold on for a valiant 1-0 defeat.

If we don't go up it's not the end of the world.  This is a proper league - the naysayers will say 'if we don't go up the team will be picked apart' and this may be true but we also have talented youngsters we can use more next season.

The Prem is not the be all and end all of everything (except money and money can't buy you happiness - it helps for sure, but it's not everything)

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Patches O Houlihan said:

What's even more impressive is that Leeds have only conceded 3 goals across all their league games in 2024

That's why they are going up automatically no problem.

Whereas we are very capable of conceding three in a single half.

[OldNick]

1 hour ago, The Cat said:

We only lost 1 league game when Stephens started.

Charles started against Bristol City and was so poor he got dragged off at half time. That's probably why he didn't start against Hull.

"Tactically some of the worst decisions we have seen in years" is a stretch considering how bad we were last season.

Tinkering - it's called rotation and is fine when teams win but as soon as they don't the manager is accused of "being too clever". This is the most ridiculous phrase anyone uses on here because it insinuates the poster sat on their arse behind a screen knows more about football than a professionally trained manager. 

Half the posts on here make me wonder why people bother supporting a team. We've won an absolute crap load of games this year, seen some crazily exciting matches and some amazing goals.

But for some reason people don't seem to enjoy any of that and spend all their time pointing out negatives. It's very weird.

Its a forum and we all think we know more than the manager.

As soon as the BC team was announced it was obvious to me we'd struggle. How many times have we weakened the team with changes for a cup game and we've then been dire? We had 2 injuries and so that was enough, to add 2 more changes just made us disjointed. 

We have won plenty of games, but have also been not clinical/professional to keep conceding a late equaliser. That is costing us. 

Iam not gagging to get back to the PL , what does it give us? A ego trip to say we are in the league that basically the media are only interested in 5 teams, where we are the whipping boys time and again. Where we find some gems who then are taken away to feed the top 5 or 6. I have been watching for many decades andso have become disillusioned with it all. 

No VAR is also a plus, I accept we will lose a lot of our best players (nothing new there, most are loans anyway) and we will be left with the dross on big contracts we cant get rid of.

[The Cat]

22 minutes ago, OldNick said:

Its a forum and we all think we know more than the manager.

As soon as the BC team was announced it was obvious to me we'd struggle. How many times have we weakened the team with changes for a cup game and we've then been dire? We had 2 injuries and so that was enough, to add 2 more changes just made us disjointed. 

We have won plenty of games, but have also been not clinical/professional to keep conceding a late equaliser. That is costing us. 

Iam not gagging to get back to the PL , what does it give us? A ego trip to say we are in the league that basically the media are only interested in 5 teams, where we are the whipping boys time and again. Where we find some gems who then are taken away to feed the top 5 or 6. I have been watching for many decades andso have become disillusioned with it all. 

No VAR is also a plus, I accept we will lose a lot of our best players (nothing new there, most are loans anyway) and we will be left with the dross on big contracts we cant get rid of.

There's countless games where the pre match thread has descended into chaos once the team selection is out only for us to end up winning.

Obviously the manager will make mistakes, they all do, but most of the time Martin has been great this season which has made it a lot of fun.

Maybe we'll go up, maybe we won't. But whatever happens the season has been very enjoyable as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Dark Munster]

39 minutes ago, The Cat said:

There's countless games where the pre match thread has descended into chaos once the team selection is out only for us to end up winning.

Obviously the manager will make mistakes, they all do, but most of the time Martin has been great this season which has made it a lot of fun.

Maybe we'll go up, maybe we won't. But whatever happens the season has been very enjoyable as far as I'm concerned.

 

In can only think of the Sunderland one. And we almost blew that match against an awful team on a big losing run.

There's been many games where the pre match thread has descended into chaos once the team selection was out, and we indeed ended up losing because of Russ's awful midfield/defense lineup.