Positives and negatives v Palace

SOD had all the short blokes in midfield.
We now have a bunch who aren't quite good enough.

Cook used to be creative and change defence into attack, last season he really showed some promise. But I don't think he is good enough in the top division. He and Lerma looked good together earlier in the season. Lerma looked great on front of the centre backs.

Problem yesterday seemed to me that there wasn't a system. The players looked lost. There were various conversations between players throughout the game. If there isn't a clear system then the whole thing falls apart.

No Neto. Mepham out having played so well alongside Senesi, that's 2 missing out of a strong triangle.

Zemura having to rely on Billing and trust him to cover is a risk. It meant that side was vulnerable.

Bringing in new players with no system will be problematic.

Tuesday is important in terms of how we lose.
 
Did the park run this morning. Jogging past the training building saw big Fletch on his own looking down from the balcony. I shouted up "hope you've got that lot in after yesterday, they need to be" he looked back, nodded, half turned and pointed in to the room with a look of 'they are in here right now getting an absolute b*locking". Kind of made me feel better as I tried to shake off my hangover...
 
RobTrent said:
Its funny how you can see most things clearly except those that don't align with your view.

Even despite relegation our number of changes at a managerial level are no different to most other clubs. And the changes are the stick you use to beat them with.

I'm adding context to your point.
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Rob it’s simple. We changed from managerial control to CEO control and a director of football appointing a head coach two summers ago. Since then we’ve moved on 4 people at an average of one every 7 months. Other than maybe Watford who else has done that? Putting up a 13 year thing which dates back to when we had Eddie Mitchell in charge is completely irrelevant. None of the current board originally appointed Howe or even the board before that.
 
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langham said:
Yes - good points but the key acquisition for me is a creative midfielder. We’re not moving the ball through the “middle third”; rather we surrender it quickly, putting the defence under pressure time and again. If Rothwell’s not the answer let’s upgrade - this is one position for which it’s worth spending ££££ - or should that be $$$$?
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and a Captain that leads, encourages, berates when necessary
 
fritter said:
SOD had all the short blokes in midfield.
We now have a bunch who aren't quite good enough.

Cook used to be creative and change defence into attack, last season he really showed some promise. But I don't think he is good enough in the top division. He and Lerma looked good together earlier in the season. Lerma looked great on front of the centre backs.

Problem yesterday seemed to me that there wasn't a system. The players looked lost. There were various conversations between players throughout the game. If there isn't a clear system then the whole thing falls apart.

No Neto. Mepham out having played so well alongside Senesi, that's 2 missing out of a strong triangle.

Zemura having to rely on Billing and trust him to cover is a risk. It meant that side was vulnerable.

Bringing in new players with no system will be problematic.

Tuesday is important in terms of how we lose.
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The worrying thing for me is it’s the third time this season, Leeds and Chelsea too, that I’ve seen open disdain from the players on the pitch to the bench standing with arms out stretched and shouting at the manager. Once that happens the whole thing is collapsing. Never saw that with any of our half decent managers let alone the decent ones. The formation we had at the end with Lowe and Dembele in central midfield and us launching the ball anywhere was as amateur as I’ve seen here since Quinn. Even Groves had a system you could see and understand (just one not suitable to the players he had). Looking like a pub team in the PL is not acceptable.
 
Neil Dawson said:
The worrying thing for me is it’s the third time this season, Leeds and Chelsea too, that I’ve seen open disdain from the players on the pitch to the bench standing with arms out stretched and shouting at the manager. Once that happens the whole thing is collapsing. Never saw that with any of our half decent managers let alone the decent ones. The formation we had at the end with Lowe and Dembele in central midfield and us launching the ball anywhere was as amateur as I’ve seen here since Quinn. Even Groves had a system you could see and understand (just one not suitable to the players he had). Looking like a pub team in the PL is not acceptable.
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I understand in the end when desperate players are played out of position with the hope something comes off . However to start games with players clearly out of position or players shoehorned in is just totally wrong .
Billing doesn’t want to play out on the left , he wants to be more centrally where he can influence the game. Our best combination is zemura and Anthony on the left . Our right side admittedly offers hardly any threat whatsoever at the moment.
 
Neil Dawson said:
Rob it’s simple. We changed from managerial control to CEO control and a director of football appointing a head coach two summers ago. Since then we’ve moved on 4 people at an average of one every 7 months. Other than maybe Watford who else has done that? Putting up a 13 year thing which dates back to when we had Eddie Mitchell in charge is completely irrelevant. None of the current board originally appointed Howe or even the board before that.
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You're right it is pretty simple. Since then we've got promoted to the premier league, have started well and have apparently attracted the investment we've all been crying out for. It's been a brilliant two and a half years by anyone's standards.
 
AlGard said:
It's been a while
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That's a positive, not that you haven't posted for a while but that you're still here to post : )

Another big happy positive was seeing David Brooks out kicking a ball about at half time. Not because he might be back soon but because it looks like he's put that wretched disease behind him. Must be great for him, his family and friends ( as well as us supporters ) : )

Ps, no pressure David but after yesterday they're getting a huge searchlight with a number 7 silhouette on it. Don't be surprised to see it lighting up the Boscombe sky from about 10 o'clock Tuesday night : )
 
SlowDownDerek said:
You're right it is pretty simple. Since then we've got promoted to the premier league, have started well and have apparently attracted the investment we've all been crying out for. It's been a brilliant two and a half years by anyone's standards.
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With the squad we had at the start of that journey it’s not an achievement
 
bpl234 said:
It’s hard to judge Rothwell based on a few cameo appearance.
The Cook and Lerma combination is like 2 players playing 1 role . To dominate the game and to get forward quicker you need centre mids to demand the ball from the defenders and then have the quality and ability to be creative.
I think many are blindsided due to the cook winning the youth cup all those years ago and Lerma for his heroic tackles and the odd shi@housery he does .
We barely dominated a game in the middle last season and this season we are so far off it , it untrue
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This .
 
kirsikka said:
Warning: Rant incoming. Look away now if you're rather not hear it.

************ RANT ************
This is a brave new world, under new owners and with a new permanent manager. Playing against a team out of form who we should be looking to get a win against. And yet we STILL AREN'T PLAYING OUR BEST ATTACKING COMBINATION. I'm moved to capitals.

All last season almost everything good came from the JZ, JA, PB triangle. Yet, somehow we seem desperate to not play them. It's almost like some kind of contract stand off where we're determined to prove we don't need them so they should accept our lowball offer. Screw that. Double what we've offered and start playing them together again. We do need them. And we need them working together.

Last season all of Anthony's poorest games were on the right. So when I saw the line up I wasn't sure how it was going to be arranged but I was delighted that GON had decided to try and play to our attacking strengths against Palace with JA on the left. Oh ****************. He's on the right.

Having a manager learning on the job is one thing. However, he's been here long enough to know when we look our best attacking teams. And it isn't with Anthony on the blimmin' right wing and Billing wandering around like a lost school boy.

I was very dubious about the GON appointment and I'm already looking to see who will come in next. After one damn match. Because if he couldn't work out the best way to get at Palace was the JA in front of JZ then he's not got much football insight about him. If he can't see that JA on the right is almost always a poor bet (10 minutes to shore things up, sure. Starting? No) then what has he been watching the last 18 months?

Above was hammered out on a loudly clanking keyboard due to aggressive typing at half time. We did switch JA to the left for thirty minutes. Probably our best spell of the game was included there, helped by Dembele also offering something on the other side.

************ END OF RANT ************

Actually I'm not done ranting. Lots more where that came from.

Not every team sashays their way to PL safety. Some teams grind and take advantage of their opportunities. We may not have the quality in the squad others have so we need to be efficient. That means being tight defending set pieces and being clever in taking advantage of ours. We're the absolute opposite. I think my Over 50s team (I only train with them... not quite old enough to play for a few years yet) would be confident of scoring a corner against us. Before today we had to worst record for conceding against corners in the PL this season. Now there's two more. This has been highlighted time and again, week after week, so whatever is happening on the training ground isn't working.

Here's an idea. Rather than being all Vegas Moneybags about signing new players, how about we lash a load of cash on bringing in a top quality set pieces coach? Despite us not being all that great this season, if we could keep out corners, or even only concede from a moderate amount, we'd probably be midtable. That's how pisspoor the lower half of the league has been so far. And if we knew how to take a set piece and corner... it'd be heady times.

The ref was an absolute first class prick. Couldn't wait to blow up every time Ayew felt a blade of grass against his boot but denied us a clear penalty. Again. VAR did it's usual thing. **************** that ********************************. Then he books Kelly for stopping them taking a throw quickly but lets Palace players get away with it repeatedly when we want to take quick free kicks. Not once, but multiple times. One of them literally stuck his boot out to stop the ball. Nothing. ****************. Also didn't book Zaha for collapsing clasping his face like he'd been elbowed when the replay showed there was no contact at all. Usual stuff from Zaha. Took the ref until the 87th minute to book a Palace player. I'm sure that was a big warning for them to stop all the dirty tactics. Meanwhile, he couldn't wait to get the book out for our players.

Palace will not have an easier three points this season. Feels like I've said that before about us this season, but for other teams. I'm sure I have, in fact. We aren't tigers battling for every ball. We aren't tricksters baffling the opposition with silky skills. We aren't pace merchants zipping onto channel balls. What are we when we go forward? Nothing based on today. There's no identity and the refusal to try and rebuild the successful partnership of last season, especially now Tavernier is out, is madness.

Right now I imagine Foley is feeling the billionaire equivalent of a normal person driving off the second hand car lot with what they thought was a bargain only for the exhaust to drop off 50m down the road and they realise they've bought a lemon. I hope he knows a good mechanic.

Palace didn't win today. We lost.

--- Positive performances ----

Smith
Zaha is usually a big problem for us but Smith had him in his pocket almost the whole game. So much so that Zaha ended up swapping around to try and get joy elsewhere. The one time Zaha did get away from him, near the end, he put in a brilliant block to deflect the shot over. A performance Zemura should watch back and learn from

Dembele
Added some action and eagerness. It wasn't all good but at least he asked some questions.

---- Room for improvement ----

Zemura
A learning experience for him out there today. Defensively he simply wasn't good enough. All their attacking threat in the first half was coming through his side, often due to poor positional awareness.

Lerma and Cook
They were both so sloppy out there. Constantly mishitting passes or misjudging the ball. Offering so little on the transition from defence through the centre of the field we often ended up hitting it long. And on that...

Senesi
I'll have nightmares watching him repeatedly hit the ball into the channel for Moore to chase, as if KM was Solanke. When he did hit it long to Moore's head, it was overhit.

GON watch:
I don't know what to say. He looked clueless out there. It was one of the least threatening performances I can remember when playing against a team who were equally poor. He needs to get a grip of the situation quickly. And bring in some top quality coaches to support him, especially with set pieces.
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I agree with all that bar Cook. He was arguably our best player after Smith.
 
Neil Dawson said:
The worrying thing for me is it’s the third time this season, Leeds and Chelsea too, that I’ve seen open disdain from the players on the pitch to the bench standing with arms out stretched and shouting at the manager. Once that happens the whole thing is collapsing. Never saw that with any of our half decent managers let alone the decent ones. The formation we had at the end with Lowe and Dembele in central midfield and us launching the ball anywhere was as amateur as I’ve seen here since Quinn. Even Groves had a system you could see and understand (just one not suitable to the players he had). Looking like a pub team in the PL is not acceptable.
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Agree completely, when it goes wrong we look that bad very quickly.
Interesting reading the match programme yesterday- full of players talking in effusive terms about GON and how great he is and how happy they all are - it doesn’t look it at all ….
The opposite in fact .
Worrying .
 
Neil Dawson said:
With the squad we had at the start of that journey it’s not an achievement
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Of course it's an achievement. The last ten years have been the best we've ever had. By your measure the fact that were aren't rock bottom with what you'd be describing as "the worst squad in the league" if it suited your agenda is a massive achievement.

More than anything else we needed massive outside investment if we want the club to get to the next level. It appears that this is what we have achieved therefore the current people have done what we needed them to. They either succeed now under the new owner or they get replaced. Seriously, who gives a toss what happens to Blake and Hughes other than people who have a weird obsession with them?
 
Reflecting more on yesterday, the second half actually gave me massive 09/10 vs Chester and Barnet under Quinn vibes. Launching hopeful balls to a totally isolated forward and just hoping that something would happen, just replace Connell and Tubbs with Moore. It really isn’t an exaggeration to say that it was that bad.
 
KingKieffer said:
Reflecting more on yesterday, the second half actually gave me massive 09/10 vs Chester and Barnet under Quinn vibes. Launching hopeful balls to a totally isolated forward and just hoping that something would happen, just replace Connell and Tubbs with Moore. It really isn’t an exaggeration to say that it was that bad.
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Well, Quinn tried to bring in more suitable personnel up front. Rankine (who was a sub at non-league Rushden and Diamonds) and Blair Sturrock from Swindon (one of those players that follows their dad around and yet never actually gets near the 1st team...).

At least when we signed the usual unknown/untried youngsters on loan each year from West Ham or whoever, you had some hope they may be the next Defoe, Duberry, Ferdinand etc. When you're signing non league reserves and lower league journeymen with hardly any professional appearances or goals to their name in their mid twenties... I was concerned to say the least!

Gosh they were worrying times. Sleep walking into the non league. Thank god we took swift action in replacing the fool.
 
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