Thoughts v Boro

We just seem to have lost some confidence and energy… our predictable passing at times gives the opposition an easy read to block the ball or cut out a pass..Travers is improving all the time…Stacey plays as if he has no footballing brain…Cahill exposed to pace and balls over the top…Kelly still not the finished article and gets caught out too often..Zemura good as he is gets knocked off the ball too easily…Christie has so much ability but sadly not in his finishing!..Kilkenny battles well and is improving but at this time he lacks some passing precision…Lewis Cook is looking just average at present…Billing is enigmatic and is carrying a knock but the look of it today…Anthony is still raw and looks lightweight mostly…Solanke needs a partner but he looks our best player IMO…today we lacked fluency and inventiveness to break down a mid table side…
 
from the start - choosing backward, slow passes rather than progressive forward passing with tempo. too many percentage/very tricky balls down the wings, which we then dont win. very poor finishing with very presentable, game changing chances - the sort we were taking to turn games around, often against the run of play, on our good run early in the season.

travs looked great.
 
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I don't have any idea what the answers are, buy have more confidence in Parker compared to tindall or woodgate. If next couple of performances are similar I will become more concerned.

Let's see how we perform when most who've been out have played some more games.

Concern is sides have now worked us. Hopefully we can respond.

This is where Parker will need to demonstrate his credentials as more people becoming despondent, questioning him as manager, as we can see from this forum alone.will be an interesting atmosphere if there's little to no improvement by this time next month.
 
Really indebted to the Boro fans for unfurling their anti Sky Sports banner. The solidarity was very much appreciated.
Impossible to start the “this place is a **************** hole, I wanna go home” chant after that.
 
Practically the same team, look at the players driving forward........today slow, safe and backward..................


Thst game gave me the impression we were the real deal. Was an incredible, complete display as ive seen in a long time..

qCommentators/pundits were declaring we were better than last years Norwich after that.

Amazing how things can change.
 
Injuries to crucial positions knackered us. Now we’re getting bodies back in, we need to rekindle the verve we had circa Bristol.
This is where Parker earns his cash.
I’m confident someone is going to get the full brunt of Bournemouth’s reawakening soon enough. QPR perhaps?
 
We're starting to get back to something that looks first 11-esq on paper, and I'm sure a result will come soon.

My concern though is that further disruptions through injuries etc are inevitable, and we've seemed to forgotten how to win games without that consistent 11 we got into the run of form with.

Parker and co will need to come up with answers from the wider squad as the season goes on. And a bit of variety wouldn't go amiss, we're a little predictable.

The number of times today we'd have a nice looking buildup only for a dodgy touch, bounce of the ball, a bobble, ricochet etc to break the move down. Every deflection seemed to fall into the path of a Boro player. Think back to Coventry equaliser, the offside Blackburn opener, we've lost the lucky touch. But it will turn. We just need a break.
 
Our patterns of play are too predictable. Across the back to a fullback and then to the feet of the winger facing his own goal, with our fullback under lapping. We have been sussed. They press at this point and we struggle. We need better and more variety of movement.
This is an incredibly good point. We are very reliant on combination play in the wide areas to create anything, like you say, opposition sides have sussed this out and put a lot of work into shutting down these areas. Solanke has been great this season, but he doesn’t really hold the ball up and he’s not comfortable running the channels, the result is that there is no real way to mix up our play to provide variety. We played fantastic football in the promotion season, but we were often afforded the space to do that because teams were so terrified of the threat Wilson posed with his pace in behind.
We also don’t have any creativity in the middle of the park, meaning that when the wide areas are shut down, we are not comfortable progressing the ball through the middle of the pitch. In all honesty these were issues that we had even during our good run to varying degrees, we were just ridiculously prolific with the chances that did come our way and managed to limit the goals going in at the other end (often through luck.) I was mocked when I said that XG would even out over the season, unfortunately I seem to have been right.
 
This is an incredibly good point. We are very reliant on combination play in the wide areas to create anything, like you say, opposition sides have sussed this out and put a lot of work into shutting down these areas. Solanke has been great this season, but he doesn’t really hold the ball up and he’s not comfortable running the channels, the result is that there is no real way to mix up our play to provide variety. We played fantastic football in the promotion season, but we were often afforded the space to do that because teams were so terrified of the threat Wilson posed with his pace in behind.
We also don’t have any creativity in the middle of the park, meaning that when the wide areas are shut down, we are not comfortable progressing the ball through the middle of the pitch. In all honesty these were issues that we had even during our good run to varying degrees, we were just ridiculously prolific with the chances that did come our way and managed to limit the goals going in at the other end (often through luck.) I was mocked when I said that XG would even out over the season, unfortunately I seem to have been right.

A bit odd really, centre of the park thing, when you consider the quality/depth we have there.

Hopefully cook can offer more once up to speed and lerma returns.

I know Pearson isn't known for flair, creativity as such, but he seems to have lost his way a bit after being rock solid previously, dare I say... reliable even. At least when available.
 
A bit odd really, centre of the park thing, when you consider the quality/depth we have there.

Hopefully cook can offer more once up to speed and lerma returns.

I know Pearson isn't known for flair, creativity as such, but he seems to have lost his way a bit after being rock solid previously, dare I say... reliable even. At least when available.
I don't know what to make of Lewis. A mate of mine who follows Leeds home and away was always a massive fan of his. After watching us on TV recently he said "what the f#ck have you lot done with Lewis Cook ? " I mumbled something about injuries, to which he replied " it's got nothing to do with injuries, you've coached all of the flair out of his game, I don't recognise him anymore. "
 
This is an incredibly good point. We are very reliant on combination play in the wide areas to create anything, like you say, opposition sides have sussed this out and put a lot of work into shutting down these areas. Solanke has been great this season, but he doesn’t really hold the ball up and he’s not comfortable running the channels, the result is that there is no real way to mix up our play to provide variety. We played fantastic football in the promotion season, but we were often afforded the space to do that because teams were so terrified of the threat Wilson posed with his pace in behind.
We also don’t have any creativity in the middle of the park, meaning that when the wide areas are shut down, we are not comfortable progressing the ball through the middle of the pitch. In all honesty these were issues that we had even during our good run to varying degrees, we were just ridiculously prolific with the chances that did come our way and managed to limit the goals going in at the other end (often through luck.) I was mocked when I said that XG would even out over the season, unfortunately I seem to have been right.
Here we go Xg, we had higher xg in games we lost, but you use it only in the games we won. So no your not right, amazing how your twist everything to suit your argument, except when it doesn't
 
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A bit odd really, centre of the park thing, when you consider the quality/depth we have there.

Hopefully cook can offer more once up to speed and lerma returns.

I know Pearson isn't known for flair, creativity as such, but he seems to have lost his way a bit after being rock solid previously, dare I say... reliable even. At least when available.
Centre of park issues intrigue me. On paper we have great players there but all very similar non scoring holding midfielders with the exception of Billing who has ran himself into the ground and Marcondes who he doesn’t seem to trust. He either needs to play two holding midfielders as he has plenty and free Billing from tracking back or play Marcondes with Billing. At the moment we try and shoehorn one of Cook, Lerma or Pearson into a more advanced role they are just not equipped for.

That’s not all Parker’s fault as he didn’t sign any defensive midfielders, perma tan liked collecting them. But he probably needs to warm to Emiliano or go sign another scoring midfielder, or play two holders. And quickly!
 
Perma tan was gone by the time Pearson arrived,all the non goalscoring holding mids were signed by Eddie.

Marcondes is a strange one,Parker wasn't in the building when he was signed ,doesn't seem to trust him as you say,but whenever he comes on ,looks bright and forward thinking ,and has actually netted on his debut.

I thought he would come on today to help out Billing but now Parker seems to be getting minutes into Bradys legs.
 
Here we go Xg, we had higher xg in games we lost, but you use it only in the games we won. So no your not right, amazing how your twist everything to suit your argument, except when it doesn't
No I’m using it as a whole, our results over the season have us in and around 10th position. That includes the games where we had a higher XG than the opposition too, just in case you didn’t understand. Amazing how you fail to understand even the most basic of arguments.
 
Centre of park issues intrigue me. On paper we have great players there but all very similar non scoring holding midfielders with the exception of Billing who has ran himself into the ground and Marcondes who he doesn’t seem to trust. He either needs to play two holding midfielders as he has plenty and free Billing from tracking back or play Marcondes with Billing. At the moment we try and shoehorn one of Cook, Lerma or Pearson into a more advanced role they are just not equipped for.

That’s not all Parker’s fault as he didn’t sign any defensive midfielders, perma tan liked collecting them. But he probably needs to warm to Emiliano or go sign another scoring midfielder, or play two holders. And quickly!
Agree. We have many good deeper lying midfielders but a severe lack of advanced midfielders with a creative spark. Even Billing is more of a second striker than a creative midfielder. It was widely reported that Christie was signed to play this central role but for whatever reason that hasn’t happened.
 
Perma tan was gone by the time Pearson arrived,all the non goalscoring holding mids were signed by Eddie.

Marcondes is a strange one,Parker wasn't in the building when he was signed ,doesn't seem to trust him as you say,but whenever he comes on ,looks bright and forward thinking ,and has actually netted on his debut.

I thought he would come on today to help out Billing but now Parker seems to be getting minutes into Bradys legs.
That’s not correct. Tindall signed Pearson. Blake let him sign Pearson, Wilshere and Long… which he considered to be what he needed to get the wheels on the bus again and was then sacked before he could get them all on a pitch.

That genius decision was not only unfair on JT it left the incoming manager with no ability to sign players to his own style…

Still…. Our CEO is worth over £1.5m a year salary so he must be good.
 

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