Chewy

That’s how I see it. And based on that I’d like something along the lines of: Lumley Bree Stephens THB/Jan Manning/Meghoma Smallbone/Aribo Charles Rothwell/Brooks SAA Mara Kamaldeen Would love to drop Mara but there’s literally no one else. I’d like Dibling and maybe Bragg to get minutes, and maybe 45 each for Aribo and Smallbone. That said, the only player in the entire squad I think is totally irreplaceable and needs wrapping in cotton wool is Downes. We have cover of sorts for everyone else so I don’t mind if anyone is picked except him. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have a fit ArmA, Adams and especially KWP and THB but we could function just about without one of them. I get Whiteys point about playing a strong team and gaining confidence, I’d just personally play it ultra safe. Leeds is a game that doesn’t matter, basically a friendly. And we have 2 or hopefully 3 vitally important games in the next two weeks - there’s no scenario quite like this.

Conceded loads of goals, scored slightly more. Would fit right in

It was not a relevant question and it got a perfectly reasonable reply IMHO Back on topic, I would have Rohl and Cooper top of my shortlist should a change be needed. I’d also have Potter there but I appreciate that’s entirely unrealistic

No issue with the formation, but why on earth would you want Brooks in the team?

Excellent - the only 2 clubs run worse than us in the last 5 years are Everton and Man U. Let Everton have him.

Really good post IMHO. The debate needs some balance because it’s not all bad and RM deserves credit for a number of things. The players look “coached” - hasn’t happened since the early days of Ralph. And most of that was about not having the ball. This coaching and intention to have the ball is positive. The players play for him - that clearly hasn’t happened since the early days of Ralph too. Hes changed a losing mentality. Not easily done and some here seem to forget quite what a bunch of losers our team had become. Then there’s also some things that are out of his control or area of responsibility, most obviously recruitment. We don’t have a striker (3.5 years and counting). We have a sub-standard goalkeeper (god knows how many years and counting). We have 88 wingers. We have no cover for Downes. We buy unproven kids. We don’t buy characters, so we only have one leader in the squad. Unfortunately he’s our 3rd best centre back so either doesn’t play or plays by messing up the team. To sit here and label RM as being all bad and not take into account the good things he’s done and the circumstances beyond his control is unfair and undermines the argument a person is making. And yet … he has failed in priority number one which is to get promoted. And the failure is something he has contributed to himself, more than any other single individual in the club this season. You could argue if we’d had any sort of striker we’d have got promoted in spite of his failings and it might be a point. But we’ve scored plenty of goals as it is, and have simply let in too many. Many of which have come in games we were leading where he failed to adapt to the situation on the pitch. His intransigence comes from his devotion to the system. It’s insane; it’s like a religious cult. Lost count of the games we ended up drawing or losing from a position of total control. His failure to close down games we’d already won has cost us points that would have been enough to get us promoted. This is on him. These are games where our team is man for man far better than the opposition, we’re in control, and we f up. Just ask Middlesbrough. It also means we’re easy to read. Not all teams can execute well and if they don’t we’ll probably punish you, but any opposition can plan to swamp our number 6 area and know they’ll pick up loose balls. Pressure the ball and we’ll go back, meaning all our midfield and full backs receive the ball facing our own goal and having to turn. Stop us turning and we can’t do anything with the ball except go backwards or lose it. It becomes a horrible cycle we don’t escape from. Just ask Hull. It is hard for lower standard teams to play against, as it’s difficult to execute and we have better players. But it’s easy to plan. And if we’re promoted we’ll be playing teams who are good enough to execute and we’re not the team with the better players. It’ll be a bloodbath. Just ask Leicester. RM is not all bad. He’s transformed a bunch of miserable losers concentrating only on what to do without the ball into a set of happy footballers, mostly winning and trying to be positive with the ball. This deserves credit. Unfortunately his intransigence and tactical limitations mean we’re stuck with the ball, going backwards, heading into cul-de-sacs that won’t get us promoted. Yes we might have sneaked it with a striker wielding a banjo near a barn door but it would be hiding some glaring failures in the tactics which would get us annihilated every week next season. If he doesn’t learn to curb his fixation on his philosophy, especially when a game needs managing to a closure, he’ll fail. Irrespective of who he coaches, it’s lessons he needs to learn in order to be a success. And it’s bloody frustrating watching him make these mistakes with the club we all love and are passionate about. We’re emotional because we care. So the other thing he needs to learn quickly is that in a scenario with frustrated, passionate and emotional fans, talking positively, defending stubborn actions and tactics just seems inane and extremely arrogant. It is not going to make you well-liked by the fanbase. And rightly or wrongly, I’m afraid that matters. There is no genuine warmth towards RM. Ralph had it almost instantly (still does with some). RM is a good coach, with a positive attitude and he gets his players to play for him. But he seriously needs to learn a few things very quickly if he wants to succeed. I fear it’s too late for him here - guess we shall find out pretty soon.

Is that Jimmy Jay Morgan coming on as a b team sub for Chelsea? Move gone well for him? 😉

As someone who sits in block 29, I’m not going to matches to get involved in Bantz with the away fans. That said, I’m fully in favour of the changes. Makes sense, should improve the atmosphere and if it’s really cr4p next season I can move easily enough the following. Not sure why there’s any negativity except for nimbyism. And if we don’t go up I’ll have a good seat for the Pompey game.

That first half was as good as I’ve seen in a long time. It really shows the great work that RM and his team have done on the coaching pitch all season, to make us look so slick and make a top 10 championship side look so poor. Total control and a joy to watch. It also shows the difference a striker makes - Che turned in his best performance of the season and converting our dominance took away any pressure and made it a stroll. Special shout out also to Stu. He was as bad as I’ve seen him on Saturday and the complete opposite last night. Love watching him when he’s playing like that. No idea what Preston were thinking - you get at us by crowding our midfield exactly as Watford did on Saturday (and others, especially Hull) but they just sat back and gave us all the possession and space we wanted. Odd, and it failed. It does mean we didn’t get to see whether we’ve learnt anything from previous mistakes, but if the opposition didn’t do that, there’s nothing we can do about it. And I don’t want to detract from what was an excellent performance from us. Can’t underestimate the difference of that v a good championship side opposed to last season v Grimsby or Sheff Wed. That’s done on the training pitch and with a seismic change in mentality, things you have to credit the players, coaches and in particular Russell with. Well done all.

We still have an outside chance of promotion and it’s our penultimate home game of the season (playoff notwithstanding). If the fans and players can’t get motivated for this I’d be very surprised and disappointed.

If it ain’t broke, break it anyway 😉

The morning after and the euphoria has ebbed some what so can try and be calmer about the whole experience. My main feeling is that the ten minutes before their first goal is why we won’t get promoted and why, if we did, we’d be murdered every week in the premier league. Having been gifted two soft goals by dreadful defending the game was done - we just needed to be solid and counter. But we persisted with 3 forwards playing fully on their back line, and didn’t ask the wide players to drop. We split Aribo and Smallbone wide, leaving one midfielder. Watford were high pressing with numbers and overran us in midfield. The gamble was if we broke through the press we’d be on them and on one occasion we were and nearly scored. Of course, the flip side of that gamble is we get overrun leaving every loose ball to be picked up by Watford which is of course where they scored from. This is why and where Russell is a total moron. This isn’t bravery, it’s idiocy. We were 2 up - why do we need to gamble? Block the midfield and we kill the game - they created nothing, they scored two goals from loose balls in our empty midfield. I don’t have an issue with having a philosophy or what it is. I’m not one of the plonkers that boo when we pass it along the back - I get it and it’s good football with a purpose. I also credit Russell with the coaching, with getting players motivated for him and the improvement in our mentality. I also accept Watford were a decent side (apart from their defence which gifted 3 goals). What I don’t get is the stupidity (and in my opinion arrogance) of not adapting to situations to manage a game. 2 up and for 10 minutes before they scored it was obvious what was happening, who was clearly going to score next, and how we needed to respond to kill it off. He and we did nothing. It wasn’t about the amount of running we did, it was the moronic tactic of having one central midfielder on his own being swamped. The one adaptation he makes is the length of passing, but he never changes shape to bring solidity. Giving away comfortable leads has happened too many times and Russell needs to learn to adapt. If Luis Enrique, Arteta, Tuchel and Xavi aren’t too proud to fiddle with tactics in game I’m not sure why Russell thinks it’s beneath him. Arrogant and stupid, not brave. Rant over Anyway, decent opposition, not many outstanding performers for us but good displays from most. Adam or Che probably my MOTM. Brooks was ineffective again and needs dropping, Stu was awful (and I’m a fan). Ryan surprisingly good. Jan did well when introduced. Baz still looked flappy but not at fault for the goals. Overall with the standard of opposition and the pressure of where the season is at (evidenced by the other 3) I’ll happily take a win, and the feeling of a last gasp winner is immense - brilliant emotions walking out. But yet again it should have been a comfortable win once we were gifted a 2 goal cushion, and yet again we were tactically outdone because the opposition know how we play and that we’re too thick to change it. It’s euphoria mixed with enormous frustration. Which is pretty much life as a football fan in a sentence.

I will spend this evening trying to retain the sense of euphoria at winning so late in the game. Then tomorrow morning I might come back here to talk about how fucking ridiculously stupid our tactics and game management at 2-0 up are. Again. RM is an idiot at times. Still, that’s for the morning. Back to the euphoria. Buzzing - best feeling leaving st Mary’s in years!

All very good, but you missed the most crucial bit that we all want to know; exactly how brave were we?

Sorry but that’s just not true. The specific “wanker” chant might have only been a few seconds but the whole incident lasted a good few minutes. “Getting sacked in the morning”, “don’t know what you’re doing” some other song … That entire corner were chanting at the stewards when Boro almost scored and would have missed it. Whole thing was bizarre and quite frankly tin pot. I’d expect that from Pompey fans, I’d hope for better from our own. The atmosphere was fine, that 5 minutes distracted the entire stadium and did filter onto the pitch. You probably didn’t notice because you were too busy being angry at people who had nothing to do with the actual game. You know, the game we needed to win, the game we should be supporting our players in. Fucking tin pot. To be clear, the stewards were probably wrong. And more relevant to our defeat were misses by Che, bit of bad luck and poor substitutions not managing the game well. But the incident in the corner didn’t help and added to the unease all around the ground at a critical stage in the game, and quite frankly our season. The game should have been over but it wasn’t and the crowd in the corner were a hindrance, not a help at this stage. Irrespective of whether the stewards were wrong. Grow up.