Holmes_and_Watson

Hard

As fun as it was watching them plod around, while being passed apart by City, I got extra enjoyment watching the deteriorating mentality of Fernandez. When I see him, he's nearly always the first to chuck it in, masking his frustration through whining, striking out, losing composure and petulance. Anthony is another one. A very brittle, dysfunctional group they have. Long may it continue.

Not missing it in the slightest. I'm interested in the league we're in, so not much bothered about anywhere else. We've got more resources than nearly everyone in the league we're in, which of course helps the enjoyment massivly, since we should be doing well in it. If we were losing though, I doubt I'd be any more interested in the Premier League. I caught the last 30mins of the Manchester derby. And it was interesting enough to watch (Full Flavour MartinBall from City at times 🙂 ). I'm not knocking the quality of it. We're not in it, so I don't really care what they're up to.

A 38-year old trick or treating, telling people about bottoms and cattle prods should raise no concerns. I'd keep that poster prominantly displayed though, just in case. 🙂

It's another plus in having Bree come in and do well, and have Edozie begin to feature once again, and get back to his development. SAA back on the bench, will hopefully get him some minutes too, shortly. I had heard in passing that Ipswich have some strength in depth as well this season. Either way, getting the best out of a squad will be important, and should hopefully favour those with bigger ones that got relegated.

I didn't think it would be Stu. But a quick look at lineups, and yeah I can see that. If Stewart is getting a run in the team, then Stu/ Alcaraz would seem the ones to drop. However, with the number of games, suspensions etc, I think it will be a mix of players all shuffling around to compensate for absentees. In the end, I think everyone will be getting plenty of minutes.

5 mins to kill.... so took a peek to see how our loaned out players are doing in their leagues. Form their probably already out of date wiki pages, but an indicator... Perraud - started 5 games for top of the table Nice. Onuachu - scored 3 in five games for Trabzonspor, sitting in 5th. Lyanco - 3 appearances for Al-Gharafa, although he's picked up a red card in there. Al-Gharafa in second spot. ABK - 3 starts for PSV who are top, although he's picked up an injury. Lis - 10 appearances for SR's Premier Club Goztepe, in the third place playoff spot. DCC- 3 league games for bottom of the table car wreck of Lyon. Former loanee, and deadweight, AMN has got 4 league apps for them. Ballard - 2 in 8 for Ruben Selles' Reading, currently bottom and looking a little distant already. Finnigan - 1 appearance for Shrewsbury, before suffering a long term injury. Payne has 9 appearances for League 2 Newport, down in 19th. Small has just the 1 app for St Mirren this season so far. Lawrence - 2 league apps for Scott Marshall's striggling Colchester, currently in 20th in League 2.

Colleague

What made a nice difference, and importantly, an early difference was that we were willing to dictate the tempo and get it forward. We had some good early, deeper deliveries. That caught Birmingham out, who were expecting us to do exactly what you said above. And this is a balancing issue. We've got a high posession game, we're already in the lead and Birmingham are not triggering any passing beyond shifting it aorund. keeping it fairly compact and we're not testing them too much. If we're too reckless then we increase the risk. If we pass ourselves to death, we may lose the momentum on the game and, since no team is perfect, may make an error of our own, concede and then struggle to get some tempo back. That's furstrating for everyone, as with that system, we've essentially thrown away the advantage, and Martin rightly gets the flak for that. Hopefully Martin will be developing them to be able to have the confidence to test teams in different ways when the normal triggers aren't being activated. Momentum is more than just having the ball, control is more than simply having possession, if you're not doing anything with it. Yesterday, there was a spell where waiting for them to try and get back into it, and keep possession was exactly right. We can also change that up a little, while keeping well within Martin's system. We did it early on yesterday; We've seen Baz's distribution get longer recently; Bree, Stu and Downes can all pass well directly; KWP's role has changed and we're challenging our wide players to try different things; We're looking stornger later in games and pressurising opponents. All things we've been cryign out for when it's not been going well, and seemingly all within the system Martin is developing anyway. I don't think Martin could believe his luck when he saw Smallbone in training. We got to see him work really well alongside JWP. Since then, Smallbone's role has changed. In a twist on the idea of a utility player coming on able to play one of several roles, Will is playing several roles in the same game. He tracks back, screens the defence, provides an endless outball for passes right across the park (no mean feat), and is someone who can pop up at the edge of the box with a shot. He takes up the space others leave behind as well. He's not our best defensive midfielder. He's not our best direct or attacking midfielder. In other systems (some of which I like more), he may not get a game, falling between a number of specialist areas. But in Martin's system, he, along with AA, are probably on the template team sheet Martin prints out. He's not going to get everything right, with all that going on. But he is getting better in a number of the roles, which has been really good to see. From my hazy memory, the Birmingham player went up, got the contact, and the ball was going wide, as Baz, eyes for the ball, thumped into him. The ball was gone when Baz clattered into him. But I was wondering if the ball already being away with there being no chance of the Birmingham player, or anyone else, geting it, played a part in the decision? No idea, I'm just speculating there.

Scott Marshall is interim manager at Colchester today.

I'm pleased he's getting his chance. It's been a bit of a train wreck of a move, coming in as Jones' pick, and plummeting down the pecking order as that went pear shaped. Gives us a bit of not just competition there, with Larios' injury, but some much needed experience getting first team minutes in the squad too. With suspensions/ injuries people will get their chances. Martin and Bree have shown that if you get your chance and do well, others are going to have to step up to move you out the team.

Martin says:- Wrestled back control second half. Changed the next 10 mins Expect them to have a spell, which they did. But we wrestled abck control Anooyed with their goal Purpose, aggression, energy and intensity. All in a tough week. Subs come on an did well. 2 for the goal, and thought Aribo did excellently. Should have put the game to bed. Somehow we gave them one. Compact for the majority of the game apart form a little wobble. We did play some brilliant football today. The way they grow, is a pleasure to watch. Need to be demanding. Lots to improve on. Doesn't feel like vindication. When you believe in something so much, it doesn't have that sort of impact. Try to be better. Keep growing and hope to be still doing that in a few years time. Thing they are most proud of is the improvement in the culture. Not an easy process to ask them to be brave, and make mistakes. A lot of young men in the dressing room. They have got proide in what they are doing. Fist pumps completed. Hair immaculate. Up to fourth. 7 off Ipswich, although they have 2 in hand. 🙂

Brave and accurate. Well done! 🙂

Recency bias brings up some shaky looking spells in the second half, around the time of them getting one back. But actually, there were a load of positives today. - A good range of passing, right form the start. That caused Birmingham problems, as they’d set up to expect more of a deeper possession game from us. - We used the flanks well, with both causing problems. - KWP given license to move up is only going to bring us more combinations. - They tried to exploit those full back gaps seldomly. We covered that well today. - We created chances. Better movement. AA got a goal, but will no doubt be harsh on himself for not getting more. - Their goal came from a contested header just happening to fall at a pace and position where we had to take a touch, allowing them in to take a good shot. So, meh. But we weren;t being hammered when it came. - We’ll have to work on our shape when things are going against us. It might be a tiredness issue. But we shut down a lot of the avenues and tempo that got us joy in the first half. Martin will we looking at that brittleness, where we turn a bit inward. - Subs did well again. 2 linked up for the third. Aribo was important as a target, picked out good passes, chased down their keeper. Fraser also allowed us to have a second central runner, and Birmingham didn’t like that at all. We can look a bit light in the middle, so nice to be able to change that we want to. - Lots of good work from Baz. From verbally grabbing his defence to get them up the park, to the usual good vision and a couple of cracking distributions, one where he was kind of left with it to deal with. Did well linking with Aribo too. - Tempo was good and mixed in the first half particularly. Perhaps that’s too hard to keep up, which they can work on. We could do with some alternatives when the energy is fading before any changes. Don’t really want to make changes too early in a winning starting eleven. - We did have a couple of spells of extended passing about. First half, where we were ahead and waiting for them to have to come out. We pushed it forward eventually, when they finally stepped up. It was nearly at the point, where you’d think we should be looking to create a bit anyway. Second half, when we could have picked better alternatives. We lack a bit of physical threat, so need to work on creating space for Sule, and then be more direct to him. There’s always that worry we won’t be able to step it up when we need to. But we had decent intensity throughout today, with subs on at around the right time. - AA and Smallbone stood out of work rate again and positioning again today. Stu for technical ability to bring in others. Downes put in a good performance in the middle keeping everything going as Smallbone moved into all the spaces. - Rooney may look at an offside, some pressure after their first, and a penalty (did the striker heading it away and out make the difference?). We will look at some chances we didn’t take to put us out of sight. - A bit of a scar tissue related nerves in the second half, but they will be pleased with that, and know the areas to keep improving on.

oh for .... they just took Edozie out. Yellow.

I hope Edozies' sigh when getting the ball was just him being resigned to having to stop. He's just on, so can;t be a sigh of exhaustion running for it. 🙂

Aribo has made an excellent contribution since coming on. A solid impact sub today.

THB drops off so the touch we got ends up leading right to them having a go over Baz. That would have been as annoying as their first one, undoing a lot of decent play.

Ah... that would be a nice one from Fraser. Surely, he watched the Rotherham game to watch how 'keepers are chipped. 🙂

Nice from Aribo. He's looking a bit more mobile today too.

Yessssss!!!!!!!

Well done Baz. He's been pushing us up for a while now. We've had good runners in Fraser and AA, with no spupply. So, now Baz has a target in Aribo, he's using that.

Less experience with the newer subs. But if Martin has been training them on their roles in these positions, we should be fine. Jo gets us a foul. Just need to be managing this one smartly.

Smallbone got clobbered a bit there. Every bit a yellow. Handy, as we were running out of passing options there. Getting some passing moves togetehr again though. Noting Cam's comment. 🙂

We get the foul, take a second. Sule going off for Fraser. So, Aribo and Fraser to replicate the wider threat we showed from the first half. No doubt Fraser will be keepn to take up space in the middle, so hopefully a bit of a team up with AA there. Just need the pace of play to be getting it up to them, to worry their back line.