Holmes_and_Watson

Club

Boom

It's just Peter Reid with a few Botox injections and some stubble. 🙂

Oh that's right. I caught one of her Salisbury bits as well. Lots of years as a Moscow correspondent wiping away any vestage of independent thought, if it was ever there. Puppet reporter. It was quickly in my thoughts too. He's been desperately grasping for one for years. Probably like a number of people. But people who didn't have their responses leaked with gems such as.. "I agree but it's pissed me off those old unappreciative c****." My favourite is... "I pay taxes and always have done so they have no right to do this…. c****," Firstly, as it was him trying to avoid tax, that ruined his chances, for a while. Secondly, if it was paying taxes, we'd all be in line for one. But it takes more than that. Like a few bungs to the ruling party, or...drones on about class system and corruption for 10 pages... (notes that some decent people do get honours somewhere in there)🙂 If we had to rely on a government based IT system, they'd have to have her mummified, to allow for the thing going online, never mind handling the queue. 🙂

Do they fancy a game, though? 🙂

The name was familiar. I read an article from her about Putin's intention to invade being blown out of proportion by a silly media, and that such a thing wasn't on the cards. Poor misunderstood Putin. A search at the time indicated that she'd also written a puff piece for an industrial scale money laundering daughter of a dictatorial mass murderer (Uzbekistan, I think).

I'm just going to loaf around today, and try not to to let the policies of cereal losers get a rise out of me.

Cry

The Sammy Lee / Dennis Rofe dream team!

Hands

AMN has to drop his standards. No more playing the ball up to an effective talented group of attackers. In fact, no more passing it up to the attack at all. side and back...side and back... 🙂 Learn those Automatisms Ainsley!

I think that's he there because he follows Ralph's instructions. Positionally, he's the guy to support the attacks of the others. To provide a little of everything for them. He should be the one dropping into the space left when KWP attacks. He should be the one adjusting that, when JWP goes to support KWP. Adams was non existant as we had no midfield control, forward thinking from Diallo or JWP, and there was no plan to find another way of getting it to him; Djenepo was a bit all over the place; AA worked hard as a one man press which was pointless, and didn't get a supply either; Aribo was very deep when he came on, and even Stu was passing it backwards. Mo's not likely to be the one to grab the game, or offer loads of goals. But post game analysis will probably show him being round about where he should have been, ready to do his job. In Ralph's world of Automatisms, Mo is proabably fairly solid. Even though he did overcommit recently, leaving a gap that cost us a goal down that flank.

We lost to pretty much Villa's only real chance of the game. A chance that came when we were slow, switched off a little from the resulting corner and got a bit unlucky where the ball off the bar dropped. RalphBall v2 is set up to try and not concede, and is let down by player error. We're then to capitalise on any chances we get. We have to absorb a fair bit of pressure every match, so the chances of those player errors increase. Especially considering how raw some of our players are. And as we've seen we go behind more often than not and have to fight our way back into the game. As we are dropping back, the chances we get to capitalise on are a lot fewer. Tonight, our fight back was a BK stretch to try and reach a knockdown. It's nowhere near as entertaining to watch. When it doesn;t work (and since we so often go behind, it might rarely be working) it's especially grim. What's worse is that, being RalphBall, it's by the numbers. Villa's defence looked shaky every time the slightest bit of pressure was applied. This was often by a hard working AA. But there was no appetite to change the plan to take advantage of that. Our system, and our game, is won or lost by the plan Ralph sets up in advance. Villa stopped the ball getting to Adams. That was made easier as our midfield, without a Romeu had no control over the game. Hopefully Romeo is back soon, or that AMN gets up to speed. JWP was playing a previous version of RalphBall, where everything went side and back. He had a few opporunities to take the game by the scruff, or at least push forward. He chose the most defensive option every time bar one. That's Ralph telling him that, as I used to see the same thing click in Redmond's mind. Even a goal down, don't take that risk, don't push forward. It just allowed them to recover easily all game. Stu did the same late on, resulting in it going all the way back from an attacking position. I'd have rather seen a few more chances, if only to then hold some others more accountable. We were wasteful when we had it. KWP (trying to prove something to a national manager who has multi-pack deal of right backs he'd rather choose ahead of him) overcommited. Djenepo looked to have learned a few things from being left back. But he switched off at what resulted in key moments, and over commited too. Larios (just a kid, so that's going to happen) did it too (great track back and tackle at one point though) We lacked a clear plan, for when we wanted to push forward. Our press didn't work, as not everyone worked together (Djenepo off a few times). I though Mo and Djenepo could have switched. We were behind and KWP didn't have as much room after that to link up with either Stu or JWP. We had no midfield to pass through, wich really stifled us tonight. Villa caught Perraud a couple of times before he went off. Mo was fouled a number of times too. Positives are that we kept it fairly tight. We lacked our key midfield player and really have to work on transitioning with more purpose and identity when we have it. Ideally, look to exploit opportunities, as a unit, without being reckless.

That was our best chance.

Villa are in bother now. With the peppering we've given their goal, an injured keeper isn;t going to do well. 🙂 He could be lying there on a stretcher, and we'd not get it past him.

Sadly Mo has had to be sacrificed as we have to push even more forward. 🙂

Djenepo loses us the press there.

we are faffing about now because Stu didn;t get the ball into the box when he had the chance.

Villa haven't created much this half (not that they have to), but it's still more likely to be them than us at the moment to score.

Well, he can hardly come on until that happens. Spontaneous attacking would ruin our balance. 🙂

Boy, are we missing a Romeu type figure in that midfield. Even a Romeo figure after the first few games.

Oh hey! That's a booking ref! Villa have targeted Mo all evening! He's won us a few free kicks.

Mo wins us another freekick! Come on Mo!

and again, a lack of options results in us giving away a free kick.

Hmmm. AA wins it well in midfield. It ends up back with our keeper, as there's just no movement in tour midfield to move the ball around.