Galway saint

You must be watching a different Bazanu to the one i’ve watched this season and last. I entirely agree they were not amazing saves but it’s shows how poor he has been that a keeper showing solid glove work looks so good in comparison. I’m really glad we have AMC in goal at this stage of the season

those were my thoughts exactly

Rachel Brown Finnis I have nightmares about her and drury teaming up

I agree to a point and we can quickly go from being in control to all at sea. The subs don’t help. However we lost the Ipswich game because our keeper conceded two or arguably three goals he shouldn’t have conceded. It’s a relief RM’s hand was forced by the injury and perhaps privately he has conceded the same. I think the 3-5-2 better suits the players we have and compensates for the fact we have only 1 decent CDM, albeit a very good one at that. I feel more optimistic after yesterday as we looked in control of a game for the first time in a while, but that optimism can quickly evaporate.

Good to see some flexibility from RM less possession but more control

about time

As I see it, if we are promoted his brand of football will get us annihilated. If we don’t go up he will have a worse squad but frankly most of the division is pretty poor so we may be ok again for the play offs. We would likely continue to concede far too many goals to challenge for the automatic spots and it seems difficult to see otherwise. It all feels a bit flat at the moment. I feel the first third of the season was about him making the system work with new players, the second third it was working and the final third has been a real disappointment and if you were being critical of him it’s shown up his limitations as a manger and coach. The whole set up of the side is wrong at the moment.

Ipswich is a said that hit back very quickly

No but equally if he does think that he doesn’t need to describe him as one of the best in the league.

The wheels have come off really since February and we are limping to the end of the season. A lot of that is down to the coach and the way we play. The refusal to change approach means we have become easy to play against yet he persists and seems to have run out of ideas. If he’s willing to be more pragmatic then fine let’s keep him but otherwise what’s the point ? Equally it’s not his fault he wasn’t given a fit central striker and another proper CM to play alongside Downes. I’m not sure he really thinks Bazunu is one of the best keepers in the league and I wonder how much pressure he was put under to keep playing him. If he genuinely does think he’s one of the best keepers in the league then he should go for that alone. He’s ultimately a relatively young coach learning the ropes but he has some serious flaws in his coaching. If there is someone better out there then I wouldn’t be overly concerned if we changed managers

I think what’s changed is that we’ve lost momentum since February and the 4-3-3 possession game has been shown to have serious deficiencies defensively. The Leicester game was horrific and I think people would like to RM change his approach to address those deficiencies , rather than just change the personnel with no clear plan. He clearly is a good enough manager to get this team into the playofffs but we seem to have ran out of steam at the wrong time.

‘strong track record’ - must have missed that amongst the mid table finishes

he can deliver 64% possession and still somehow concede 5 goals and have no shots on target - genius

Here’s the thing last season Swansea conceded 64 goals. The most in the top 10 and only four more clubs conceded more. We will concede a similar amount. For most of the season we have had a core group of defenders of KWP, JB, THB, Bree, Manning and JS. That’s three full internationals and the England U21 captain. That’s a pretty decent group for this level and we won’t have anything comparable next season if we miss out on promotion. How on earth have we conceded the same goals as Swansea. I really think there needs to be a serious conversation whether or not we go up about how and why we have conceded so many goals with that group of players. The way the team is set up and coached seems all wrong to me and teams have clearly worked us out. They press high and put us under pressure knowing we will eventually give the ball away. They can do that without fear of us going long or over the top because we will always play out from the back because that’s ‘our’ philosophy. The fact you can have 64% possession and still concede 5 goalsand have no shots on target in a game against your promotion rivals should be a massive red flag that your football philosophy isn’t working

I’m not sure if it’s the players or direction from the coaches but it was very apparent last night for a couple of the goals that the defenders were standing off.

what can you say after that shit show?

I think the problem is the system assumes you have players who are very comfortable on the ball and are excellent off the ball. We have good players but they aren’t Man City level. We have now conceded over 60 goals and we have conceded 3 or more 9 times in a season. That’s beyond abysmal. I really don’t understand a footballing philosophy that can see you have 67% possession yet concede 5 goals and have none on target. That suggests you don’t know what to do with the ball nor what to do when you don’t have the ball. It’s becoming now very apparent that any half decent side will typically score 2 plus goals against us and that means we are in deep trouble. We need to move it far more quickly but the midfield is a total cluster fuck really. Maybe try downes, charles and aribo to give us some backbone and move it forward though them far more quickly how many times do we make subs and it falls apart into some shapeless mess? i’ve lost count

Spot on - we lose the ball so often between the 18 yard line and half way and once we do we are overrun it’s panic stations

the midfield has been the problem all season with the lack of control against decent sides

that’s really good news

When you look at the bench if he’s not prepared to use Charles we have no other DM options so can’t change tack if we are under the coach. That’s a product of recruitment. FD is a good player but he’s not Kante and we should have found someone comparable with the resources we have. Instead of recruiting 85 wingers we would have been better off recruiting another decent DM, if RM didn’t fancy Charles. I don’t know if that’s down to RM or Wilcox or both. Equally I don’t know if RM would be prepared to change his approach but we are very brittle unless we are on the front foot and which you can’t be all the time.

More gutted about this than the result for some reason. He’s been a good player ( not great but good) for us and I enjoyed watching him play. He showed his quality in the Preston game where he looked a class apart. Made the goal look easy. If he’s played his late game for us then best of luck to him - would have been nice for him to sign off in the play of final but wasn’t to be.

I’m just not sure a 4-3-3 formation provides a solid defensive platform. It’s the midfield that’s the problem for me that when we are going forward it’s feet but going the other way not so good.

Gutted about that result and for Stu. Feels very flat. We should have been out of sight in the first half and you can’t blame RM for the team missing so many opportunities. Looking ahead to the play offs the second half of games are becoming a problem for us as we cant sustain our performance for 90 minutes ( or even 60) and RM is too wedded to 4-3-3 to shut up shop. Really needs to be more pragmatic. We are too often descending into a bit of a shapeless mess post subs. It doesn’t feel like there is any great plan beyond get a couple of fresh wingers on and take Aribo off. Maybe that’s all the personnel allows for but I still don’t think we have the right blend and structure in midfield for that final third of the game. Can you see us beating a decent side over two legs ? Maybe but at the moment we are likely to concede 3 or 4 over the two legs on current form and we too often cave under pressure - again I think that’s the formation as much as anything

We can either play Lumley or AM for the next few games. Baz is out of the picture for 10 months and we are going to have to buy a new keeper next season whatever league we are in so it’s unfortunate for Baz but I think it accelerates the inevitable need to buy a new keeper because Baz in my view isn’t a top level keeper