Willo of Whiteley

As the title says. Slow news week, lots happening around the club at the moment so thought I’d ask this after a conversation I had recently. What’s a moment that sticks out for you? I’m in my early 30’s so I’ve witnessed three relegations, three promotions, two pitch invasions, three Wembley trips including a cup final win; and that’s just the events. Some of the games I’ve seen in that time 8-0 vs Sunderland, beating Liverpool in the cup semi-final, JPT victory at Wembley, a play-off final win at Wembley; and think of some of the goals in those games, the moments you’ll remember forever. Whats your favourite? What sticks out as your “I’ll remember that forever” memory? Have a Merry Christmas all. Enjoy!

Let’s do it in the Mick Channon Suite instead, a little closer to home 😂

Blackadder Goes Forth Porridge Only Fools and Horses

Absolute bollocks on the whole “the players dictate what happens” or “the board dictate the formation”. There are that many leaks through the club it would be common knowledge. Also it would be fucking stupid of Sprt Republic to try and build a reputation on players that aren’t good enough and a formation that doesn’t work. 🤣

It just seems plainly obvious to me that this is the best formation

Jack Rosser saying Saints are after Patterson (GK) of Sunderland and als a ST in January. Not exactly amazing journalism, just stating the obvious. But some hope there that people at the club might’ve realised Gavin Bazunu is crap.

4-3-3 with a holding midfield allows the DM to drop back into a rough CB position to pick up the ball as an alternative. This spreads the CBs slightly wider, thus making a third CB completely redundant. I got so frustrated with Nathan Wood running five yards across Bazunu for every pass yesterday, it was so pointless. By the DM dropping deeper and pushing wide players either way you get left with this overload on the wider positions to attack, something that, let’s face it, Fellows and Manning are decent at. Generally a ST can drop deep (AM position) and this pushes not only the full backs higher, but allows the two wingers to come inside a lot more into ST positions - creating more of a threat. It’s very basic tactics. Nothing fancy hut would allow players to play to their strengths, eg. some of our midfielders are good at coming deep (Downes, Charles, Romeu), allow Manning and another full back to play higher up, and allow attacking players to play in more attacking and threatening positions. Constantly playing a back five wastes a position on another CB, we can’t fucking defend anyway so it’s a waste of a position, and nullifies attacking intent.

3-1 to Coventry. They’ll dismantle us.

Six wins in eight is very good. But these are the games we should be putting to bed, teams struggling at the bottom of the table. Norwich just did the basics today, and that was enough. Players down the wing, low balls across, cheeky handball too. After the penalty miss we looked totally lost. But the worrying trend is that we always look it after sixty minutes of a game. Our squad depth is very horrific. There is a gulf in quality between the starting XI and the rest of the squad; and the inconsistencies from that starting XI are alarming. No one that played today was any better than maybe a 5/10 rating, and that’s probably being generous.

We need to ditch this five at the back bollocks. I’ve got confidence (somewhat) in Bazunu passing it ten-fifteen yards either side of him to THB or JS, rather than NW who is running three yards in front of him. Absolute waste of an attacking position. Today was a huge example of a team being overrun in midfield, by a manager that didn’t have a plan B.

He’ll end up at Fulham or Bournemouth or somewhere relatively close in the near future. Close(ish) to family etc.

Terrible keeper and terrible defenders too

No one has covered themselves in glory today, but a few have smeared themselves in shit for the foreseeable future.

GK, RB, CB, LB, a wide player and a striker.

I don’t care if he scored from 25 yards, Manning has been terrible today. But then again there is no one after the first ten minutes that I would say has done any good. Absolute shit.

Defence shocking again, but wheelie bin has more defensive presence than Bazunu.

Five defenders. Five fucking defenders. Apparently.

And he’s back to 24

Bazunu moved up to 23 in the Championship GK rankings

Still passing it side to side across our penalty area. Norwich’s entire midfield is outnumbering and playing further towards our penalty area than our midfield is. Surely these aren’t difficult things for the manager to see?!?!

Tonda, there is no benefit in having five defenders and two holding midfielders playing at 1-0 down.

Norwich are putting a bit of muscle about under a referee that is doing his best to avoid giving anything. Out players are not physical. It’s been interesting to watch how much we struggle when we don’t have five seconds to control the ball. — Oh, and there is the goal. Pretends to be shocked.

This is a bit shit isn’t it. This game is a good example of why five at the back and losing a midfielder is an utterly stupid game plan.

Get a midfielder on. There is no benefit in Bazunu always passing it five yards ahead of him to a defender. Such a waste of a position.

Only fifteen minutes or so of this game left. (Given we don’t play second halves).