VectisSaint

He played for the U18s against Brighton on Saturday and against Reading last week in the 9-0 win.

You should both try watching the 'highlights'. Bree was a couple of yards short of THB initially, when their forward moved it forward (to his right), Bree didn't move, as THB had clearly taken the initiative, they were a good 5 yards or more away from Bree when he put in the shot. As I said before you could fault Bree (as Franny said), but it certainly wasn't a case of defenders strolling back as Derry stated. Of course it was a full backs ball to deal with but we have hardly played with a traditional left back all season, one or other full backs always push up leaving 3 at the back, or even 2 quite often. Hence Manning is always out of position and is defensively hopeless. Yesterday it was Bree who I think is marginally better defensively, but in the system we play neither of them is expected to be a traditional full back and THB would have been expected to close this down, he tried but failed. Not saying I agree with this but this is how we play and how we have played nearly all season, to expect anything different on MD45 is naive.

They weren't "strolling" back, they (especially Stephens) were taking up positions appropriate for the threat which Harwood-Bellis looked to have covered, with McCarthy covering the post. The threat appeared to be a pull back to the penalty spot, but the Stoke player got passed THB (too easily) and put it in the net instead. It was a situation that most people would have expected THB to deal with reasonably easily. There is a good case that Bree could have done more to help THB as Franny highlighted in the commentary.

Well at least we didn't concede when Downes was on the pitch. We also looked a hell of a lot better after he came on, though that wouldn't have been difficult. Truly mind numbing game today. Brooks is a nice guy but he was absolute garbage (again) today, can we cancel his loan early. Others weren't great but no one else stands out as having a real shocker. Even McCarthy made a few decent saves that I suspect Baz would not have stopped. Actually, does anyone know for certain (as opposed to guessing) whether all of our loans are extended through the playoffs? I seem to recall instances in the past where loanees have had to return to their clubs at the end of the regular season, but maybe I am imagining it.

Have they? Villa play Newcastle Monday (19.00). We play Man Utd Monday (12.00). Villa can pip us unless we get a point against Man U (and Villa don't win by a huge margin).

Apart from your maths not being very good I don't know what you have missed (61/44 is 1.38) other than the point. But then you always say stats are not your thing 😉 If you check my post you will see it adds up to 61 goals against in 44 games. Where you might be struggling is that I did not include games before Downes joined at start of season (though I did mention it). Downes joined on 21 August, by which time we had already played Sheffield Wed, Norwich and Argyle, it seems unfair to me to include games that Downes wasn't available for in calculations, although if I had it would have made the case stronger as we conceded 2 per game on average during those games.

Flynn Downes has played in 31 games this season when we have conceded 34 goals (excludes Huddersfield where we won 5-3 all goals scored after Downes injured), that is an average of 1.1 goals conceded per game (and bear in mind that includes Sunderland and Ipswich at the start of the season just after he joined). We have played 11 games without Downes (after he joined) (including Huddersfield) and conceded 21 goals in those games average 1.9 per game (we also conceded 6 in the first 3 games of the season before Downes signed). Almost double average. There is a reason why we have conceded goals and lost games, and it is not (much) to do with the defence or for that matter the keeper.

or even two of them

Well that's an interesting comment. We haven't had a settled side all season oh apart from 25 games. Oddly when we went 25 unbeaten we didn't have that settled a side. Manning/Bree and the reintroduction of Stephens half way through. The important thing was during that 25 game sequence is that Downes played most. When he got injured in the 25th game we went to pieces and haven't recovered consistently since. Now we have lost Stu and Baz as well we are scuppered because our supposedly strong squad is not as strong as people would like us to believe, we have a strong 1st XI but not a strong squad.

No Downes, no win.

Embarrassing.

The 3 teams that go up this year are far better than the 3 last year. Burnley looked good last year but once they lost their loanees and failed to invest they were shown to be very poor. I'm sure Leicester (if they don't get a points deduction) and Leeds at least will be safe mid table next season. Ipswich might struggle but their team spirit might get them through. We would struggle for the same reason as Burnley. WBA/Norwich would be straight back down, but then that is WBA's modus operandi.

Thought Stu had let his run down because he was retiring from football to pursue a legal career, may have been just a rumour of course.

Moyes perhaps, but wait long enough and another manager will come along. In Moyes case that won't be too long. It will take a great deal to prise Downes from his beloved West Ham.

he missed most of the game v Huddersfield (subbed after 24 minutes, injury), we were 0-0 when he went off, we then went 3-1 down, but did remarkably pull it back and won 5-3. That was the start of our slump after the unbeaten run, I know we won it but conceded 3 goals soon after he went off. Downes is pivotal, and we don't have anyone who can replace him like-for-like, we have players that can play DM but need a different system to be effective. Shea Charles is the closest we have, but he was terrible early season, lost confidence and lost Martin's confidence, hence has hardly played since. He does have the makings of a very good player though, as I have always said (when he was getting abuse on here early season).

Just feel I need to say that all of the reasons that people come up with as to why we lost yesterday and why we keep throwing away leads are missing the point. Stephens shoehorning, Smallbone's shoehorning, Bazunu's inability to make saves, Mannings defensive woes, unable to hang on to a lead, don't score enough, concede too many, Martin can't manage subs etc etc. All have some merit, but in the end what has cost us this season is our inability to win games when Flynn Downes is not available. His injury near the start of the Huddersfield game (which we won but only after being 3-1 down) opened up the defence and made us really easy to score against. Unfortunately and this is not a criticism of Smallbone or Charles, we do not have a player who can match Downes' ability and influence in DM. We've had this before, like when we lost Romeu. It is a luxury to have 2 top class DMs but when one is so outstanding and is lost to injury it is a big problem. Unfortunately Downes is somewhat injury/illness prone as we have found to our cost, Smallbone, Charles, Rothwell are all decent midfielders and have other attributes but they cannot do the Downes job, especially when we play 4-3-3 as yesterday. OK, perhaps some blame on Martin for not recognising this and setting us up differently but to be honest yesterday at least we were so dominant first half and should have scored 4 or 5 by half-time if out forwards had not been so profligate (and a little nod to their keeper) you could see his thinking. Trouble is no team can keep that dominance up for 100 minutes. Don't know where we will go next season when Downes returns to his beloved West Ham.

Think we're going to need a lot more than that. About 9 players I would think.

Given he is supposedly retiring at end of season it would be career-ending.

Not sure if you are joking. Their best player (Ng) out for the season, 12 or more injured or ill, maybe up to 5 from the u21s to fill the squad according to their manager. I think it is safe to say they will no be putting out a full strength team, but probably not as bad as they are making out.

Experience in a difficult situation. That is all. I think Martin made a good decision. Lumley will be OK when he has prepared to play from the start. Will be interesting to see what Martin does tomorrow, McCarthy got a clean sheet (admittedly with very little to actually do) so might feel aggrieved to be dropped, but if he hadn't done that I feel pretty sure that Lumley would be selected to start.

Not surprised its been mooted for years. Thought the winter break was brought in by the big clubs, so not sure how scrapping that benefits them, though the way it was brought in was a nonsense, in any case other leagues that do have a winter break use it to arrange friendlies so it was always totally meaningless. I don't know why you are having a go at the EFL. Can't see this is anything to do with them, all down to the FA and the PL. The EFL looks to benefit as a whole, though individual teams will lose out, the EFL have no say on the FA Cup.

I believe it happened right at the end just before the 3rd goal went in. The Watford manager and players were complaining about it post match saying there should have been a red card and that Downes handled the ball, so were doubly incensed. Can't say I saw exactly what happened but a Watford player was flat out in the pen area. Some of our so called supporters are more than a bit odd, Mara hasn't been great recently but he was brought on to do a job (at set pieces, defensively) and we won the game after he came on so who is to say that was a mistake.

Who said anything about the 2nd half? We went 2 up after 20 minutes which is when Watford started playing and exposing us down the flanks. We actually had 2 on target 2nd half, 4 off.

Really not sure why improving our goal difference needs to be a target. Unlikely we are going to get better than Leeds or Leicester, the two teams we can actually do something about (because we have to play them). Winning 1-0 is just as good as winning 4-0. Seems to me that it was because we continued to look for goals after we went 2 up Saturday gave Watford the opportunity (once their defenders woke up) to get at us and get the panic stations going when they attacked. We should to.some extent have shut up shop and consolidated rather than go for goals.

Made one glaring mistake, but made amends immediately which launched an attack (may have been the Fraser one but not sure). Not his greatest fan but he did actually make a difference when he came on and of course his corner did lead to the goal. Surprised Stephens stayed on when Bednarek came on, Doddsy called it on the commentary, Stephens had been struggling with what looked like cramp just before the substitution, maybe they thought he would be less damaging in MF rather than CB.