VectisSaint

Shame Celtic have acted, was quite pleased to be able to refer to Celtic as the Nancy Bhoys.

Stopping crosses is not the fault of the CBs, it is the result of having a useless LB and a non-existent RB. In a similar way much of the passing across the back is not always the fault of the CBs, but because certain players first thought always is to pass back to the back three, and strangely our LB is one of the prime examples of this, together in my opinion with Downes. Yes the CBs are useless collectively, but not all of their uselessness is directly down to them, there are other problems that need to be addressed.

To be honest if he is a competent goalkeeper he will be a step up from the current (or backup) occupier of that position in the team. I do note that he is an international, though accept that O'Bazunu is also an international for a similarly ranked team.

So which CB would you suggest is better at it? From your reply it's clear you had no idea what you posted.

Didn't realise Ross was on the pitch .

To be fair he said 'in certain positions', which I take to be 'goalkeeper'.

Surely Wood is prime russball and can't see how THB would really escape that label either. Trouble is we don't have many other options, Quarshie I suppose. Personally think Manning and Downes are the two who cause the worst of russball, always looking to pass back to the CBs instead of looking forward.

When was Baz at Norwich?

Fucked off with Sky, dropping the feed again with 6 minutes to go, and the only bit of excitement missed. That was poor, but at least Tonda changed things round a bit, the CBs all swapped positions. Clean sheet. Any other positives? Fellows certainly made.a.difference, Bragg was decent without being outstanding.

Should have been Jander instead of Downes, but otherwise not as bad as it could have been.

We will not change following Baz being Player of the Match v Brum (however stupid that was).

then you should have referenced that in your post. <disables MLG mode> 😉

Still 2.27 per game

He's dropped Stephens in order to bring in Quarshie, allegedly for his pace (though I don't think its worth it personally). McCarthy is not much better than Baz, he is probably marginally better but they are both shit really, don't think we would have increased our points total with Alex between the sticks, in the end we desparately need a new keeper (or our old one back). When we are playing a 3 rather than a 5 Manning is fine, but we keep letting the opposition back in and having to revert to a 5 at which point Manning becomes a liability, what we need to do is stop letting teams back in then Manning would not be so much of an issue.

Tonda has dropped Stephens at least twice. Dropping Bazunu is difficult because the alternative really isn't much/any better. Manning has done some stuff attacking wise that probably keeps him in despite being an awful defender.

But they weren't (all) playing as CBs. it wasn't a system. Two of them at least were as likely to score as anyone else. The only mistake made yeaterday was taking Jander off, not many seem to notice but he is key to much of our attacking play. Leo (rightly) gets the paudits for his exciting play, but Jander makes it all tick. Would have been better taking Downes off rather than Jander, all Downes knows how to do is pass back and pick up yellow cards (in my opinion), looking forward to Charles being fit again and partnering Jander , they should complement each other well.

If you think Forster and Davis are 2 of the best GKs we've had then that really backs up the OPs view. Both of them were basically sh*te. SKD became a club legend but not because he was a great keeper. Forster was useless with anything low.

We missed Arma when he went off in the second half. Have to say I missed it happening.

Last 3 games: Ipswich 3 Coventry 0 Preston 1 Coventry 1 (Preston played most of game with 10 men, Coventry struggled) Coventry 1 Bristol City 0. Famous last words, but they have not been ridiculous in front of goal during December.

1st May 1976

You're right, because we weren't as good in the 1st half as we have, the drop-off perhaps wasn't so noticeable. It's also true that Norwich were bossing us before the end of the first half to some extent. The same happened in last game, before that everyone was blaming the subs, but the drop off is happening before the subs, I don't believe it's tiredness, if it were why immediately after HT? It seems more of a deliberate tactical switch, of course puzzling when we weren't winning, preconceived plan? Anyway agree with you, we can't win em all, especially 3 in a week (sorry, 8 days). Just would be nice sometimes to get a draw instead of a loss.

Not the game I watched we weren't. We weren't as good as some other games, but we had several good chances, had a pen saved, hit the crossbar (and missed an open goal follow up). We should have been at least one up at HT. 9 first half shots (to their 3?) says we were doing something quite well, just not as ruthless as we have been. Second half was just complete shambles from kick off.

No, but there does seem to be a magic switch that turns us from good or very good to crap during the half-time break.

It's not 'getting tired'. You don't 'get tired' after a half time cup of tea. I don't know what the answer is, but it's not tiredness or fatigue, it is more to do with switching off after the break, demotivation.

But if he's praising them and telling them to keep doing what they're doing why don't they do it? Both today and Tuesday they completely stopped doing what they were doing, OK today they weren't doing it so well, but it was OK. Instead they came out, sat back started passing it (badly) around the back. I'm baffled.