Whitey Grandad

And it’s obvious where the pass is going. The ball never even left the box, and for what? Two passes later and all being well the ball ends up just outside our penalty area on our left hand side. When Stephens received the ball he had nobody upfield of him and could have simply turned to his right and we’d have been in the situation we were hoping for anyway.

Add to that the atmosphere regarding the sending off. A team with ten men can defend reasonably well but their attacking options are limited. Gift them a goal and they don’t even need to worry too much about the attacking.

Indeed they should. It’s a mental thing. The keeper sees the opposition players in front of him and subconsciously thinks “What I mustn’t to do here is pass it to one of them’ and that’s exactly what happens. In skid pan driver training they teach that you mustn’t look at the obstacles that you might hit because then you’ll hit them. You must focus on the safe route out of the situation.

We’ve all known for several seasons that even under no pressure he has difficulty passing to his own teammates.

Eh? We lost because we conceded an unnecessary goal. Without that we might have drawn.

This system puts too much pressure on the goalkeeper and overloads him. The Premier League demands continuous concentration and expecting a goalkeeper to be fielding back passes one second and making spectacular saves the next is like asking a dog to walk on its hind legs whilst chasing rabbits. Once the inevitable mistake is made or a pass is mishit the goalkeeper is not in the right position and ‘set’ to make the subsequent save.

The mistake is the same but the consequences can be far worse. That’s why the simplest option is the safest. What does anyone gain by trying to play possession football in their own penalty area?

I don’t want us to fail but I’d be a lot happier with a competent traditional goalkeeper in goal and none of this obsession with putting him under pressure all the time.

‘Blocked shots’ although the BBC has 4-4-11

No. Law 4, shinguards – these must be made of a suitable material and be of an appropriate size to provide reasonable protection and be covered by the socks. Players are responsible for the size and suitability of their shinguards

86 in a hundred maybe.

So what's your point?

Not really. We’ve seen it all before.

Absolutely. Other teams were better than us and used different tactics.

Russel Martin?

Because they’re crap. We got promoted despite them, not because of them.

It nevr has been so why expect it to be different now?

That 'simple pass' was ever even going to leave our own penaly area. If you play around in your own box you'ree only ever going to concede. You're never going to score in their goal. Agreed, it should have been simple. The fact that McCarthy underhit it show to me that he was not confident in what he was trying to do. It was a bad case of the yips.

I turned on him long before now.

Agreed.

You can blame him for picking him. As for giving him a new contract…🤬

One error? This is not the first time for Martin. How does scoring nil make a half look ‘sensationally good’?

He shouldn’t need to be told where to pass it.

An extra man doesn’t help you if you’re only going to pass it around at the back. With an extra man we should be able to overload them somewhere on the pitch. That isn’t going to happen in our own half.

This. Stephens only has to turn outside and play the ball upfield. He surely knows by now that McCarthy is not a footballer. Totally sloppy and unnecessary.