Crab Lungs

Great post and much like how i feel. At some point, Still might turn out to be cleverer than we think he is but it’s plain to see he had us playing with the handbrake on. Tonda has done something really simple; unshackled our creative players from whatever rigid structure Still was trying to implement and just lets the front players, play. He’s recognised Jander is more often than not the one who flips the momentum on a dime and gets us up the pitch and lets him get on with it. Hes unburdened Azaz, Fellows and Scienza and has even recognised and given licence to THB to play direct killer passes to get us up the pitch and get us on the front foot instead of the sideways and backwards nonsense we’ve had to deal with. If the pass is on, he wants THB to try it. For the first time in a long time, everyone seems to know their roles and the instructions are, as above, really quite simple when you look at it. Let our attacking players do their thing and have Jander, Scienza and THB drive the team forward with a turn, a pass or a dribble. Hes very quickly seen our strengths and put it into action. It’s amazing how we over complicated it so much with Still. It’s not perfect by any means. Evidently we drop off after the substitutions quite a bit but another thing he appears to have identified is getting Robinson to play a ‘Scienza-lite’ role, which I think he successfully pulled off today. Finally we’re playing to our strengths and it’s bloody enjoyable to watch.

Isn’t double pivot just two central midfielders?

Trust me, I’m in agreement with you! I avoid all tactico YouTube berks as best I can. ’Transitions’ ‘Game management’ etc

Yes but he rarely contributes to them. He has got this mythical aura about him as someone alluded to above; somehow, it’s always a worldie when it goes in. He makes a couple of half decent stops in a game and it’s talked about as if he’s the only keeper in the world to have saved a shot. And you can bet your bottom dollar we wouldn’t have gone up with Baz in the playoffs. He’s not saving any of those Leeds shots at Wembley. Actually, he’d still be mid dive for one of them now. Mccarthy, without doubt, has most the absolute fundamentals for being a goalkeeper. Bazunu does not, and never will have. He’ll still be at exactly the same level in 10 years time. He’s not getting any better. He’s not guaranteed to improve. And he’s most definitely not some sort of lucky charm.

He’s still diving four seconds after the ball has whistled past him. He has zero command over his penalty area which leaves the centre halves having to clear anything and everything catchable for a normal goalkeeper. He will cost us a lot more points this season. Yes, today he didn’t do a lot wrong today but if you’ve been watching him this season you’ll have seen today his reactions are so slow and the pressure on CBs to mop up anything on the air will tell at further points in the season. Please, please… just play McCarthy. Or put Aribo in goal - at least he moves a little faster.

Really want to beat this cunts. Horrible side, nothing about them at all apart from Demari Gray and kicking people.

Alright mate, calm down. I don’t like the speak either but I used that terminology just off the cuff.

Had a few hours to reflect on it. My very brief take: We were bullied, continuously and miscalculated tactically. I think Tonda knew we were in for a tough game but considered using the Russball philosophy as a way to take the sting out of the game and that eventually, Millwall’s ferocity would settle down - yet it didn’t. Obviously Leo would have helped and would have won us a few few kicks and helped with the transitions but Tonda obviously thought we could do it without him. We were the caught in between going toe-to-toe with Millwall or going all in with our starting tactics and seeing if it’ll settle down and allow us to impose ourselves and we persisted with the latter. I think a 4-2-3-1 would have given us better coverage defensively in the centre and wide but ultimately, Alex Neil got it right and we never really got it together. Better side won, though with a fit CDM and a better goalkeeper we’d have scraped something possibly. A learning curve.

Got bullied. Pure mentality thing.

Lots of players were shite today, but he’s underlined once again - like he does it almost every match - how truly woeful he is.

What sums up our new found ooomph for me was that after just kicking off the 2nd half, two of our first attacks we had 7-8 players in and around the penalty area. We are no longer passengers in a game, we’re going for the jugular. The desire and levels these players are showing now is incredible. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed two back to back games as much in recent memory as these last two. Thank you, Tonda

Not sure what happened or what I just watched but I’m a lot happier for it. Thank you, Saints

He’s unashamedly arrogant and was too stubborn for his own good but looking back, I wouldn’t say the football was shite or he didn’t know what he was doing. For me, on the face of it he underachieved. They squad at a glance was as good as Leicester and Leeds, and I think the disappointment was that we were always off the pace from them much of the time and when we did shoot ourselves back into contention, we would always muck it up. Add to the fact we ‘threw’ so many points away with the silly Russball stuff and you can kind of understand the frustration we all had with it. However and as someone alluded to above, the situation is far more complex than that. Martin did do a fantastic job galvanising a demoralised squad, didn’t have the backing we bestowed upon Still this time around and unarguably had to compete in a far tougher Championship this time around. That said, to counter act that he did have a stronger squad. It’s all swings and roundabouts. I think the football we played was at times brilliant (some of the sequences leading to goals were a very enjoyable watch) but the season was tempered with frustrating periods of nothingness in games (the backwards, sideways, backwards cycle of the ball) somewhat unnecessarily and of course, some capitulations that should never have happened. That was the risk of Russball. Another frustration I had with RM was that for me, he could clearly ‘adapt’ his style when he wanted to; West Brom away twice, Leeds away and in the playoff final with the hybrid formation but would often choose not to through stubbornness and belief in his way. If he wasn’t so wedded to his philosophy I’ve no doubt we might have had a few more points and in turn, he might not be such a polarising figure among the fanbase. Plusses and negatives to RM - and I think there always will be.

Do you know what? Reading that back I have some sympathy for Jones. If you’re gonna fall on your sword, it should be by your own decisions - not because of some data buffoon.

I literally couldn’t give a shit too. I think it’s bit stupid, really. and those chanting it probably had a hard on over the Eckert fist pumps at FT. Weird.