saintant

Have you been on the moon?

Will Still got sacked after a run of poor results culminating in a pathetic display against Hull. That was away though so this is even worse.

No point, busting a gut when you don't need to. The bare minimum was all that they needed today.

We got lucky facing a Hull team with so many injuries.

What goes on at Staplewood all week? I guess it's a lot of defence against attack drills. Must be hilarious to watch.

They must be awful.

71% possession I see. 69% of it between the 3 centre backs.

There's every chance of losing mid week and next weekend.

Still Baz is keeping a clean sheet. Mind you, it helps that he's faced zero shots on target.

If you mean Garner his fingerprints are all over this shitshow.

Did anyone see this performance coming? Yeah, the bloke who coaches Hull plus the vast majority of us fans.

Being saying this for months - we don't have the physicality to compete in the Championship. Eckert has already said one of the reasons he plays with 3 centre backs is because we don't have the tall forwards and midfielders to help defend corners and free kicks. Spors said he was aware and would sort it - to date he hasn't.

And why were they able to play with an extra midfielder?

Agree but you can't do that if the majority of your possession consists of pointless 5-10 yard passes between the defenders and midfield especially with Downes playing bounce passes back to whoever gives the ball to him.

If anything screams that formations do make a big difference it was that performance by Man Utd today. They tore City apart and you have to say ditching the 3 centre backs and going to a back four was a big part of why they played so well today. I'm convinced with Amorin still in charge they'd have lost that games comfortably.

They've ditched Amorin's ridiculous 3 centre backs and gone for a conventional back four. Who'd have thought it 🙂

No.

Actually he alluded to it being the case because of injuries.

Did you miss that he went out on loan to Stoke? He's their problem for the rest of the season.

As predictable to us as it would be for their manager. He'll have planned to play against this type of line up all week. Maybe surprise us and the opposition for once Tonda 🙂

This is a major problem and we don't have coaches who are smart enough to do anything about it. A coach who is switched on will make a few subtle tweaks to change things rather than just keep doing what has already been sussed out. The training ground is the place to work on alternative formations and systems but clearly we are not doing it or not doing it well enough. Every side has a generic system they utilise but they don't all capitulate when opponents do something to nullify them. In game management needs to be much smarter as well. We must start making tactical changes or we will continue to be far too predictable. Unfortunately none of this is likely to happen under Eckert and his coaches because they are not up to the required level and don't have enough experience.

Quite fitting that his shirt is emblazoned with the words, 'University of Portsmouth'

Their action, or lack of it, in the rest of the window will speak volumes because this current group of players have zero chance.

How did he slip through our fingers? 🙂

We haven't been adequately funded. SR is trying to carefully balance the books so that incoming transfers more or less match outgoings. So it's the old player trading - nothing wrong with that if you're switched on you can do it and improve the squad. This lot clearly can't so the only way we'll improve is if they splash the big cash but that's not going to happen so we're stuck in this long period of inertia.