Tommy Mulgrew

Hello Henrik!

That’s one of the few of your posts that I have agreed with. Things are looking up. The future, like the present, is red and white. I thought Martin had read this forum and based his play-off tactics on our advice but maybe he has studied Ancelotti instead. 🙂 Let’s all be optimistic of having a good season in ‘24/25.

Bedders has been excellent this season and has well earned another season with us in the EPL. One thing that impresses me especially is his care and concern for others, whether friend or foe. He is always first or thereabouts to anyone injured, especially if seriously hurt. I noted that he went up to Farke and consoled him after the match. Sheer class when everyone was euphoric over our victory. I hope he will do well for us next season; Martin seems to value him so I expect he will have a big part to play next season.

Some interesting stats in the Sky analysis of the forthcoming game: our passing figures for the season are half sideways (50:50 left:right), quarter (just over) forwards and quarter (just under) backwards. No wonder we have difficulty getting the ball up the pitch to threaten the opposition’s goal. Whitey might find those stats accord with what he sees. 🙏 But, hang on a minute, are they stats? Or are they facts? 😩 Phew, for a moment I thought that I had found some stats that he would accept. Better luck next time, perhaps. 👌

We’d better get promoted quickly, then, before Chelsea get relegated as a result of following its owner’s young-player strategy. 🙂

Last week, I looked at the OPTA ratings of us, Leicester, Leeds, WBA, Norwich and Ipswich and the bottom four EPL teams and, we were above only WBA, Norwich, Ipswich and Sheffield United. ( link on another thread.) The relegated teams will undoubtedly lose some good players but, if we do not go up, so shall we. So it will not necessarily be as easy to get promoted next year as it might seem just by looking at the points this year’s relegated teams achieved and saying that they cannot be as good as us. Just saying the obvious.

Fellows, or whatever his name was, was pretty fast last Sunday. Stephens is even slower than Manning and showing a winger a route away from our goal area and goal line is not his forte ; IMO Bree, or even Meghoma (I know that won’t happen), would be better. Regardless, think positive and enjoy the win.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4n11qx654qo The stick we give Manning on here reminds me of another player who used to play FB for us: Paul Wootton, who has just been appointed manager of Torquay United. Good luck Paul.

Why do you want three CBs at home? Stephens to get some splinters. With only Flynn and Big Joe in midfield, we’ll be overrun. I’d start Charles or (so long as he is docked £10,000 each time he passes backwards and £1,000 each time he passes sideways) Smallbone alongside those two. LND will come on from the bench, not start. I’d not have Manning or Stephens exposed to their wingers; Bree at LB for me with Fraser or Edozie to start on the left in front of him. Start aggressively and with pace and we’ll be 3:0 up before WBA know what has hit them.

How is JR these days, Charles?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/cprgxj4zlneo Everton troubles continue to mount. What a shame!

A lot of the criticism of Russ’s PB football is about goals conceded and turgid play. The two are connected and the first partly results from the second. We probably pass the ball to each other more quickly than other teams in the Championship and that is admirable and impressive but the almost automatic passing is mainly sideways or backwards because opponents cut off the more obvious routes forward. Really good players with quick-witted vision for a killer forward pass are needed to work the ball quickly up the pitch to the opponent’s penalty area; either that or a long ball over the top down the middle or diagonally. We do the latter sometimes but not often. We do the former rarely. When we do we either, we cut incisively through the opposition with relatively few of our players high up th pitch. If we lose the ball, we generally have good cover for a counterattack on our goal. By going sideways or backwards, we give the opponent time to get all players behind the ball and when we tippy tippy the ball forward we have to commit our entire outfield player forward to break down the opposition defensive formation. If we lose the ball, the opposition counterattack can move quickly on our goal because we have overcommitted forward and attackers quickly bear down on an inadequate defensive shield in front of our goal. The result is a high proportion of opponents’ chances result in a goal and a blame the goalkeeper (and the manager and the defence and the midfield) culture among our fans. The more we mix up our play with a more direct approach, the more likely we are to pose a threat on our opponent’s goal and the more likely we are not to concede to a goal to the counterattack if we lose the ball up the pitch. It also reduces the likelihood of us losing the ball in or near our penalty area. Football is a simple game. At present we are making it difficult.

Now that Goztepe will play in the top Turkish league next season I thought we should have a thread dedicated to that club. One of our loanees already plays in goal and excelled this season just ended and another is being talked about for next season. The VFC thread seems to work well and has proved useful IMO and I hope this one will, too. Goztepe has a large fan base and some of them might like to read stuff or contribute on here.

McCarthy is an experienced Premiership and Championship goalie; RM has ignored him until two weeks ago. I agree Bazunu has been poor. Except for letting in a free kick tamely, Lumley has been good this season in his limited game time. Macca is our obvious first and low-risk choice, even for a PB team. Bednarek is a Polish international with over 50 caps I think and he and THB are absolutely quality at this level. Stephens is acceptable, but no more, as a third CB and fullback cover. KWP is excellent in both attack and defence; his defending understandably suffers the more energy he spends on attack (I lost count of the number of times he bombed forward against Stoke and then had to bomb back again to defend) and he is exhausted towards the end of each match. Bree is good at this level. Manning is fine going forward but poor defensively. Meghoma is preferable to me and has done well each time he has played IMO. Downes is Premiership level. Charles, although young, is an Irish international and is good in this league either alongside Downes or as a sub for him. Smallbone is a powderpuff player who should not be at DM. For a Championship team, even one vying for promotion, I believe we have no right to expect any better than what we have, Manning and Bazunu excepted and we do not have to keep having those two in the starting eleven. Bazunu is now injured and Bree, Stephens or Meghoma could play instead of Manning. Whatever you or I think of our defensive capabilities, the number of goals that we have conceded is criminal. Only this year have I noticed how we hardly ever try to close down wide attacking players and seem to invite crosses into our box. That is not because of the quality of our players; it is surely how they have been told to play. It would not be difficult to improve our defensive performance: you or I could even do it.

If asked before the season began or, indeed, at the end of September, whether I would take having to beat Cardiff away and then Stoke at home to go into the final game away to Leeds on 90 points, equal to Leeds, either level with or one or three behind second-placed Ipswich, seven behind leaders Leicester and eleven ahead of the next team, I think I would almost certainly said yes. And I think most on here would, too. That was our situation after the disappointing defeat at Leicester. Even after that defeat and our disastrous February, we were still in a place that was IMO broadly acceptable to most fans. We should try to overlook the recency effect of Cardiff and Stoke. The trouble is that although the performance as a whole is broadly acceptable, acknowledging the inability to secure promotion yet, the number of goals conceded is not, considering the quality of our defensive players, and so is the number of good chances spurned. Added to that, the alarming number of games that we have dominated only to draw or lose and the tedious way we approach almost every game, even when trying to score an injury time winner or equaliser, and is it any wonder that I and many other fans are hacked off with the way it has gone? RM deserves credit for establishing the groundwork for a successful season after the shambles of last year but he has persistently not learned from what he has seen on the pitch and adjusted his preferred modus operandi to get the results that our promotion objective demand. He and his players make the same mistakes over and over again. Hence the ire on this forum from most posters. With small adjustments here and there, we could have achieved so much more. Either he cannot see it or he is wantonly ignoring the obvious. Whichever it is, that is unacceptable. Even if we do by some miracle win the playoffs. To do that, though, we need him and the players to step up and show some guts and gumption, show passion and desire and go and win each game (pace Whitey G). So far this year I have not seen much of that; now is the time that really counts. Thank goodness promotion is still within our reach. Give him and the team our full support until the last second of our season. Then, and only then, decide whether we want to have him as our manager next season.

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I agree; that’ why I typed: “…with THB a bit slow to follow him … THB could have done better …”. Both our CBs were lacking in this instance and the result was a goal. It happens sometimes. With us, it happens regularly every match. And we then have to outscore the opposition, a feat that we regularly do not do. We now need to change the momentum of three losses in a row before now and get three wins in a row after the Leeds game. I cannot see it happening, though, but we need to support the team on the pitch for our remaining matches.

As usual in our slow build-up play, we lost the ball while overcommitting our entire team except THB and Macca and Hoever lofted the ball forward over Stephens’s head to Campbell. Stephens and Bree had wandered forward, Bree acceptably so, according to our usual practice, but not so Stephens, who left Campbell unmarked. THB came left from his position on our right to cover for the missing Stephens and tried to shepherd Campbell to the goal line away from the goal. Bree got back to help him and rightly took up position to negate a possible cutback by Campbell to have a shot more directly in front of the goal. Campbell shifted forward towards the goal line, with THB a bit slow to follow him , and unleashed a powerful shot straight at Macca, who was making himself as big as possible to reduce the unprotected area of the goal and therefore not standing still with his feet together, and the ball sped between his legs into the net. Stephens, meanwhile trotted back to take up THB’s usual position on our right. If Bree and THB had tried to swap positions while trying to stop Campbell from shooting they would probably have contrived merely to make the shot on goal easier to get away. That is how I remember it. No faulting Macca or Bree. THB could have done better but Campbell took his chance well. The real culprit was Stephens, who was in No-CB Land marking nobody and leaving Campbell unmarked and onside. I might have remembered it wrongly but I don’t think so. Still, “memories might differ”, I suppose.

Have we forgotten the donkey who cost c.£4million and went on to play for Stoke and develop a long throw?😉

I don’t know who we rejected in favour of RM but, of our recent managers and coaches, Ralph, Ruben, Nathan and Danny (Rohl) are all doing great jobs at their respective relegation-threatened clubs. As is Nigel, btw, at Tranmere and Kelvin at Eastleigh. Not to say they would be any good at getting promoted, Nigel excepted; we’ll see how RM will fare at that in a few weeks time.

In the last two games, the ones he has played in, Macca has been perfectly OK. He has not been to blame for the goals against, has made a few good saves and, with only one exception, has dealt calmly with receiving the ball under pressure and passing the ball forward, either short or long, or rolling or throwing it to one of our unmarked players. He has hoofed it long a few times more than Bazunu would have done but that is no bad thing and has done it pretty well. I, too, would not mind Lumley in goal, but Macca is the safer choice IMO. He has not let us down so far this year.

We already have one. He has played the last couple of games. He is out of contract soon but could sign a new one on reduced wages. He is certainly good enough for a promotion-chasing Championship side and is used to being 1st, 2nd or even 3rd choice. If we do not go up, he represent a low-risk solution to one of our problems. A higher risk, but still one worth considering, is that fella in Turkey’s second division who has kept plenty of clean sheets for Goztepe. Both would cost no signing-on fee. I expect we shall do neither and go for another teenager, though. 👼

That was terrible and demonstrated that RM, who is supposed to be a good coach, does not have what it takes to succeed in this division. He has a rigid style of play and sticks to it even when it is not working. He encourages defenders to stand off attackers and invite crosses and runs into our box. He encourages slow, ponderous play everywhere on the pitch even when we are aggressively pressed. Our press is OK but nothing more and certainly nothing like as effective as Leicester’s. We gave the ball away too many times as a result of being pressed effectively, with players closing down ours and our favoured passing channels; and then stood off them as they attacked our goal with pace and accuracy. He encourages possession to the exclusion of everything else, resulting in sideways and backwards passing instead of moving forward at pace. Having two shots and none on target is a disgrace. He insists on playing one way only even when faced with a CB with the turning circle of an oil tanker; why did we not try to run Vestergaard ragged? If he really thinks that we put on a good show, he is deluded. We were well beaten by a far better team that was well coached to play against us and all our flaws. Outthought and outplayed. A miserable evening. One that we could see coming but did not believe would be as demoralising as it turned out to be. Truly pathetic.

I went, almost always, in the Milton from the early 1960s. Surely we had both the Milton and the Archers ends. Or don’t those two count as ends? Not trying to be funny or anything; just puzzled by the comment. Although, I suppose having both ends is not quite the same as having one single end; problem solved. Perhaps I should not have bothered.

I have not read this on here so I do not know whether many posters will know: The Times interviewed Duncan last week and used his responses in an article on the pros and cons of promotion for teams like us, Norwich, WBA, Leeds, etc. It did not really cover much new ground that has not been seen in a few threads on here. When asked whether he wanted Saints to be promoted, Duncan gave the only logical answer: yes but he would not cry if we were not. The article appeared in the Sports section of the newspaper on Saturday. Paywall for those looking online.