captainchris

Poor as Fonte was and he was 'again'. Has Fox been actually instructed not to close down to prevent crosses coming in ??? I only ask as it seems to be the case - he actually stood six feet from the winger and watched him cross it in for the first goal!! God, lets get the basics right....

Plus the Blackpool game but overall his game has been drifting downwards for quite a while........No longer the player he looked in Div 1....Sorry but it really does look as though his time is nearly up. Personally I would drop him as the final teams we have to play will be playing it over the top and putting tall mobile guys up against him.

Yawn........

Correct.........De Ridder is always looking for the perfect pass and doesn't 'show' to affect the build up play. Hence he is rarely involved and not good enough.....

We are seriously lacking in midfield there is no doubt about this. We either require 5 in midfield which is my preferred solution or, we need players that can get forward. In fact we do need 5 in midfield with at least one that can break forward. What we have is not working and we are continuously in every game for past 3 months being compromised in midfield. For crying out loud we cannot go on like this repeating the same struggling method or we won't go up - simple!

Well put .......

Will we continue yet again against Palace with exactly the same formula which is clearly not working. We are NOT controlling games and haven't for a long time. As we have no pace we remorselessly try to play through the middle with no pace. IF we are going to continue with this predictable tactic we need five in midfield so that we have a spare man to get beyond our forward line and break the predictability.....Chaplow is the only guy who seems to be able to do this. NA we are running out of steam and have been for a long time - we need to address this...

You can't decent balls to the front men if you don't control the midfield and too often away from home we don't..........Two up front doesn't work for us away from home, this is further made worse when the opposition have pace...

You are pinning all the fault on the defeat at the hands of certain players when there wasn't a hairs breath between the lot of em. Obviously they were all really poor. However we should look further into this. The performances for a good while have been well short and in more than a couple of games we have been down right lucky. Look further, this is a larger issue not just performances of certain players in one game..... Preparation in away games seems to need attention and certainly tactics which for my money have been well short of the mark too. NA needs to have a good look in the mirror over our away tactics which look predictable and lacking in cohesion considering our strengths and weaknesses with the players we have. Really think it's time for NA get things sorted...!

Brilliant analysis - spot on. Adkins has to see this - it is staring him in the face....We need five in midfield and deny the opposition the space to play. We have decent players which will win out in the end as long as we are controling the game.

An excellent post and spot on with the analysis of the Donny game at St Mary's and some quite fortunate wins which have papered over some average to poor performances. One of the reasons we generally play better with Lambert in the side is that he plays with so much energy dropping into midfield to collect the ball and start up passages of play. However when playing away even with Lambert in the team we struggle. We cannot continue with two up front. We are continually out numbered, out muscled and out fought in midfield because two up front is like playing with ten men. We can't get the ball to them because we are not in control of midfield so why have two of them up there like man marked statues. Without Lamberts willingness to help the midfield out we are stuffed and even with him the other forward is basically a goal hanging statue. We have a back four with no pace - every one knows this and there is no protection for them. We need five in the middle with a 'sitter' to allow us to do what we are best at, passing our way up the pitch. We have to play this way because we have no pace and Puncheon and DeRidder are average at the very best and not good enough for this team. We insist on rearanging the deck chairs in the same inane way with out affecting the problems. We are not controlling games these days. Closing down yesterday seemed to be something from the dim and distant past and not part of our game - we continually stood off them - perhaps this all part of the same sympton that the midfield are knackered and need help....

Errrr ....buries head in sand......

Your very accurate and well made point about our midfield being too far advanced is one that few have picked up on but so very true. This was also happening in the Donny game last week - fortunately they were not good enough to exploit it. This is a big issue with our formation tactics and not ensuring a midfielder protects that wide open space we leave on the attacking 10 yards side of the centre circle. When we are attacking this area is completely free of Saints midfielders. As happened to day - too many of our players are too advanced when we are playing out from the back too which means even if we do play long we haven't dragged any of their defensive midfield up the pitch or on the other hand neither have we exploited the area behind their attackers who are advanced to close down our playing out from defence. There is an imbalance in the midfield which has been developing as the season has progressed - too big a gap between players supporting strikers and the area in front of the defence. With our slow build up play we need to flood the midfield a little more and can't help thinking we need more of a 4411 or even 4131 where the midfielder really does 'sit in' as our midfield is to often being over run..

Good summing up except Fox who was skinned by Ince all game and was no where to be seen a couple of times......4 DeRidder doesn't hunt the ball and hence ends up with the game passing him by......3 Chaplow along with Lallana were the only players with any energy in the whole team..... Desperately poor perfomance and you have to say the players were not 'up for it' - perhaps our away preparation needs a good look at and I'm not basing that on one performance.....

Whilst you may have a point, nervous players can still work hard and we haven't.....

We look complacent - haven't closed down from the very start - lethargic lazy performance.

Iv'e put effort into cooking the tea to be honest. Really poor EFFORT.....

Summary of the tv interview - as follows.... Total waste of time ??? Pointless newsless nothing new short very short blink and you miss it NC was a mile offside We should draw a blue line under it Adam Lallana is on the digger but every one else is on the bus ! No sign of any whores - oops sorry 'oars' Adkins wasn't there - should we read anything into this (cough)!

Where is the interview? Just the 10 seconds on South Today which basically here is the spot where our new training ground will be and this is Adam Lallana on a digger but nothing more......

You are of course entitled to your opinion........

I'd suggest we played better when actually when De Ridder went off. He's not involved enough when he doesn't have the ball and waits for things to happen for him resulting in us being light in midfield as were today until he was replaced. This why he is only ever effective as an Impact player late on....

The actual evidence supports this. The game changed quite dramatically when Chaplow came on. De Ridder does not make things happen, he doesn't search the ball down - he waits for others to do the work for him, hence when he starts the game often passes him by. Also when he moved up front he was lightweight. Sorry but he will never be anything more than a last 15 mins 'impact' player and I fear he will not make it to the premier league...

Good game, Doncaster played very well flooding midfield and had control of the football in first half. Second half started the same until Chaplow came on and from then on we had control of the football. Haven't seen Chappers name mentioned yet on here tonight but I really thought he looked back towards his best, made things happen and gave Donny much less time on the ball which until he came they had enjoyed. So, though other played well - for me Chappers made the big difference and the second goal.

Just thinking out louuddenly, posts are changing in theme......Many are talking about what the other teams might do. It is true we are now under pressure and certainly our form is not back to where we might need it to be to win automatic promotion. I'm not sure everything is quite right just now with team selection and tactics. It's not major as we have good players to help us along what ever the selection and tactics but our intensity seems to be just a bit off at times and maybe this linked to the slow build ups we often favour playing predominantly through the middle of the pitchis hampering is us. Perhaps at the end of the day we still lack some pace out wide and with Ricky being superb at converting crosses this seems to be rather bizzar...That might sound quite strong but is it a factor...? Not easy to solve though - that's the problem. Deridder, if played from the start often doesn't perform and we don't really have other pacy realistic options. If we don't make a break through passing through the middle, consequently we only really have Deridder as an option late on. It is disconcerting to see Ricky picking the ball up out wide so often during the game when he is the one you want in the middle waiting for the cross. Still, if we'd taken our chances last night there would be no problem I suppose........