Saint86

Found one... "The players could have easily chucked that game and thrown another manager under the bus. Yes, they need to do better and step up we can all see that.. may not be popular but I hope this can be a pivotal moment in the season for the manager. A last minute winner no matter who it is against will give the group some belief and confidence. We live in a time where it's easy to direct anger and hatred.. fair play to Martin for continuing to put himself out there and continuing to swing as it must be terrible on a personal level. I am desperate for him to turn this around."

Obviously won't be us will it ffs. Still gave stephens a new 3 year contract, he's probably his favourite person right now.

Yeah agreed. Its weird. I expect us to be beating boro at home - i'll accept a draw because i know we're struggling to gel and get going at present... But we were (and are) the better side - we need to be turning these draws into wins for most of the rest of the season.

I feel like we are seeing progress. But its taking a while for them to click, we've got tough games atm (do well to take anything from Wilder's Sheffield away). Fair play on him for dropping Stephens and THB. Thought fellows, AA, woods, and Quarshie all had pretty strong games all in all (although the CB's did lose their man for the goal - not helped by the decoy runner being offisde and them appealing for it). In some ways, maybe this tough run of matches is going to hone the team - but we'll be looking for Reading McDermot style run to get automatics if we don't start winning soon.

Better. But not good enough. Another travesty of defending and goalkeeping to cost us the game. 1 shot on target and a goal for boro... oh how i haven't missed macca being beaten at his near post

Adam blackmore and Tessem really are a shit pair of commentators does have to be say.

Macca there. Almost did one of his specials ffs.

Blimey... The defence....

Currently committing a slaughter away at Fulham 🔥🔥🔥

https://www.followfollow.com/forum/threads/ive-never-hated-a-manager-until-now.309109/ Wow...

Agreed, that was the best performance in a very long time. Since the playoffs at least.

Well they're hardly going to pick them up and walk off are they...

It was one of the best team performances we've had in the past 2years. But fundamentally its a better team. Even playing with 9men second half (downs and robinson were non-existent or even helped liverpool) and Macca in goal - which just shows that at least the rest of that team is at a higher standard than previous seasons.

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Macca is the worse keeper of the two. He's a liability that will give away goals or horror passes multiple times per match and without warning. Bazunu's shot stopping isn't as strong, fine, but his all around play is far superior - he is better with the ball at his feet, he will sweep the back line and through balls, and his kicking/distribution is very good for the level we're at. That brings a calmness. Its the defences job to stop shots - the chance he parried back into the box vs Hull is 3 defensive fucks ups before its Baz's fault - the cross comes in unchallenged, 2 of our players fail spectacularly to mark or win the header that THB in particularly should be a favourite for, and then Stephen's is ball watching for the reboud. Its a car crash. And then its also rinse and repeat for the rest of the defending that led to the other goals. The baz haters then blame bazunu for the shit fest that is in front of him - when the error macca made is far far worse, and is a major reason why we didn't get to pens last night - instead had to come from behind to try and get back into the game. Reality is that we went from what should have been a 1 -0 lead to being 0-1 down in the space of half a minute. And the goal we conceded was yet another howler. Nothing is more unsettling for a defence than a keeper that can't be relied on to sweep up lose balls and provide reliable and safe distribution. What is more frustrating is that we can play that well against Liverpool (albeit it rotated) but we'll likely go back to being disjointed and cack vs Boro.

Notably, Downs and Robinson showed they are not ready for this kind of level.

Agreed. But hes a good player for champ level (not for the prem) which is where we are. He offers very good delivery in the final 3rd - and its our CB and GKs that are costing us matches, not manning at LB.

Another game lost to a defensive or gk error. A very bad joke. Downs looks like a shell of a player - clearly struggling for confidence. Charles, Downes, Quarshie, and Manning all had good games imo. Jelert as well looks decent.

Quarshie superb there.

Archer just isn't up to it for me. Need to start playing AA or Stewart as the main striker.

I can't overly disagree. Manning the only remaining defender from Martinball that i'm okay with playing.

The difference is we executed a fantastic bit of play to generate our 2 shots... Macca basically passed to the most expensive player in British football history whilst under next to no pressure, all inside the 6yard box. Its just appalling. Who knows, maybe we will actually get a new GK in january and sell THB and the rest of the season will be golden and we'll do a reading under mcdermot.

Agreed. Macca is a calamity. Bazunu has to be let down by his defence first - macca just gives goals away left right and centre by fucking insane lapses in judgement/concentration.

And that Archer header (that he misses) - i reckon that if that was stewart he scores.

Like FFS. Can we just play a game without gifting the opposition multiple defensive fuck ups? Its a joke at this point. Teams don't even have to play well against us - they just wait for us to gift a goal.

Honestly think we need to not play THB or Macca again (or at least for a very long time until the rest of the team has settled). Stephens and Quarshie for a back pairing for me - and i'm in two minds about dropping stephens as well... the scar of martinball on our defence is just horrendous.