BondJovi

My bigger concern with the squad is the number of out of form/lacking match sharpness players we have.

I thought Maguire looked very poor against Villa on Thursday. Late to many challenges. Phillips won't be remotely match fit, neither will Walker. Kane is already 'tired'

Not sure Sterling or Grealish are doing enough currently. Rashford seems to have rediscovered himself though.

Southgate will stick to his favourites so half the squad won't get involved. 

I just don't sense that this world cup carries the magnitude it normally does. 

17 minutes ago, Carnero said:

Does it get reviewed by the original ref or by a different panel?

A review requires a view in the first place...

5 hours ago, jono said:

I think both pen appeals could be defined as soft. Dobbs would have been lucky to score but he was clearly fouled with an indisputable shove. Cash did pull his shirt which is a foul without doubt, but their player had effectively won the battle but chose to go down to make sure. But it’s our own stupid fault and a ref has to make a decision in a milli second. 

I have since read that Forsyth was asked by the ref if he was the guilty party. Doesn't that call into question what exactly the ref saw? Mistaking a 6 for a 3? Mistaking someone 6'3 without a beard for someone under 6' with a beard?

I remain disapointed at a few things, our 2nd half performance, their willingness to dive and the ref for being hoodwinked so easily.

11 minutes ago, jono said:

I think he started well but was suckered by divers later on. But yes, we’ve seen worse. Nevertheless Dobbin being pushed in the box was at least as bad as Cashins shirt pull .. and the lad Cashin held back made a meal of it which Dobbs did not. 
 

 

He seemed to get wrapped up in the occasion after their penalty. I suspect had the Sibley boot been post penalty it would have been red, which I thought he handled very well at the time.

The 3 major decisions, he got 2 right. Several of their fks late on came from zero contact and he only seemed to encourage them!

But we got exactly what we deserved. Individual stupidity seems to be our way these last few years.

1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

Yes, I was surprised at how Ipswich played, and the bit about the officials I think is changing slightly but not enough. They should have been down to 10 men after that atrocious tackle on Smith but the player didn't even get booked.

We as a team didn't make enough "fuss" about it. We didn't immediately surround the ref. And Smith, well he just lay there in a crumpled heap. 

Over the last few seasons we have got away with far less than our opponents. I don't like it but we don't pressure the officials and try to con them like other teams do. Though I fear even if we did, we would be the ones in trouble.

2 minutes ago, Wolfie20 said:

With home advantage, one point at home to fellow strugglers Villa has got to be yet another disappoinment.

Sad ?

???????

I wonder if later on in the season they may regret not actually having a go in this match.

A very poor show from both teams.

6 minutes ago, angieram said:

I think Warne should consider going decaf! 

In the words of someone I worked with, "death before decaf". 

2 minutes ago, Jimbo Ram said:

If we are 10th at Christmas what do we do then ?

We march on PP and demand Rosenior is reinstated. Can't believe our owner would have the sense to appoint an interim manager whilst he assessed the whole club, then decide a new approach would be best. Everyone is envious of our relentless pursuit to do the same thing over and over again in our excellent 3 in 30+ away wins.

I will trust our owner and not immediately herald him the new Mel because he does something bold.

5 minutes ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

Who also looked out of his depth against Mansfield. It’s a risk. He is a long term signing no question not one for now.

Knight in midfield offers more than what we might lose with a young rb! Wasting Knight at the moment. He more than deserves a long run in midfied, not shoved at rb, not playing in the wing.

13 hours ago, Mostyn6 said:

probably one of the most sporting and honorable men in the history of sport and one I respect as much as is possible to.

Wanted him to be the GOAT so much.

I think he is. I know the other two have surpassed his grand slams wins, but like Sampras before him, he is a huge inspiration.

Also, his record for consecutive grand slam semi finals of 23 is incredible. He made 10 consecutive grand slam finals. Nadal is the greatest on clay of all time but for at least 5 years Federer was the second best. Lost 4 finals at the French to Nadal. 

He was an artist on the court. I think when we look at his career as a whole compared to the others he holds records I doubt can be beaten.

3 hours ago, TomTom92 said:

What makes an entertaining side?

Is entertainment dictated by the end result?

I ask both of these questions after looking back at the last 10 seasons or so and debating which manager's philosophies i agree with and which managers i dislike.

Mac - I think I speak for 99% of this forum when I say Mc1's football was paradise. Free flowing, high scoring, never say die football that got us within a freak result away from the promised land. Notably Mc2 was never quite the same as before as during our initial good form it was through just having the knack of winning other than blowing teams out the water. What every other manager in this list is judged against!

Clough - Slow and steady and just as you thought we would kick on we'd have a bad set of results and any optimism would drain away. We also had a bad habit of going 3-0 up and having other teams pants down only to sit back, invite pressure and make games a lot tighter and nerve inducing than they needed to be. That said, Cloughie knew how to beat Leeds and Forest and them results can cover a lot of cracks. Needed to have more belief in what he was doing, far too quick to go to the safety first approach.

Pearson - Just had a nightmare, tried changing things too quickly and alienated the illuminati of players that had Mels's ear.

Clement - Found his style very boring. Once the wheels came off he had no way of saving the day and i believe Darren Bent has since alluded that the dressing room was lost once more. The start of the aimless passing around the back!!

Wassall- Will always be remembered for the Rotherham result and the first leg against Hull. But actually other than them two results he did a good job of bringing the old guard close to Mac1's tenure. Not sure uncle Harry lurking in the background did him many favours in the long run.

Rowett - One of my favourite seasons despite the hate he gets on here. For saying we played negative counter attack football we actually scored at a good rate until February. I'm adamant to this day that if Lookman had chosen us over Leipzig we'd have gone up. That said the second leg at Fulham we somewhat faded with a whisper and his transfer policy was very short sighted.  I really enjoyed some of the games, a very mixed bag though.

Lampard - A thoroughly enjoyable season. We could go 3-0 down and i'd still have the belief that we could get a result. Highlights include Man Utd, Norwich, Rotherham at home and Leeds. In the end he messed up the line up at Wembley and we were beaten by the better team on the day.  On the whole, but those games without Mount we were totally inept.

Cocu - Was thrown in at the deep end and looked to play the 'right way'. His football bored me to tears and as far as i'm concerned he stuck around like a bad smell for 10 games too many. I'm getting PTSD from thinking how frustrated i got watching his team play. I actually thought we had a very entertaining spell post Christmas - Lockdown, broke the club record for scoring in consecutive games.

Rooney - Tactically questionable, but did the best he could last season. Was fortunate to have both Ebosele and Ebiowei emerge at the same time which definitely gave us some excitement. Felt like we could beat anyone at home. Unfortunately our away form was shocking. Also responsible for the worst display of a professional match I have ever witnessed away at Wycombe.

Rosenior - Had a tough assignment but for me his philosophy is too close to Cocu. I'm not bothered how we win games this season as long as we win. Hope to be proven wrong but fear that we may be treading water for 2 seasons before LR goes and EFL restrictions are lifted. Too soon to say.

 

 

Here are our goals scored during this period, in descending order and where we finished. What does it all mean in terms of entertainment?

14/15 - 85 - 8th

13/14 - 84 - 3rd

17/18 - 70 - 6th

18/19 - 69 - 6th

15/16 - 66 - 5th

12/13 - 65 - 10th

19/20 - 62 - 10th

10/11 - 58 - 19th

16/17 - 54 - 9th

09/10 - 53 - 14th

11/12 - 50 - 12th

21/22 - 45 - 18th*

20/21 - 36 - 21st

1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

It isn't getting much out of Sibley either.

The last time we had Sibley, Knight and Bird all playing well at the same time was the pre lockdown spell under Cocu. The run of games before Sibley came in, Bird and Knight were playing very well.

On and off since Mac1 we have persisted with a style of play that requires very specific skill sets in certain positions and a style that gets harder to use effectively the lower down the league system you get. I suspect things could have been highly different had Cocu been able to keep Martin and/or sign Dursun. Much like when Mac2 tried to return us to that style after having made us hard to beat, we didn't have the players.

What we also face now is being the team the others will raise their game against.

I can't sit here and criticise the philosophy when I fully supported it under Cocu,  but I fear we are taking it beyond what it was meant to be and unnecessarily making life so much harder for ourselves, particularly away from home.

The problem for Rosenior is he comes with the baggage of the last few seasons, we see all the hallmarks of what has gone before and fans will be less patient than they perhaps should be. But if we keep seeing Knight at rb I fear this won't end well.

Just now, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

That was the one were the team who weren't in our league when we broke a 'retrospective' rule made up after the event, got themselves relegated by allowing Wisdom to score  his only goal in 6 years in injury time .  Then they asked for a pay out.  Need to beat those c*** wombles. 

I felt embarrassed to have won that game, wouldn't if it happened again though against them!

3 minutes ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

Are there any right backs out there still available on a free? Because surely it's worth a punt?

It's never been because Knight can't play there. It's because what we miss from Knight in midfield is so evident to everyone expect Rosenior 

I would think playing Oduroh with whatever limitations he has would be outweighed by the benefits of Knight in midfield. 

13 minutes ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

THIS.

3 wins in 36 away games.

And at no point in any of them as he said, maybe we should approach these in a different way.

No, we'll just keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results 

One of those was at Wycombe which I think might go down as the worst standard of a professional football match I have ever seen. Even then we completely robbed that win. I suppose you could argue in that game we at least did something different...

4 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Yep. I worry that Rosenior is setting himself up to be Cocu-esque. We've some really good players and football at this level isn't that complicated, don't overthink it.

I see these Cocu comparisons but he was frequently wanting his players to be braver and play faster. Jan - lockdown was as close as we got to his ideas. It also coincided with great performances from Knight and Sibley. But when it was slow it was painful.

My concern is that our general approach for some years now has been very low on chance creation. We got by with Lampard because we had such individual brilliance. Bar the odd spell since we are more concerned with keeping the ball than scoring. It seems we are now taking that to the extreme.

I agree entirely, we have the players to make our life fairly easy in this league. I hope we get Knight out of Rb as soon as possible and actually trust Sibley.

3 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

 

The management changes but the bizarre bullying of Sibley continues. Best player from the first three games despite having to come off the bench. Effectively hauled off at HT on Saturday despite being one of our better players in a team 2-0 up. Now dropped. How to break a young player who's also the most talented member of the squad...

How can he ever get match sharpness and fitness if he is not given a run of games? And people wonder why he hasn't really kicked on. Give him a fair chance, every other player seems to be afforded such a thing. I hope this is not the trend for the season.

On 16/07/2022 at 09:36, Rev said:

I was going to order Bob Dylan tickets, until I checked out setlist.fm to see what he's been playing. 

A bit too obscure for a casual fan like me to justify £75 a ticket, so booked to see Sports Team at Rock City instead. 

Will try next week for Springsteen tickets at Villa Park.

Did you manage the Springsteen tickets? The guy is my absolute musical hero but I simply couldn't justify the prices.  Expensive enough seeing him last time around.

31 minutes ago, TomTom92 said:

Surely if nobody could come up with the funds 6 months ago they aren’t going to be able too now? 
 
Unless AA has roped in a bigwig with a sizeable wallet.

If AA has, it would have been in motion now.

I fear we are ducked. Maybe it is for the best to put us out of our misery.

9 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

We've as empty a squad as it's ever likely to be bar a couple of players. Do you reckon 'a careful and steady rebuild' would suit Rooney? I reckon if he wants to stay he wouldn't settle for a slow rebuild. He wants 40 players in. So if he gets them it's got to be with the aim of promotion.

Aren't we going to be limited by a post admin business plan for a couple of seasons anyway? Whoever takes over won't be able to splash the cash so I suspect Rooney will have favours to call in.

5 minutes ago, On the Ram Page said:

Maybe wrong but:

Unless CK becomes our owner Wayne Rooney will walk and I guess many of our players out of contract with him. We then face the prospect of appointing a new manager (if a quality person is available) and him recruiting new payers (say 25?). How long will that take?

I'm for waiting a bit longer to see if CK's monies are cleared.

 

You would think it would be in the best interest of everyone associated with the club that the CK deal goes through.

I can't help but feel there is some mischief making going on.

15 minutes ago, Rammy03 said:

'Walked promotion'

You won a play off semi final on penalties

And a final with an own goal and 2 blatant penalties not given against. But yes, walked...

Sadly I think behaviour has taken a huge downturn since lockdown, as has the standard of driving. But anyway, too many think going to a football match gives them freedom to do as they please. I do fear it is going to have to take something serious happening to stop it. 

55 minutes ago, jono said:

Really interesting. I think we do need to factor in population. Many more of us now, along with improved access and a more inclusive family friendly catchment. The South Stand die hard demographic may be largely the same but it’s a bigger audience pool now for the rest of the stadium, both in terms of numbers and who would likely go. 

This doesn't take into account the changing capacity of the BBG. I know it dropped to 18000ish at some point.

53 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

Camerone Jerome too. To be fair none of them were duds (apart from maybe Ledley) but they were very expensive for our wage bill. 

The real problem is that these players were signed on top of all the gross overspend from Clement, Pearson. We were never going to get our money back on most of those and then to add in more players with no resale value.

I guess if you see Rowetts Derby time in isolation then it isn't so bad, but it was just adding to existing problems.