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Our centre midfield is lacking legs when they break through the middle… how often have we said that this season ??!

I think some of the criticism he gets is harsh. He’s not the long term answer in midfield, but Bird and Hourihane can be equally if not sometimes more frustrating in the quality v consistency stakes.
I do think he will find it hard to get back into the team, simply because we can’t afford to have players playing their way into form or fitness at this stage of the season.
However I get the sense he’s a really good pro though and that is important. He really stepped up to the plate and was very reliable playing at right back last season.
From videos and clips on our social media channels, you also get the feeling he’s a good character and good to have in the dressing room and around the club.
If he moves on be it in January or the summer, he should go with our well wishes.

His ability with his feet is nowhere near as good as Wildsmith. Don't know why Wildy looked a bit 'off' recently but Vickers is not as good a keeper and doesn't give the same confidence that Joe does, imho. 

We were being out pressed at times, our midfield were being bypassed and passed through for large parts of the second half. Most people here wanted to match up to them in the middle, going to a midfield 3 might have been an idea. I'd have gone to a back 3 and effectively had 5 in midfield to strangle them.
We were crying out for some legs in the middle.
Just my opinion like. Feel free to make up your own.

Wrote out a long reply after reading through the match thread, but deleted it as it sounded a bit preachy. Instead am just going to say, to some posters,  why give up on the outcome of a game at the first sign of a setback? There's always time for a late winner, ( yes I know, maybe for the opposition too, but we don't know, so why give up?) And please, lay off the digs on Sonny Bradley before he even gets on the pitch, he's our player, for the team we support, so why wouldn't you support him?

Seddon is about 10 stone wet through, there's no way he should be out muscling NML like he did.  People can't pull Elder apart for his error and not appoint some blame for their first at Nat's door.  It was sloppy.

Thanks for that, that’s a good summary. 
 
in terms of his game management, I would argue that this has improved this season. I think it is a tricky area to judge, as those who criticise usually have the great benefit of hindsight. One the one hand, if we are playing reasonably well, you don’t want to change the momentum of the game by introducing substitutes, so timing I think is not always easy to judge. If the opposition are making tactical substitutions, which immediately affect the game, then I do agree you need to be more proactive to counter these. That is providing you have the personnel on the bench to produce the necessary effect. I would argue that currently he does not have all the bullets he needs to cover every situation. For example, regardless of who he bought on against Peterborough, they were always quicker and passed the ball better than us. Last night Burton were not better or the equal of us. They scored 2 goals from our mistakes, but never looked like scoring apart from that. We could quite easily have won 5-2, with the players we had on the pitch. 
 
The Control aspect is similar in a way. We need to pass the ball better  and possibly be a bit more boring and safer. That however bought huge criticisms earlier in the season. I would again argue that until we find a Thorne/Eustace midfielder who can be strong, tackle and break up attacks, we will always struggle to control games as much as we would like.
Agree with your strengths.

Wildsmith
Wilson   Nelson   Cashin   Elder
Bird   Hourihane   Thompson
Barkhuizen   Collins   Mendez-Laing

Subs: Vickers, Bradley, Ward, Sibley, DRobinson, DBrown, John-Jules
Vickers hasn't done enough to prove why he should be in the team ahead of Wildsmith.
Elder needs to build on his first start.
Out current version of 442 lacks balance, hence a change to 433. If Forsyth was fit, I would be starting Sibley at AM. However, he'll be needed at LB to finish the game so a place on the bench it is.

I mean in the words of Roy Keane, that's his job. It wasn't a major contribution, just the minimum expectation really. People have fair criticisms of Max Bird more than just he "does nuffink".

Teams have been running through our midfield all season . We will get away with it this season , but not in the Championship. Be interesting to see if there is any interest in Bird this window ? His tackling is non-existent and constantly passes backwards .

I get what you are saying and I agree with it. But did Bird really win the ball much really? What is it with Bird why does he get so much protection that’s often leads to people making false stats up to protect his abjectivity? 
Over 20 years I’ve never seen anything like it with regards to over ratedness 

I agree but disagree with the last bit, i dont think he is a 7 most weeks. I think if derby signed him and didnt come through the adacamy people wouldnt give him such high ratings. I think he needs to man up and be stronger if he grow a pair and put in tackles, didnt shy out and didnt go missing in so many games there would be alot of teams in for him. He is only a championship player at best he will never make it in the prem 

I agree but disagree with the last bit, i dont think he is a 7 most weeks. I think if derby signed him and didnt come through the adacamy people wouldnt give him such high ratings. I think he needs to man up and be stronger if he grow a pair and put in tackles, didnt shy out and didnt go missing in so many games there would be alot of teams in for him. He is only a championship player at best he will never make it in the prem 

Seems we have moved on from the Warne bashing to the players. We are on one of the best runs in our history and still we seem intent on finding fault with something.
Bird never more than a championship player...FFS we are in league one, CH did more than Bird...they play for the same side, they are different players. Barks was rubbish, he scored and set one up, we didn't control the game, yes we did bar a period between their goals when they threw caution to the wind.
Yes we can improve performance wise, but all that matters is getting out this league and another 3 points goes towards that.

If that was his best game for a while he will never be anything more than a league 1 footballer. What did he do. Houihane won us the game what did Bird do? Hourihane is past it but still won the game for us. Bird should be doing more than a player who is past it.

Wildsmith is a better keeper than Vickers.
We have gone away from our solid back 5, for various reasons...Nyambe we can't help, Forsyth is injured, But Wildsmith we can re-introduce!
Unless we buy a better CM, possibly Brannagan or Arblaster, we need to start Liam Thompson in a 3.
Thought Kane Wilson was MOM...he really is the best kid in the playground!
 

It's poor football at times, Bird's neck must ache like a bitch watching all those long balls bypass him overhead every game. It's effective  but only when we are high on energy, soon as we drop off you can see it going wrong. The period before the equaliser we couldn't put 2 passes together for 5 mins it was genuinely awful. John-Jules was poor all game, link up play just never came off constantly rolling around for fouls that never were.
Warneball feels like it's all or nothing to me, either really effective driving teams back or total loss of control. Had an OK first half then after 2nd goal went in the levels seem to ease off and we let them right back in to it. When we finally started whipping proper crosses in things started to fall, one thing I can't stand is floated crosses. Fair play to Hourihane though he stepped up that last 10 mins and pushed us forward.
 

A win is a win but it is clear we need a mobile, athletic central midfielder with pace. Bird and Conor are just not quick enough. We seem to lose the battle so often there. Think Warne should have bolstered the central midfield 20 minutes earlier. Just an observation, Vickers not convincing, poor handling and kicking. Thought Wilson did ok but Elder poor. Who knows what that goal will mean come the end of the season 😊🐏

We dont have a midfield, both are not good enough championship we would get battered 

Not at all impressed with the way that went, but 3 points.
Any of the better teams in this league would have beaten us. They just need to watch our poor set up in midfield

Excellent L1 players ready to step up to the level above:
 Mendez Laing, Nelson, Cashin, Wilson, Wildsmith,  Nyambe
 Decent L1 players who will need replacing eventually at the level above:
Forsyth, Hourihane, Waghorn, Collins, Bird, Barkhuizen, Washington, Smith, Rooney, Bradley 
 Academy products:
Brown, Weston, Robinson, Hawkins, Fapetu, Bardell, Cox, Wheeldon, Thomspson, Radcliffe 

He clearly still wants more pace which seems to be more a crucial part of his playing style, Bird and Hourihane dont seem to have the legs to get forward and support the striker like he wants. Hence the amount of aimless crosses we saw early on hoping Collins could outjump both CBs. He's prob 3 or 4 players away from playing his way to full effect.

At least with Warne in charge the state of the pitch can't impact any of our slick passing play, because there isn't any.

Dress it up with stats as much as you want, his general play has been pretty poor on most occasions that he has played.