eddielewis

No possession whatsoever but it's all our doing. Just kick and rush bypassing the midfield. Curtis and the rest of the Cheltenham defence will just eat up any of our attacks (if you can call them that!)

Elder is made out of polystyrene surely? it's crazy that we've got him for 2 more seasons hopefully there's an exit clause with him this summer

9 minutes ago, RamFan13 said:

Very much doubt that🤣

It's a bit fishy that!

17 minutes ago, Comrade 86 said:

He's played a blinder so far, get him in. Might be a tad expensive mind as his wage demands are significant and I fear he won't be as quick across the ground as our current left winger.

15 minutes ago, Anag Ram said:

Might find it difficult getting to the game as for some inexplicable reason the trains are unreliable.

But at least he'll make sure the ticket office is open

5 minutes ago, Andicis said:

Hourihane is one of those players who I think makes the players around him look worse. I find myself consistently unimpressed with his work off the ball. We can't carry players in that position.

This flat 2 in the midfield doesn't suit either midfielder. Bird suits and you could say grew up as that holding distributor in a 3 and Hourihane is more of a forward 8 that is losing his legs. Tactically what I don't like about the midfield is whoever we have in there is there's always a no-man's land if we lose the ball on either wing. There is total confusion as to whether to hold the space centrally or fill the space where the wing back has left. This leads to them not tracking runners or far too apart from one another if we do then recover possession. 

Watching the goal back Barkhuizen being totally asleep during the initial throw in that led to the goal was criminal.

We should obviously look at other targets but Chansiri is well known for being hard to deal with but he eventually crumbles. Just this past October he was asking fans to chip in £2 mill to pay the tax and wages but somehow found the money in the end. As long as we stick to our guns with not offering what they want and maybe hope Smith kicks off as well we should get him.

Good move as the PL2/Under 21's have only got 9 games left in their regular season due to the PL2 revamp so he will only have minutes in Under 18's or the odd youth friendly otherwise. Good test for him playing against men in a team that's competing for a National league playoff spot. Looks like we will be able to recall after 28 days but hopefully that's not the case and has a successful spell.

Captaincy means nothing as long as the team has multiple leaders. It's just an armband. For near on 8 years we had what we all thought was as great example of a captain on and off the pitch in Keogh until he did what he did.

When's the next meeting with Fan Groups/Clowes surely this is priority question for them?

2 minutes ago, On the Ram Page said:

Very broadbrush, please explain first sentence and what he gets away with.

Sorry it did seem a bit broadbrush hopefully this is a bit more detail

Tactically he clearly asks the players to get it out to the forwards as clearly and aggressively as possible which works NML is a nightmare 1 on 1 for the opposition but this sometimes unnecessarily results in rushed build up play and losing possession at times where just need a spell of keeping the ball centrally. Defensively the midfield flat 2 expose the defence when the both wing backs are high up as they are in no man's land to understand to either keep their space centrally or the space left the LB/RB. Burton's first and recently Peterborough's first goal of where if we do not keep the ball well out wide or there is not enough nuance than just a telegraphed pass to the wide men when everybody has committed we can get punished easily. 

There seems to be hesitancy to adapt the numbers in the midfield when we are outnumbered or when an opposition is sitting with a mid/low block and through that it seems we make changes a bit too late. John Jules for Thompson sub should have been made in the 60th not the 84th. I understand he wants to keep the opposition penned in and wary of us with two up top which again works most of the time but as soon as it was 2-1 the midfield needed shoring up.

I do think he gets away with these things in league 1 due to the level of opposition not taking their chances when we do have these 15-20 min spells of panic. We have to be aware better opposition will take those chances with teams around us with Bolton, Portsmouth, Blackpool, Barnsley, Stevenage still left to play as Peterborough showed. I don't want to seem overtly negative towards him because we're doing really well (must emphasise!!) and all we need to do is carry on as we are and we should get promotion and I just think last night showed there are bug bares to Warne that may be the contributing factor as why he has 3 relegations as well as 3 promotions.

I thought last nights performance was kind of indicative of Paul Warne. Tactically and game management wise there are things that he gets away with in league 1 that I think should/hope/if/pray we get promoted this year he would not get away with in the championship.

5 minutes ago, Kernow said:

I don't think he's done anything particularly wrong, but he doesn't look as confident or as match ready as Wildsmith. I didn't think Wildsmith deserved to be dropped, but I'd happily see him back in as I think he's the better of the two keepers.

Agree I don't think the amount of mistakes he has made recently or even over the course of the season warranted dropping him. 

Eric Steele not impressed with Vickers on RD

There's been many a frustrating moment like this under Warne where were chasing the result and tactically were just far too apart from each other when we build up. There's hardly ever a midfielder or attacker that comes to collect and it just results in mid/long telegraphed passes.

Seddon has really impressed me tonight out of contract in the summer

9 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Max Dean is a player to keep an eye on. Signed from Leeds last January, but only got regular starts for MK Dons in October. He's now got 9 goals and 1 assist in his last 14 games (including a goal vs Reading in the FA Cup).

He looks like he's fed up with all the roundabouts in Milton Keynes

12 minutes ago, MackworthRamIsGod said:

I'd be happy with we signed him and CBT. I would consider that a good January.

CBT/TJJ/NML/Collins/Smith/Barkhuizen and then Washington/Waghorn for the run in. For attacking players in League one that's quite the selection box!

You can see that their recent form might be stemming from harsh criticism from fans even though they were winning up until the new year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67863544 This interview last week seems like Colby Bishop their main target has lost some confidence and he goes and misses a penalty today. 

This is a lesson for our fans to not be too negative of our players. We might drop the odd irritating stinker i.e. Bradford and we might not sign anyone this month but were in the mix and they need all the support they can get!

On 06/01/2024 at 17:10, eddielewis said:

18/19 Season Portsmouth were top going into the new year on 51 points and then didn't win for 8 games (3 losses then 5 draws). Could it be happening again? Their fans might be thinking so after today's result

3-0 down at home is it happening again for them? 

10 minutes ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

Yeah I'm hoping the bid being reported by Football Insider is the same bid reported by that Richard Cawley at the start of the week.

Then we've continued negotiations this week and are getting close. CBT has probably informed Charlton that he wants to leave and move to Derby. So hopefully they've just said look we're close, not played him today and we can get this all done next week.

Charlton have blinked first with the transfer chain with signing Coventry (transfermkt have that fee at around £1,150,000 probably loads less than that upfront but with incentives) and apparently already agreed for Clarke-Harris for around £350k. CBT and their captain Dobson are on the way out so are probably wanting to recoup about £800-900k altogether. 

I suspect from our side at the negotiation table we are trying to get a percentage of the fee tied to whether we get promotion in a similar fashion to Fornah and Wilson and Charlton probably want a more no strings hard cash.

9 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

Putting aside any issues of whether he's good enough, I don't think Odurah is the kind of fullback Warne wants anyway.  I reckon he was signed by Rosenior to do the kind of job he had Hayden Roberts doing (and what John Stones does for Man City, for example), where he drifts into central midfield to give extra passing options from the back.  From what we've seen of him (which isn't much of course), he certainly doesn't look like the kind of fullback that's going to bomb up and down the touchline and whip crosses in.

There must be a player in Oduroh somewhere. He was captain of the Man City youth teams so you would expect him to be a reliable, trustworthy player. I think maybe the biggest issue with him is that he was never loaned out so never experienced men's football besides the odd pizza cup game so hopefully this recent loan has done him the world of good. Hopefully Warne has at the very least re-introduced him to senior training this past week. It would be stupid to cast him aside to the under 21's without seeing where he's at.

4 hours ago, Jubbs said:

Gonna be honest, if you're 25 (ignore the article, he's not 22) and still playing at that level, it's highly likely you're not League 1 standard. Happily proven wrong but I don't think he's League 1 promotion standard.

A forgotten aspect with players around this age or just slightly younger is they had a lost season or so due to covid where youth/under 21/3 and the lower leagues were cancelled so it must have been an even harder journey for him to try make it as a professional footballer since he was released from Birmingham a year before covid. Some players need to take a step back to take two steps forward. Just take our own rejected academy products in Archie Brown, Timi Elsnik and Emil Riis as examples they've all moved to a 'lesser' league in other countries (latter two back home) and thrived and are now reaping the rewards in their careers. We'd have all of those back in a heartbeat.

Might I add also it must be hard for any player to get scouted in the Irish leagues when the camera footage is shocking 😂

6 hours ago, Millenniumram said:

We really should be progressing through this game. Give the squad players a run out:

Wildsmith

Nelson Bradley Cashin

Ward Thompson Fornah Elder

Barkhuizen Sibley

Collins

I’ve not been to an EFL Trophy game… and that won’t be changing here. RamsTV for me

That should be the team since we don't play Burton till the following Monday. Reward Ryan Bartley (under 21 CB) with a bench spot since he's won PL2 player of the month.