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Hoofball


IslandExile

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9 hours ago, IslandExile said:

Agreed. But there's a difference between "grinding a result out" and "trying to put the ball into orbit". Enough head tennis, let's always try to play football.

Trying to play football against teams fighting for their lives hasn’t got us very far so far this season. I didn’t enjoy the game at all last night but, at the moment, we just have to accept winning ugly in certain games.

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9 hours ago, IslandExile said:

Yeah we won. Yeah, I fully support Rooney as manager.

But, heck, that was a difficult watch.

Did we put three passes together? Were any two consecutive passes played on the ground?

Squad rotation, injuries, relegation battle, pragmatic approach.... But, sorry, I don't want Derby County to play that way.

COYR ?

Fair point and, from his post match interview, Rooney agrees.  I do think it’s good that we can mix it up when needed.  Many times we’ve seen us lose to those sorts of teams and, given our league position, the result outweighs the performance.

I think a bit more of a gap between us and the relegation spots will see us play with a bit more confidence and play better football.

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7 hours ago, David said:

Won 5 of the last 6, we can play hoof ball, donkey ball, or dodge ball for the rest of the season if we keep this form up for me.

I also don't care who scores, be it set piece or off the keepers arse, this is football not strictly come dancing, I don't want us to be in League 1 saying but look how pretty we got here, I want us to win games and at times in the Championship you have to dig in, scrap for points. 

Was only a few months ago relegation was a serious possibility, we're still not out the woods yet either so we can't start being picky over how these wins come.  

Must admit, I do love a poohouse win, that feeling of ugh for most of the 90 minutes to see the ball fly in the net with one of the last kicks of the game. We've been on the other end a few times, didn't see QPR fans stomping off at Wembley grumbling. 

We won, enjoy it!

Thats all well and good but what about the possession and xG stats? Sky have taught us these are much more important than actual goals and winning games.

Afraid I refuse to celebrate a last minute winner like Ive just won the lottery unless these stats are above certain parameters.

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Think we’ve been slightly spoilt more than most to ‘good’ football during more recent years, but we’ve always suffered against the sh**house teams of the division who sit back, get physical and play long. We have never had a plan b to tackle it. While it’s not pretty at times I think it’s refreshing to see Derby as a hard to beat and organised team with the occasional sprinkling of sh**housery of our own. But agree with OP, I would prefer this to remain a plan b and reserved for sides it suits re wycombe rotherham or much better teams than ours. Keep on keeping us up Rooney, COYR

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For those people who are saying "grind out results" and "you need to play this style to win these types of games".

What if that own goal hadn't gone in?

What if the offside hadn't been wrongly given?

What if Wisdom didn't get it on target?

We were very lucky yesterday. That performance was right up there with a Phil Brown game, and we all know it. We could easily have come away with a defeat. What would you be saying if we'd been turned over by Wycombe after that performance.

Thankfully our manager isn't sugar coating it, and he knows that those kind of performances won't keep us up long term. Absolutely poohoused it last night, as we should have walked away with nothing. 

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9 hours ago, IslandExile said:

Such an honest appraisal. Refreshing. There is no way WR will want to be associated with football like that. But for Colin’s poor play it could have been 4 if he had left one to Jos and buried that header that my dog would put in. Still would have been poor but I quite like the nastier streak he has put in but at the moment points matter. He will improve and refine the boys over time I have no doubt

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9 hours ago, Ellafella said:

I can’t remember a worse game in over 40 years. It was agricultural, park football. Think Sunday morning, November, drizzly wet weather with the off-pitch noise of a dozen boozy blokes who’ve come straight from an all-nighter. Their centre-forward was a kick-boxer who managed to assault 3 of our players & still get the free-kick. Dreadful spectacle but for once we were the ones who got the 3 points. Ordinarily, I’m a football purist and would disown that sort of football but on this occasion I would say to Wycombe sometimes you reap what you sow. 

I was so pleased it was him scored the own-goal! 

I think referees will start to see through him (difficult, I know!) 

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6 minutes ago, RamNut said:

It was a good opportunity to measure our improvement against forest’s. They went to Wycombe very recently and won 3-0.

In their previous 5 matches they have also:-

Drew 0-0 against a Bournemouth team that we beat 1-0

Lost 5-1 against a Swansea team that we beat 2-0

Lost 2-1 against a Middlesbrough team that we beat 2-1

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18 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

For those people who are saying "grind out results" and "you need to play this style to win these types of games".

What if that own goal hadn't gone in?

What if the offside hadn't been wrongly given?

What if Wisdom didn't get it on target?

We were very lucky yesterday. That performance was right up there with a Phil Brown game, and we all know it. We could easily have come away with a defeat. What would you be saying if we'd been turned over by Wycombe after that performance.

Thankfully our manager isn't sugar coating it, and he knows that those kind of performances won't keep us up long term. Absolutely poohoused it last night, as we should have walked away with nothing. 

How strange..... all games are about what ifs.....

What if we had played really well and got compared to playing football like barca.

We would all be saying we played well but that's no good if we cant win.last night is the reason I feel rooney is doing so well.not had a manager like this for a very very long time

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1 minute ago, Ramslaar said:

How strange..... all games are about what ifs.....

What if we had played really well and got compared to playing football like barca.

We would all be saying we played well but that's no good if we cant win.last night is the reason I feel rooney is doing so well.not had a manager like this for a very very long time

My thoughts are those who say don't worry about the performance, it's all about the result. We were lucky to get that result - without a referee's mistake we get a point. You can't say you need to play hoofball to win games like that, when the result should have been different.

I do care about the performance. And the result.

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Just a comment on Wayne's comments last night!

I don't think he was saying that we shouldn't have set up like that (which many on here appear to be saying we shouldn't do). After all, he set us up like that for a reason.

Rather that we should have shown more confidence on the ball and not be intimidated into hoofing the ball away rather than looking to play the right way when we had the opportunity. 

What he seemed to me to be saying is we needed to relax as they came at us and play with our heads. Easier said than done when we were losing the physical battle almost everywhere on the pitch. (Never seen CKR as bullied on the ball as he was last night and if he's struggling physically, we know we are in for a battle.) 

Strangely enough, it was Wisdom who personified what he was getting at, he was like the calm eye at the centre of the storm. He showed steely determination to play effective football and never panicked. To some extent, Edmundson likewise.

I can forgive Knight, Jozwiak and Mengi a bit as their inexperience at this level was a factor, but veterans like Forsyth, Shinnie, Richards and Gregory should have done better. Waghorn likewise, although his set piece delivery didn't suffer and I thought he got more effective as the game wore on (some neat build up play centrally and on the left later in the game.) 

I agree that I wouldn't want to see us set up that way regularly,  but I don't think we will. And on the occasions we do, I hope the players will have learnt something from last night and will take some heart from the battling performance right at the end.

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4 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

My thoughts are those who say don't worry about the performance, it's all about the result. We were lucky to get that result - without a referee's mistake we get a point. You can't say you need to play hoofball to win games like that, when the result should have been different.

I do care about the performance. And the result.

Dont get me wrong I do as well and I agree we were very lucky last night and I agree the football was horrific. But in the place we are and have been for over half the season we just need points however they come.

If rooney had come out and said we played well then I'd be scared but he didnt.

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This is what Rooney inherited so he's found a way of setting up well against most of our opponents since then. 

When you look at how desperate our situation was I for one fully respect what he's done to get us out of that terrible mess, however uneasy on the eye it sometimes is

 

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And the league table since Rooney's first win against Millwall on Dec 5

Also note that Swansea have only lost one game in that time - against us because Rooney found a way to set up against that particular opponent.

I expect us to NOT play 442 against Watford as Rooney will have identified a different system for a different opponent 

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11 hours ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

So, if Rooney isn't at all happy with the performance, does that mean

- he wasn't intending to play that style and the team didn't follow instructions, or

-he did intend to "match" Wycombe and he's just cross that the execution wasn't quite as intended? 

I actually thought in the first 15-20 minutes they looked there for the taking. But then we stopped trying to play? Or did they come into it? But the change meant we were struggling. The change of fullbacks didn't work and Foz was poor, there was little chance of playing out from the back.

Dunno, just thought they looked ordinary and then we made hard work of it - bit of a dogs up front too.

Edit: Rooney said this post-match:

"We have to believe in ourselves that we are a better team than that. We have to play better football.

"I felt there was a lot more space than we used, we have to be braver and have more courage on the ball to do that."

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