Matchday Thread: 19/7/22Stevenage (a) 19:30ko.

[SuffolkRam]

10 hours ago, WestLondonRam said:

Wasn’t great! 
im guessing your glass half full. 
Here’s my opinion, not worth the 15 quid 

No Friendlies are worth it.  They are opportunities to try new players, formations and tactics.  They are glorified training matches.  

Friendly game ticket prices should be more subsidised than they are, but that’s another story.

 

[Big Bad Bob]

9 hours ago, Tyler Durden said:

 Conversely if we win our first 4 games then?

Find the original comment quite weird personally as might as well tell the mods on here to shutdown the matchday threads until the 15th league game as any opinion you do have will be invalid upto that point. 

The totally new squad lost the third preseason game on the hottest day on record. Yep great foundation to build an opinion on. 

I will be keeping an open mind about things before I start calling for heads. 

[angieram]

1 minute ago, SuffolkRam said:

No Friendlies are worth it.  They are opportunities to try new players, formations and tactics.  They are glorified training matches.  

Friendly game ticket prices should be more subsidised than they are, but that’s another story.

 

I think our home prices are reasonable, can't blame Stevenage from making a few bob from a 'big' club (and beating us to boot!) 

[SuffolkRam]

1 minute ago, angieram said:

I think our home prices are reasonable, can't blame Stevenage from making a few bob from a 'big' club (and beating us to boot!) 

Not a dig at us, god knows we need the money and it only cost £23 for me and my two sons to watch the Berlin game. Just the petrol for a return trip from Ipswich that made it an expensive day.

[angieram]

1 minute ago, SuffolkRam said:

Not a dig at us, god knows we need the money and it only cost £23 for me and my two sons to watch the Berlin game. Just the petrol for a return trip from Ipswich that made it an expensive day.

I don't think David Clowes can do anything about that (although I heard a rumour he's working on it!) 

Football is an increasingly expensive spectator sport  but still reasonable in comparison with other forms of "live" entertainment. 

I suppose the government would tell you to follow a local club and cycle to games. ?‍♀️

[RoyMac5]

 

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

I thought our midfield, collectively and individually, were dreadful. Far too happy to knock it back in the direction it came from. Of course this has to happen fairly often but not enough responsibility taken. A lazy tired performance. 

Wildsmiths kicking needs to improve. When he goes long or chips out to the wings the ball was given away which defeats the aim if we are to be a possession based team. 

[RoyMac5]

Thought we looked like last season at times, lol. 

McGoldrick already seems to be a big player for us. Thought Wildsmith looked steadier (apart from some kicks out, which we won't do much of anyway!), and there was one instance that RamsTV picked up where he was 'marshalling' Odoruh quite forcefully. Overall I thought it showed that we need more experienced players signed asap. ?

[Miggins]

39 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

LR said he worked them really hard on Monday in the heat. Then they travelled to Stevenage and played in the heat as it was. Perhaps, as someone else alluded to (sorry, can’t remember who it was) the players are being worked really hard to try and catch up with other teams who started pre-season well ahead of us. If it works but a sluggish/poor performance last night is the price we have to pay then so be it. 
 

I

Given the extreme heat on Monday and how it made us all feel, plus the medical advice to stay indoors and avoid exertion, does anyone else find this bizarre preparation for a match the next day which will also be played in searing heat? Heat exhaustion?

Of course we don't know what kind of training they were doing or where, but it just sounds like barbaric torture! ?

Edited July 20, 2022 by Miggins

[SSD]

After training the lads hard yesterday in the scorching heat, I'm not at all surprised by last night's result. It was slow and they lacked any sense of urgency. 

If we can take anything away, we cannot faff around with the ball against pressing teams on a small pitch or we will have a few rubbish away days. The manager echoed my thoughts in his post match interview, I'm sure he'll address it. 

Mansfield beat Sheff Utd 3-0 yesterday, pre season for the most part means nothing.

[Boycie]

Maybe Stevenage trained under another sun on Monday? 

[Miggins]

7 minutes ago, Boycie said:

Maybe Stevenage trained under another sun on Monday? 

Maybe, or perhaps they didn't train at all or if they did they didn't train 'hard'.

We'd have been better working hard in the gym or working on stamina in a pool.

Edited July 20, 2022 by Miggins

[Tyler Durden]

52 minutes ago, Big Bad Bob said:

The totally new squad lost the third preseason game on the hottest day on record. Yep great foundation to build an opinion on. 

I will be keeping an open mind about things before I start calling for heads. 

 Can't see any posts calling for heads unless I've missed something ?

If you quote me those posts then might be able to understand your point a bit better. 

TIA

Edited July 20, 2022 by Tyler Durden

[ramboy63]

8 hours ago, Crewton said:

In Lampard's preseason, we beat both Southampton and Wolves and played really well. Then, in the first game against Reading, we were utterly dreadful but fluked a win. We then got completely outclassed and mullered by Leeds at home. It took quite a few games to settle down iirc. 

That's why you can't draw too many conclusions from tonight, except that whatever system we play, we have to pass the ball better and create more chances. 

Yes very very true in what you say and although these are friendly games and dont read to much in to them blah blah blah i think LR hit it on the head last night by saying the way Stevenage played are the sort of games we will expect to see this coming season and we need to be switched on better,these sides are not going to role over

[duncanjwitham]

Usual caveats about preseason/heat etc, but the thing I found most worrying last night is that we seemed to have no answer to them stopping us playing out from the back.  It's not a case of our midfielders passing sideways/backwards because they're lazy or scared, it's because Stevenage were blocking off their forward passing options.  A certain amount of that is definitely down to preseason+heat - you need players busting a gut to get into space to receive the ball, and the conditions were definitely not ideal for that.  Likewise when we did manage to break the lines, the player often found themselves isolated and ended up going backwards anyway, but players won't be sprinting up to support and sprinting back afterwards as much in a game like last night.

The thing I find most interesting is the way we've used James Collins.  He's barely touched the ball in the 2 games I've seen this week - he's played much further forward than Plange and CKR have previously, basically like a proper striker rather than dropping off to link the play.  Which means we've basically been playing with 10 men for large parts of the game.  If you want to play possession football, you can't afford to be a man down like that.  But we also haven't (as far as I can remember anyway) gone direct to him even once.  When we have been more direct, it's been balls over the top for wingers to run onto.  If the opposition are doing a high-press, then one of the ways to beat it is to go direct to a striker and play from there - at the very least it will force the opposition to sit back a bit more because they have to be wary of a longer ball - but we haven't even tried that.  It seems to be like we're not playing to his strengths, and his strengths don't seem to suit the way we want to play.  Obviously early days etc though.  (And I'm not saying play direct all the time, just mix it up occasionally so you don't become predictable.)

It could also be the case that Rosenior is deliberately telling our players to not go direct in preseason, to force us to get used to moving the ball under pressure, and he's going to mix it up a bit more when the real games start.  And if that's the case them fine.

[rammieib]

10 hours ago, WestLondonRam said:

Wildsmith? Really 

I honestly thought he was the worst player on the pitch. Couldn’t kick, got beat at his near post. 
bad positioning, he is no way an improvement on loach 

Worst player? Wow.

Two very good saves, his short pass and medium passing was actually very good. His long kicking was over hit.

The goal - to be fair, it was on the borderling of being called near post in terms of the attacked had cut inside a long way. He then hit it very hard and was literally next to the post. I don't think any GK's save that.

If he was the worst player on the pitch - I'm not sure you were watching most of the other players. Don't forget - we've played 90 minutes without a shot on target.

[rammieib]

11 hours ago, Magicman said:

He looks too small to make any impact at these levels rather we passed on him. 

Is it just me - but do all new trial kids always look really small these days? LOL

[ramboy63]

13 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

Usual caveats about preseason/heat etc, but the thing I found most worrying last night is that we seemed to have no answer to them stopping us playing out from the back.  It's not a case of our midfielders passing sideways/backwards because they're lazy or scared, it's because Stevenage were blocking off their forward passing options.  A certain amount of that is definitely down to preseason+heat - you need players busting a gut to get into space to receive the ball, and the conditions were definitely not ideal for that.  Likewise when we did manage to break the lines, the player often found themselves isolated and ended up going backwards anyway, but players won't be sprinting up to support and sprinting back afterwards as much in a game like last night.

The thing I find most interesting is the way we've used James Collins.  He's barely touched the ball in the 2 games I've seen this week - he's played much further forward than Plange and CKR have previously, basically like a proper striker rather than dropping off to link the play.  Which means we've basically been playing with 10 men for large parts of the game.  If you want to play possession football, you can't afford to be a man down like that.  But we also haven't (as far as I can remember anyway) gone direct to him even once.  When we have been more direct, it's been balls over the top for wingers to run onto.  If the opposition are doing a high-press, then one of the ways to beat it is to go direct to a striker and play from there - at the very least it will force the opposition to sit back a bit more because they have to be wary of a longer ball - but we haven't even tried that.  It seems to be like we're not playing to his strengths, and his strengths don't seem to suit the way we want to play.  Obviously early days etc though.  (And I'm not saying play direct all the time, just mix it up occasionally so you don't become predictable.)

It could also be the case that Rosenior is deliberately telling our players to not go direct in preseason, to force us to get used to moving the ball under pressure, and he's going to mix it up a bit more when the real games start.  And if that's the case them fine.

Spot on statement looks like we have learnt nothing from last season with our tippy tappy football including goal kicks,more and more teams will press us this season than any other and unless we get a grip and have a plan B we will see more results similar to last night

[Srg]

Nice to see the first overreactions happened before the first league game. 

[Half Fan Half Biscuit]

9 minutes ago, Srg said:

Nice to see the first overreactions happened before the first league game. 

Yep - don’t get all this more minutes in the tank BS. We should have thrashed them 8 - 0.