V Plymouth (a) 7th March 20.00

[S8TY]

6 hours ago, angieram said:

I agree with this and whilst I know Warne has limited options from the bench he could have brought on players who know how to retain the ball and calmed things down.

Plymouth went to three at the back but again Warne didn't react until we were chasing the game.

And then he brings on a random assortment of mis-matched subs who don't appear to know what position they're playing. I've never seen such a waste of Sibley's talents. And don't get me started on Collins - I would rather see Cybulski getting the odd sub runout than him. At least Bart knows how to hold up the ball and lay it off without giving away a foul every time! 

I would like to see Warne take some responsibility in his post-match interviews, rather than just calling out his players. Although I have a certain sympathy where Hourihane is concerned! 

On the penalty, it should be an automatic three match ban for players who cheat. Until then, players will continue to get away with this shocking play-acting.

Small consolations. I take no pride (but 5 points) in getting tonight's prediction spot-on. And I'm enjoying a cold beer back at my hotel rather than dodging motorway roadworks and a 4 am return to Derby. I might regret it tomorrow if it snows hard overnight! 

Plymouth were 3 at the back from the start and we were better side in first half ....agree about the dive

[G STAR RAM]

6 hours ago, i-Ram said:

Watched the game two hours behind, and have just read through the thread. My thoughts for anyone that cares.

We played really well first half. Deserved to go in one up.

There manager changed it up, twice, early in the second half, and the momentum swing was noticeable in terms of attacking intent. Warne did nothing, when a couple of substitutions would of clearly helped. We were 1 nil up and just about holding on and he was warming up Dobbin for a like for like swap! We needed more in midfield. Thompson or Springett should have come on for one of our forward players. Or he could have moved Smith into midfield and asked NML or Knight to play RB. As good as NML was first half he might as well not been on the pitch second half.

White is getting pelters, which he doesn’t really deserve. He played ok. He’s a young lad learning his trade not bloody Pirlo. He was unlucky how the ball ran for him on the first goal, and it is difficult to blame him for the penalty, although on balance I can see why it was given. As much as virtually everyone is having a go at the ref, he had a split second to decide, and for what worth I think there was some contact. We would have been screaming for a penalty in the exact same circumstances I am sure. The TV EXPERTS were broadly of the view that contact was made, and I doubt VAR would have overturned it.

The side were poor second half, compounded by baffling substitutions by Warne which didn’t ever look like improving the situation. I fully accept though he is hindered by not having any great forward replacement options - hence when we were one up he should have been shoring the midfield up to help our defence.

Some saying Matete was a horrible player. Perhaps, but we could have done with a Matete in this match.

Overall, they did deserve to win on balance. Not disappointed as I expected to lose tonight. Hopefully the Wendies and Plymouth go up as we wouldn’t want to play either in the playoffs.

We should still get into the playoffs, especially with Bird back and hopefully a fit Chester too.

We can beat any of the other 3 teams in the top 6 in the playoffs. Time though for Warne to start showing he is the League 1 Guardiola, and to start making quicker and more effective and INFLUENTIAL substitution decisions during tight, important matches.

Not sure you need to be a tv expert to judge whether there was contact or not?

Dont agree with your assessment of White, when the going gets tough he is non existent and was at fault for both goals. I know he is young but if he wants to be making it at a higher level we need to see more from him, I've seen nothing to impress me so far.

Agree with the rest of your post though.

[i-Ram]

4 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Not sure you need to be a tv expert to judge whether there was contact or not?

Dont agree with your assessment of White, when the going gets tough he is non existent and was at fault for both goals. I know he is young but if he wants to be making it at a higher level we need to see more from him, I've seen nothing to impress me so far.

Agree with the rest of your post though.

No I agree with you re the TV expert bit. I was just making the point after them looking at it a number of times, over many minutes, at different camera angles and different speeds, they agreed with the ref. The ref had one view and a second or two to make a decision. He was in fairness well positioned. I think understandably a lot of emotive, partisan posting on that decision last night in my view. 

[Crewton]

7 hours ago, angieram said:

I would like to see Warne take some responsibility in his post-match interviews, rather than just calling out his players. Although I have a certain sympathy where Hourihane is concerned! 

I haven't seen last night's interview yet, but I'd got the impression he usually does take responsibility for poor performances, selection etc, so it sounds like he called a few out? 

If so, that's usually a cure or kill strategy - let's hope we don't start hearing stuff like "he's lost the dressing room" because I've had quite enough of that crap throughout the Morris years. 

[G STAR RAM]

8 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

No I agree with you re the TV expert bit. I was just making the point after them looking at it a number of times, over many minutes, at different camera angles and different speeds, they agreed with the ref. The ref had one view and a second or two to make a decision. He was in fairness well positioned. I think understandably a lot of emotive, partisan posting on that decision last night in my view. 

It was strange because I think most of them very diplomatically admitted he had cheated by using the same old clichés but then also said he had made the right decision. 

Basically, they all just seemed to agree that cheating is part of the game now and is acceptable.

[alram]

Getting a bit worried now, not only is losing becoming a habit but our performances have been really poor recently. yesterday couldn’t have gone any worse results wise. we need a couple of back to back wins

[alram]

9 hours ago, jimtastic56 said:

Warne was spot on post match. We struggle against the top six. It’s ok beating the pub teams 5-0 from the bottom six but we just don’t have the right players . Warne will need 2 transfer windows.

and it’s his job to fix that considering to get out of this league this year we will have to beat multiple top 6 teams

[Blondest Goat]

24 minutes ago, Crewton said:

I haven't seen last night's interview yet, but I'd got the impression he usually does take responsibility for poor performances, selection etc, so it sounds like he called a few out? 

Warne is his usual diplomatic self - "we need to do better and I include myself in that" type stuff.  He does go a bit further than normal with his criticism though.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Blondest Goat
.

[i-Ram]

22 minutes ago, alram said:

Getting a bit worried now, not only is losing becoming a habit but our performances have been really poor recently. yesterday couldn’t have gone any worse results wise. we need a couple of back to back wins

Can't agree with this. Both against Shrewsbury and Plymouth we played really well first half. We went off after 45 in both games having played really very well. What we have failed to do in both matches is properly adjust to the opposition's change of tactic and tempo early in the second half. That might be partly a player fall-off issue, perhaps some tiredness in the legs, but I think we are being too slow in re-grouping, refreshing, changing our team up to negate the opposition's revised tactics.  We can get top 6. Still think we will. But the coaches need to start earning their bucks. Handing out coffee mugs and instructing them to run faster/harder is not sufficient.

Edited March 8, 2023 by i-Ram

[jono]

Of course it hurts, but, for one decision that went against us that would have been a creditable away point. Just going to have curse rage and what not, then move on to Saturday. 

[alram]

1 minute ago, i-Ram said:

Can't agree with this. Both against Shrewsbury and Plymouth we played really well first half. We went off after 45 in both games having played really very well. What we have failed to do in both matches is properly adjust to the opposition's change of tactic and tempo early in the second half. That might be partly a player fall-off issue, perhaps some tiredness in the legs, but I think we are being too slow in re-grouping, refreshing, changing our team up to negate the opposition's revised tactics.  We can get top 6. Still think we will. But the coaches need to start earning their bucks. Handing out coffee mugs is not sufficient.

Good first half displays are no good if you decide to collapse in the second half

 

it is a worrying trend & it becomes habit 

[Red Ram]

2 minutes ago, Blondest Goat said:

Warne is his usual diplomatic self - "we need to do better and I include myself in that" type stuff.  He does go a bit further than normal with his criticism though.

Warne's spot on though - he does need to do better himself. Smith was excellent as CDM against Shrewsbury and  provided protection for the back four from that position for the first time since Bird's absence. Rooney did fine at right back too - soft penalty aside. His quick interplay was excellent, particularly in the first half.

But last night Warne inexplicably reverted to Smith at right back and put White back in to central midfield. White's clearly got ability and looks like he's going to be a good player but he just doesn't have the same defensive attributes that Smith and Bird have - as demonstrated by the completely infective non-challenge he made in the build up to their first goal, which changed the course of the game. We'd been pretty dominant until that point. Wouldn't particularly blame White for the penalty but like Rooney he was naive enough to give the ref a decision to make. 

Big fan of Warne overall but think he got his team selection wrong last night considering the strength of the opposition. Was surprised when I saw the line up...

 

 

[Tamworthram]

16 minutes ago, alram said:

and it’s his job to fix that considering to get out of this league this year we will have to beat multiple top 6 teams

It could be difficult for him to fix this season given he has inherited the vast majority the squad. If the players available are not able to maintain the type of football he has found success with in the past for the full 90 minutes we may have to wait for another transfer window or two before we begin to see real success. More often than not, it seems as if managers know that if they can stay in touch for the first 45 minutes or so, they can make changes (assuming they have resources available which the better teams do) to out play and overcome us as the game progresses.

 

[kevinhectoring]

2 hours ago, Rich84 said:

I was concerned at the line up and subs before the game started, away from home against 2nd place and we chose to weaken the midfield by taking Smith out, and to not even have the option to put him back in mid game with Rooney not even on the bench

Strongly agree about Smith. But whilst he looks very good in possession I’m not sure Rooney yet has the defensive skills to face up to a top team. Against the Shrews there were occasions where his positional radar was naively faulty and surprisingly Fozzie is faster than he is in a straight line. I think the best for this squad is to add Davies or Chester at the back, play Knight and Smith as defensive midfielders, sit deeper, try to win more games 1-0 and accept we’ll win fewer 4-0.  Against the top teams at least. We break well with NML, Barks and Dobbin and as we saw yesterday Didzie for one will find the magic ball that slices a defence apart. 

[kevinhectoring]

10 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

It could be difficult for him to fix this season given he has inherited the vast majority the squad. If the players available are not able to maintain the type of football he has found success with in the past for the full 90 minutes we may have to wait for another transfer window or two before we begin to see real success. More often than not, it seems as if managers know that if they can stay in touch for the first 45 minutes or so, they can make changes (assuming they have resources available which the better teams do) to out play and overcome us as the game progresses.

 

Brings to mind the definition of insanity 

[Sparkle]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

Not sure you need to be a tv expert to judge whether there was contact or not?

Dont agree with your assessment of White, when the going gets tough he is non existent and was at fault for both goals. I know he is young but if he wants to be making it at a higher level we need to see more from him, I've seen nothing to impress me so far.

Agree with the rest of your post though.

I agree about White, I have seen nothing from him that Tompson can’t do - to be honest we need to shoot more and the basic formation we have been playing knight can drop back a bit and Sibley can play advanced because he does shoot to score goals 

[Tamworthram]

16 minutes ago, alram said:

Good first half displays are no good if you decide to collapse in the second half

 

it is a worrying trend & it becomes habit 

I don’t think anyone “decides” to collapse in the second half. It just seems as if we don’t have the ability to adapt to the other team making changes. Whether that is down to the players on the pitch, the players available to bring on or coaching staffs ability to change formation/tactics is anyone’s guess. Probably a combination of all three.

It’s just so frustrating. The games against the top teams feel a bit like cup ties over two legs. First half is like the home leg but we pretty  know the second half is going to be completely different.

[PistoldPete]

11 hours ago, inter politics said:

White was struggling before the pen and we were being overrun, Thompson for White or Rooney if available and Smith in midfield..there were options

I really don’t get Warne selections at all. Rooney had decent game silly touch for the pen aside. Gets dropped from the squad. Thommo comes on with lively cameo gets dropped from squad. Sibley unused sub v Shrewsbury. His selections are all over the place. 

[PistoldPete]

30 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Strongly agree about Smith. But whilst he looks very good in possession I’m not sure Rooney yet has the defensive skills to face up to a top team. Against the Shrews there were occasions where his positional radar was naively faulty and surprisingly Fozzie is faster than he is in a straight line. I think the best for this squad is to add Davies or Chester at the back, play Knight and Smith as defensive midfielders, sit deeper, try to win more games 1-0 and accept we’ll win fewer 4-0.  Against the top teams at least. We break well with NML, Barks and Dobbin and as we saw yesterday Didzie for one will find the magic ball that slices a defence apart. 

Or we could adapt the team according to circumstances. It’s what other managers do but Warne seems incapable of. 

[duncanjwitham]

1 minute ago, PistoldPete said:

I really don’t get Warne selections at all. Rooney had decent game silly touch for the pen aside. Gets dropped from the squad. Thommo comes on with lively cameo gets dropped from squad. Sibley unused sub v Shrewsbury. His selections are all over the place. 

He genuinely seems to think individual players don't really matter, as long as they all work hard.  He'll quite happily play players out of position, have players trying to do jobs they can't do, swap players for radically different players and expect the same results and so on.  I know some of it is forced due to squad restrictions etc, but certainly not all of it is.