Match Thread: Wycombe (a)

[Tamworthram]

54 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Really?!

Fair enough, looking at that still he may have been able to control it with his left then side foot it with his right but I don’t think a still picture proves anything. At full speed it doesn’t look quite as simple as you are suggesting. I’m not disagreeing that it was a bad miss but I don’t think he could or should have taken a touch first and then side footed it in. I reckon 99% of professional footballers would have done the same - tried to slide the ball into an empty net rather than risk taking a touch first.

Edited April 11 by Tamworthram

[Oldben]

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/football/portsmouth-fc/pompey-john-mousinho-bolton-wanderers-4586741

[jimtastic56]

32 minutes ago, Kinder said:

I didn’t realise how bad CBT’s miss was as we were up the other end. Just seen the “highlights” and that was shocking.

Wildsmith would of put that chance away with a Header . 

[Crewton]

Incidentally, Sporting Life rated two other chances of ours as Great - NML blazing the ball over the bar in the first half and Thommo having a shot blocked in the 6 yard area in added time.

None of Wycombe's chances were rated higher than Fair, so it would have taken much better finishing or a goalkeeping error for them to have won the game, whereas "all" we needed to do was take one of our 3 best chances.

Ineffective finishing will define our season if we're not careful, but that also encompasses players taking the wrong option or playing a poor final ball.

[MadAmster]

46 minutes ago, Curtains said:

Terrible result last night. 
 

Leaves Bolton with the advantage for 2nd now IMO

 

It's all theoretical though, isn't it? Their "advantage" includes beating both Pompey and Posh. As Wycombe showed last night, sides with "nothing to play for" other than pride can surprise you. That game had a flow to it. Little to none of the stop/start lack of tempo our previous, and only, 5 games against them had.

No "easy" games going forward for Posh, Trotters or us. It's going to be hard going for all 3 clubs.

[YouRams]

24 minutes ago, Ian Buxton's Bat said:

We don't HAVE a CM in front of Smith and Adams

Unfortunately not, think Bird would've thrived with Adams behind him. I can't bash Warne because I think he's been incredibly unlucky with injuries, just as we start putting something together a main part of the jigsaw falls. Collins, Gayle, Bird and even Ward all started to look like we had something in one formation or another before getting injured.

[DiggerB]

2 minutes ago, Crewton said:

Incidentally, Sporting Life rated two other chances of ours as Great - NML blazing the ball over the bar in the first half and Thommo having a shot blocked in the 6 yard area in added time.

None of Wycombe's chances were rated higher than Fair, so it would have taken much better finishing or a goalkeeping error for them to have won the game, whereas "all" we needed to do was take one of our 3 best chances.

Ineffective finishing will define our season if we're not careful, but that also encompasses players taking the wrong option or playing a poor final ball.

 

😜

[angieram]

11 minutes ago, MadAmster said:

It's all theoretical though, isn't it? Their "advantage" includes beating both Pompey and Posh. As Wycombe showed last night, sides with "nothing to play for" other than pride can surprise you. That game had a flow to it. Little to none of the stop/start lack of tempo our previous, and only, 5 games against them had.

No "easy" games going forward for Posh, Trotters or us. It's going to be hard going for all 3 clubs.

I thought it was the referee breaking the tempo of the game rather than the two sides. Seemed to take forever to get a free kick or corner going, lecturing and issuing warnings about holding, where the ball was placed, counting out his ten yards and ushering players about. Ponderous.

[WhiteHorseRam]

Two Scenarios -

 

BAD - This Bolton's big chance.

They are tougher at home and if Pompey have already 'gone to the beach', and Bolton win .. we are in pooh strasse

Bolton will get a massive morale boost beating Pompey, which will stand them in good stead for their remaining games.

 

GOOD - Pompey bury Bolton to win the League (effectively) on Saturday. Phew. As you were.

 

But we have got to win the remaining games.

 

Training notes - try and get the ball into the opposition's white-painted wood-framed area. 

 

 

[BatRam]

Slept on it… now I feel even worse 😂🤣😂🤣 terrible 

[Kernow]

5 minutes ago, WhiteHorseRam said:

Two Scenarios -

BAD - This Bolton's big chance.

They are tougher at home and if Pompey have already 'gone to the beach', and Bolton win .. we are in pooh strasse

Bolton will get a massive morale boost beating Pompey, which will stand them in good stead for their remaining games.

GOOD - Pompey bury Bolton to win the League (effectively) on Saturday. Phew. As you were.

But we have got to win the remaining games.

Training notes - try and get the ball into the opposition's white-painted wood-framed area. 

Portsmouth get promoted AND win the league if they win on Saturday. After 12 years languishing in the bottom two divisions, they aren’t going to be on the beach. They might not necessarily win, but they will want it done as soon as they can, we would be the same. If they lose on Saturday then they’ll still very likely be promoted as Champions, but if one loss turns to two then doubt starts creeping in. We would be exactly the same if in their position.

[ap04]

12 hours ago, Sheff Ram said:

Just don’t get it, put in a great shift in the pouring rain away at Portsmouth, then turn in such a lacklustre showing.

This exactly. Absolutely perplexing. 

There is nothing perplexing, if anything yesterday was better. Portsmouth -2.5 chances agg, Wycombe +1.5, difference between Portsmouth and Wycombe give or take 3 chances. Both amazing first halves, poor second but decent overall and bang in line with what was expected. Everything else is kneejerk, bandwagon and outcome bias.

[1of4]

We started the game with purpose but slowly allowed Wycombe to dictate the pace of the game. 

I was hoping the half-time break would give us the chance to regroup and come out firing on all cylinders in the second half. Unfortunately we didn't, our performance got more and more abject and as the game went on I got increasingly nervous that we would give away a goal.

By the end of the game I was probably more relieved we hadn't lost than I was disappointed we didn't win. But the overall feeling I had was anger at the lack of intensity and passion we showed throughout the second half. 

I was going to go over the the Wycombe player's rating thread but like some of the players last night, I can't be arsed to go and but in the effort to do it.

[Ram-Alf]

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

If the pass had been as good as it should have been he wouldn't have even needed to think about it.

However, as the pic above shows he had enough time to do whatever he wanted if he was worried he might not get a good connection. 

Just a complete lapse of concentration or lack of confidence.

There was nowt wrong with the pass...imo, It found it's target...CBT, He was unable to do what in 99% of the time he would score...imo, 

I saw Roger Davis miss an even easier at Stamford Bridge decades ago, It happens, But what makes it look bad is that we drew, But even if he'd had scored it was no guarantee of a win. 

[Gabby'sThighs]

Last night was a crap performance, we had 3 good chances to score and didn't even get them on target. CBT's miss is truly painful to watch. Shout-out to Wildsmith though, a great save late on and a John Terry/Phil Jones-style floor header to finish.

I thought we really missed Ward on the right. Wilson was only effective once Hourihane came on to pack the midfield. It's funny how many different players have been key at different points this season.

I still don't get the doom and gloom though. We knew it was going to be a tough match and I wasn't expecting a win, tbh. Plus, both Bolton & Peterborough are in patchy form and have some tough games coming up. On Saturday, Peterborough have Oxford away, Bolton have Portsmouth at home, and both could easily drop points.

Orient is a must-win, same as before.

[DiggerB]

1 hour ago, angieram said:

I thought it was the referee breaking the tempo of the game rather than the two sides. Seemed to take forever to get a free kick or corner going, lecturing and issuing warnings about holding, where the ball was placed, counting out his ten yards and ushering players about. Ponderous.

It’ll only get worse if Bradley’s back in on Saturday!

[G STAR RAM]

11 minutes ago, Ram-Alf said:

There was nowt wrong with the pass...imo, It found it's target...CBT, He was unable to do what in 99% of the time he would score...imo, 

I saw Roger Davis miss an even easier at Stamford Bridge decades ago, It happens, But what makes it look bad is that we drew, But even if he'd had scored it was no guarantee of a win. 

There was no need for the ball to be off the ground if the pass had been played at the right time.

Think Washington had to end up hitting it harder than he should have had to due to letting the defender get back.

Still, no excuse for not even hitting the target from 5 yards out.

[angieram]

 Not trawled through all the matchthread (gave up around p40) but I think last night was a game that has summed up our season.

Take both those early chances and we would have been celebrating another "get the job done" win and admiring a disciplined second half defensive performance. 

But we all know to score two, we need six chances, not just two or three.

To create six chances, we need the football to flow. Ward makes that happen in recent games. He's injured, so we replace that role with Collins, playing out of position.  He's a striker, not a midfielder. We leave Tommo on the bench, who would have been the natural link between our deep sitting midfield two and the attack, would have been available for the pass from Wilson and Sibley (who were both desperately looking for feet to play into and finding no-one there) and who can press and harry just as well as Collins.

Warne needed to select either Washington or Collins, not both, and play an attacking midfielder. If he doesn't rate Thommo, he could have put Hourihane in there. 

He didn’t,  and we faltered. I wish Warne would stop trying to create new systems and patterns and just do the simple stuff sometimes. 

Footballers are a bit simple too. They play instinctively in patterns that are ingrained from an early age.

Take them out of their natural positions, play them in different systems and they have to think more quickly in order to be successful.  It fails more than it works. 

Add in the factor that our forwards aren't world beaters, we need to be giving them all the help we can to play their natural games. 

I think we were one player choice away from that routine win last night. So disappointing. 

 

[G STAR RAM]

46 minutes ago, ap04 said:

There is nothing perplexing, if anything yesterday was better. Portsmouth -2.5 chances agg, Wycombe +1.5, difference between Portsmouth and Wycombe give or take 3 chances. Both amazing first halves, poor second but decent overall and bang in line with what was expected. Everything else is kneejerk, bandwagon and outcome bias.

The difference if course being Portsmouth are 1st in the league, Wycombe are 15th.

[G STAR RAM]

Just as an aside, I watched the match on the Wycombe channel last night as Rams TV was buffering. 

They had 2 commentators who sounded like 2 guys from the pub.

They kept saying how impressed they were with Conor Washington 😵‍💫

They also said how much we have improved since they saw us earlier in the season.

Absolutely astounded by both comments.