v Blackburn (A) Match Thread

[Van der MoodHoover]

1 hour ago, Millenniumram said:

Do you like me as a person?

Aren't you the other actuary on the forum?

Therefore by definition, not only a towering colossus of logical intellectual intelligence, but a fine example of good-chappery.

Paul Warne would sign you up if you could run fast for a couple of hours......

[Millenniumram]

15 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Aren't you the other actuary on the forum?

Therefore by definition, not only a towering colossus of logical intellectual intelligence, but a fine example of good-chappery.

Paul Warne would sign you up if you could run fast for a couple of hours......

Sadly I’m out of breath walking to the fridge…

[jono]

1 hour ago, Mick Brolly said:

I just find it odd that someone can “ dislike someone as a person “ without actually knowing them personally 

True, but it’s surely ok to dislike particular views and mindsets as promoted by the contents of their posts ?. .. it’s an interesting philosophical discussion. 

The brain has filters, I think the sort of discussions and exchanges of views we have on here tends to makes us align with those of like mind. It isn’t pretty sometimes, and isn’t as thoughtful as it should be but there is a point where rocks meet immovable objects so we give up and go with our “tribe”

For me it’s about honesty of view rather than polarisation. .. I am supportive of the manager and patient but I’d like to think if PW repeats obvious failings then I wouldn’t defend him just because my initial sway is generally supportive. 

[Ambitious]

30 minutes ago, Bessie1 said:

I thought 3 of their goals (not the first) were terrific.  If they’re typical of this league then it’s quite a step-up from last season.

It isn’t, Blackburn were excellent in the final third. The decision making and movement was brilliant. The best I’ve seen from an opposition team against us since Leeds in 2020. 

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

1 hour ago, kevinhectoring said:

Do you think there is really a chance that this owner would sack Warne before say February? 

No, I think Clowes is more patient than the entire fan base, which is his prerogative as it's his business and money in play.

[kevinhectoring]

1 minute ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

No, I think Clowes is more patient than the entire fan base, which is his prerogative as it's his business and money in play.

It’s a community asset

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

16 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

It’s a community asset

Well, yes in theory but we've all had a very real and recent reminder of how fragile that asset is when not managed properly.

We might like to think we own it, but in reality if the money men do a crap job there's not much we can do apart from make a load of noise.

None of this is a dig at Clowes to be clear, he's doing the right things with a long term view.

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, i-Ram said:

You are Vladimir Putin and I claim my £5

If he really WAS Vladimir Putin, I wouldn't fancy your chances of collecting your fiver.

[DavesaRam]

11 hours ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Thought Elder and Wilson were two bright spots last night. Cashin looks out of sorts and still question whether Osborne is any better than Sibbo. We need a the new GK, big defender with pace, attacking midfielder and a goal scoring striker……then we will be ok. Easier said than done 😊

I think Osborne will be better than Sibbo simply because he won’t get pratted about like his predecessor.

[Ambitious]

Only Portsmouth (6), Watford (12) and Stoke (15) had fewer touches in the opposition area than Blackburn (16). Mind-numbing that three of the four won, the other drew. 

However, it does back up my thoughts that generally we didn’t give them too much but they were excellent, very efficient and clinical when we did. 

Portsmouth touched the ball in the box six times, but scored three goals. I’m sure that’s got to be some sort of record. 

[Comrade 86]

21 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

Only Portsmouth (6), Watford (12) and Stoke (15) had fewer touches in the opposition area than Blackburn (16). Mind-numbing that three of the four won, the other drew. 

However, it does back up my thoughts that generally we didn’t give them too much but they were excellent, very efficient and clinical when we did. 

Portsmouth touched the ball in the box six times, but scored three goals. I’m sure that’s got to be some sort of record. 

That is quite bonkers and it does rather illustrate the need for us to be more clinical with the opportunities we do create. Despite not playing well, I thought we had enough opportunities to win the game last night, but even in L1, we often made a meal of winning games that should have been reasonably comfortable. That said, I'd be pretty certain that PW and his team are fully aware of this and are doing their best to remedy that situation, but decent attacking options are always in high demand aren't they, which doesn't make things easy. Dembele would have been interesting IMO, but then I thought the same about Nombe last season and he did next to nothing.

[brady1993]

One thing I wanted to talk about because I hadn't seen it mentioned so far really is all 4 goals come from bad positioning/organisation/pressing especially in midfield. Ozoh was a major culprit either getting sucked in to the danger late, overcommitting in a useless press or not anticipating where danger is unfolding. All 4 goals the danger originates from it being trivial to breakdown our structure. Yes there are individual mistakes past that don't help but at that point it's mostly panicked defending where you are relying heavily on individual quality to bail you out. It's the kind of thing we could get away with in league 1 because our individual player quality was higher than most teams so they could often recover and the average league 1 team would often not punish these situations. To highlight my point let me walk through the goals in how they unfold:

Goal 1:

• It starts at point of almost complete safety and the first big issue. The ball is being rolled out to their left back deep in their half. Osbourne who is already a bit out of position, decides to go press the left when there is no real chance of closing him down in time and pulls himself majorly out of position and pretty much taking himself out of the game.
• That is the major contributor in leaving acres of space in the middle allowing one of their forwards to drop into the space as Kenzo follows his marker out to the wing. The forward dropping drags Wilson out of position to follow him. I think their is a argument here that neither Kenzo or Wilson should follow their man into the positions they do. But it's following that trend of pressing/marking individually without consideration. And leads to Kenzo in a right back area and wilson in midfield for the rest of the play.
• Second big issue you can already see starting to unfold here by looking at Ozoh who's taken a terrible position up by sitting on the left side of midfield and not reacting to where the danger is going to be. 
• He only reacts to move over after it's already too late and overcommits himself allowing him to be taken out of the game. At this point you've effectively got a 5 (blackburn) on 4 with massive amounts of space on the right wing and a makeshift defence. Any good team is going to score here.

Goal 2:

• It's kinda staggering how similar this goal is in a lot of ways. Jackson presses the left back on his own but this time I think it's mostly fine based on starting positions.
• Ozoh however has allowed himself to get dragged right out to the wing. Then gets dragged further as he goes to win a ball he's not getting to a huge amount of the time. When he should have been talking to Kenzo to go cover it or communicating to Kenzo that he's left his space.
• Ozoh getting dragged out opens up a massive space in midfield for their forward to drop into with which Cashin has to follow him into to contest because if he doesn't the forward is going to have all the time in the world to turn and do what they want. But we are now at a point where we are majorly disorganised.
• Cashin does almost recover the situation (again relying on individuals to bail out team problems). This should have bought enough time to reset. Osborne though goes with him getting pulled into a spot Cashin is either going to win or Osborne won't be able to help
• Watch what Ozoh does whilst this is happening. He's coming back but stops when it looks like Cashin has won the ball rather than continue to come back into position he loosely stays hanging out the right wing. Where he's neither covering for if something goes wrong or taking up a meaningful position to provide a passing option.
• It means that when this breaks down again it becomes 7 vs 4 where one of our deepest players is Collins coming back to help out. Any good team is going to score here. 

Goal 3:

• Ozoh has the ball. And nobody is giving him a decent short option aside from Osborn to go slightly backwards. He makes a bad decision and a bad pass leading to the turnover.
• He then overcommits once again. Pressing right into the space that Osborn has occupied. Taking himself out of the game, leaving acres of space in the middle (which on this occasion the Blackburn player doesn't see and instead plays a good ball releasing their winger). It means that he's in no position to later cover for runners or take up defensive positions as the defence shifts across.
• Cashin gets dragged out of position in a point where he should probably leave it to Elder. And it's easy from that point especially given the lack of midfield to cover.

Goal 4:

• Blackburn break on the counter. Cashin steps out to press and challenge. Ozoh who's coming back checks his run back to watch what happens, when he should be sprinting to cover where Cashin came from or sprinting to go for the player free on our right wing.
• It's only after the ball has gone and released the player in space on the wing. Does Ozoh go over there, after the defence has already shifted across and he should be moving to cover centrally. By doing this it leaves a player in the centre in absolute acres of space.

 

In this I know I've criticised Ozoh a lot and I do think he's severely culpable in a lot of the goals. But to be honest in all of them there just seems to be structural problems. A lot of naive pressing and poor positioning as a team. Suggesting there hasn't been enough or good enough coaching around when players should press, how they should press, what positions to take up or hold and who should be looking to cover for who. It strikes me as a lot of individuals making decisions in a moment as opposed to a collective understanding of who should be doing what.

 

 

[brady1993]

7 hours ago, Ambitious said:

Only Portsmouth (6), Watford (12) and Stoke (15) had fewer touches in the opposition area than Blackburn (16). Mind-numbing that three of the four won, the other drew. 

However, it does back up my thoughts that generally we didn’t give them too much but they were excellent, very efficient and clinical when we did. 

Portsmouth touched the ball in the box six times, but scored three goals. I’m sure that’s got to be some sort of record. 

Honestly I think it more speaks to the opportunities we gave them were gift wrapped. And honestly given how they didn't have to work for it, I worry it won't be the last time we see 4 or more put past us. Unless we address issues structurally. 

[Tamworthram]

8 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

It’s a community asset

According to my understanding, being a community asset doesn’t stop an individual or entity from owning it and appointing whatever person from managing it. It pretty much just restricts what it can be used for (broadly speaking I think).

 

 

[Tamworthram]

8 hours ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

No, I think Clowes is more patient than the entire fan base, which is his prerogative as it's his business and money in play.

I agree he probably has more patience than the entire fan base but I wouldn’t say a definitive “no”. If we’ve barely won a game, are bottom of the league and well adrift by Christmas then a “by mutual agreement” announcement might be made. On the other hand though, as someone else pointed out, if we were relegated (purely hypothetical as of course it’s way to early to be identifying promotion and relegation candidates) PW is the sort of man you might look to get us promoted back out of League 1.

So, in a nutshell: unlikely I would have thought but never say never.

 

It’s damn painful sitting on this fence.

Edited August 11 by Tamworthram

[Ghost of Clough]

7 minutes ago, brady1993 said:

Honestly I think it more speaks to the opportunities we gave them were gift wrapped. And honestly given how they didn't have to work for it, I worry it won't be the last time we see 4 or more put past us. Unless we address issues structurally. 

The quality of chances given up is backed up by Blackburn having the 2nd highest xG per shot in the league (0.23).

Our total xG was 1.41, with Barkhuizen's goal-line effort making up 0.86 of that. Our remaining 11 efforts had an average xG of just 0.05!

[Ambitious]

1 minute ago, brady1993 said:

Honestly I think it more speaks to the opportunities we gave them were gift wrapped. And honestly given how they didn't have to work for it, I worry it won't be the last time we see 4 or more put past us. Unless we address issues structurally. 

It was a new system and a brand new midfield three, your excellent breakdown over their goals provides a lot of context. I have absolutely no worries about our ability to be defensively sound in the long run. 

[May Contain Nuts]

Those structural issues have existed in some form under Warne from game one to one hundred so I don't see anything fundamentally changing.

Once the players settle in, Adams regains full fitness, we get a quicker CB and someone who can hold the ball up though, the gaps should be much better disguised.

Edited August 11 by May Contain Nuts

[RoyMac5]

1 hour ago, brady1993 said:

...In this I know I've criticised Ozoh a lot and I do think he's severely culpable in a lot of the goals. But to be honest in all of them there just seems to be structural problems. A lot of naive pressing and poor positioning as a team. Suggesting there hasn't been enough or good enough coaching around when players should press, how they should press, what positions to take up or hold and who should be looking to cover for who. It strikes me as a lot of individuals making decisions in a moment as opposed to a collective understanding of who should be doing what.

 

Whilst Warne seems to prefer athleticism in his footballers I prefer 'footballing intelligence'. We have had players that 'ate all the pies' but knew 'where to be and what to do when'. How would you rate some of our squad on the limited amount of showing?

[Anag Ram]

23 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Whilst Warne seems to prefer athleticism in his footballers I prefer 'footballing intelligence'. We have had players that 'ate all the pies' but knew 'where to be and what to do when'. How would you rate some of our squad on the limited amount of showing?

I agree. I like clever, feisty players who know what to do in a given situation.