A very very strange game......at times (particularly in the first half), we were playing them off the park with some delightful stuff, no one in the ground could quite believe they went in 3-2 up.....least of all yours truly. We were at no time second best, yet somehow contrived to concede 5!!! Ref wasn’t sure about the pen (didn’t give it right away), but it was the lino who confirmed it.....he swayed the ref to give it.
I've been worried about lack of defensive and defensive midfield cover for weeks, we are short in that area, and the injury to Page highlights it. Personally (and this isn't hindsight as I said it before tonight) I would have preferred an extra defender to cover LB/CB to an attacking player like Ward.
I've not seen the goals, or the match thread as I was out, but a serious question has to be asked about whether Steer deserves to keep his place over Dillon.
The goals were awful near-post work from idk who, a screamer, a screw-up by Taylor/Dijksteel, a bad penalty call and a breakaway at the end. That doesn't say 'systemic problems' to me, it says 'everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong'
Our defensive frailties have already been highlighted but the rub of the green was not going for us tonight. At 2-1 up, their equaliser took a wicked deflection. At 3-3, they get the initiative back with the pen. We had a great shout for a pen ourselves at 3-4. Could be more of these high scoring games to come with the way we are at the moment. Lovely house but a leaking roof.
A very very strange game......at times (particularly in the first half), we were playing them off the park with some delightful stuff), no one in the ground could quite believe they went in 3-2 up.....least of all yours truly. We were at no time second best, yet somehow contrived to concede 5!!! Ref wasn’t sure about the pen (didn’t give it right away), but it was the lino who confirmed it.....he swayed the ref to give it.
Maybe we was way to open for an away game! But it does mean weird to play so well going forward score 3 and lose!
Remember ...... "don't let the highs get too high or the lows get too low".
I like Bowyer's quotes: "We'll have to sort it out. It's not acceptable. Conceding how many goals? Seven in the last two games. Scoring five away from home and not winning...it's not good enough."
Or this one: “I’ve just said to them you can’t go away and score three goals and not win the game. You can’t. You can’t go away from home and score two goals [at Luton on Saturday] and not win the game. We’ll have to sort that out."
Remember ...... "don't let the highs get too high or the lows get too low".
I like Bowyer's quotes: "We'll have to sort it out. It's not acceptable. Conceding how many goals? Seven in the last two games. Scoring five away from home and not winning...it's not good enough."
Or this one: “I’ve just said to them you can’t go away and score three goals and not win the game. You can’t. You can’t go away from home and score two goals [at Luton on Saturday] and not win the game. We’ll have to sort that out."
Sort it out, Bow.
With our defence can we do both. If we try and protect the defence more are we going to score 2 or 3 goals away from home. Even scoring 3 tonight I'm going to say we need to take our chances
Worse performance of the season, defence and Pratley all over the place with heavy touches and short passes putting us under unnecessary pressure.
To much of a gap between defence and midfield and lost the midfield battle and was bullied.
Positive going forward looked like we would score every time.
Summary poor mistakes and errors cost us
Why are we playing it out from the back all the time Half the time we put ourselves under pressure
Bowyer disagrees.
When the times right CE we do it every time.
I agree and said to Bowyer that we shouldn't play it out from the back every time, when we are being quickly closed down. I thought we needed to vary it sometimes, if the situation warranted it. Bowyer said I was wrong. Fair enough.
Worse performance of the season, defence and Pratley all over the place with heavy touches and short passes putting us under unnecessary pressure.
To much of a gap between defence and midfield and lost the midfield battle and was bullied.
Positive going forward looked like we would score every time.
Summary poor mistakes and errors cost us
Why are we playing it out from the back all the time Half the time we put ourselves under pressure
Bowyer disagrees.
When the times right CE we do it every time.
I agree and said to Bowyer that we shouldn't play it out from the back every time, when we are being quickly closed down. I thought we needed to vary it sometimes, if the situation warranted it. Bowyer said I was wrong. Fair enough.
Think his arm is out not at side of his body.thats why his given it even though it’s probably ball to hand. It’s a tough one and the refs probably gone with instinct. Not seen replays but it’s some you get some you don’t. But I can’t believe his not gave us a penalty either. This would have got him out of jail and he would not be questioned on a 50-50 penalty decision that decides the match.
Worse performance of the season, defence and Pratley all over the place with heavy touches and short passes putting us under unnecessary pressure.
To much of a gap between defence and midfield and lost the midfield battle and was bullied.
Positive going forward looked like we would score every time.
Summary poor mistakes and errors cost us
Why are we playing it out from the back all the time Half the time we put ourselves under pressure
Bowyer disagrees.
When the times right CE we do it every time.
I agree and said to Bowyer that we shouldn't play it out from the back every time, when we are being quickly closed down. I thought we needed to vary it sometimes, if the situation warranted it. Bowyer said I was wrong. Fair enough.
You're right if the opposition presses bypass playing it out of the back and go more direct. Standard tactic that I taught my U12s for years
Oh dear, where to start with that lot tonight? How about 4 mins in from a corner 0-1 Solly seemed to duck under the inswinger whilst Steer appeared to be caught out unawares summed up by one word SLOPPY!
Undeterred by the nonsense at the back we took the game to Scunny and scored from a corner by Cullen which Sarr nodded back across the box for Taylor to score at the far stick. With our tails up we continued to attack and Grant had two good chances but failed to convert. Then Taylor who was enjoying his roaming role out left fed the ball into Aribo who calmly dispatched it into the net off a defender 2-1 to the Londoners.
Then blow me down their equaliser came from a half cleared corner and the ball was returned with venom and took a deflection past the hapless Steer. Not happy with throwing away a lead we then handed it back to the Iron with Taylor going from Hero to villain with a poor ball infield which was like feeding pigs cherries and the oppo broke straight on goal and beat Steer inside his left hand post. For a keeper he's not that big and does not give me any confidence that he'll stop anything unless it is straight at him. HT 2-3 and time for Bowyer to read the riot act to try and get something from the game.
Out we came for the second period a good few minutes before the oppo obviously the words of wisdom were short and sharp along the lines of 'you've taken the lead once now go and do it again and defend properly ffs'. And the first part of the plan came to fruition with Taylor holding the ball up back to goal in the box and feeding Aribo who calmly slotted the equaliser 3-3; here we go here we go methinks. The ref however (we always get Sh*t refs) gives a pen for a cross on the goaline which hit Pearce's hand from about a yard. Absolutely nothing he could do about it, ball to hand, crazy decision! 3-4 down. On came Reeves for Prately and moved the ball around ok but final pass was lacking. We pressed for the equaliser and Aribo was up ended in the box, clear pen? no chance, despite the ref and Lino having clear views of it no more than 15 yards from either of them!
Then the final nail in the coffin in injury time Solly gave the ball away and break away United capitalised yet again and a dangerous cross which eluded both Sarr and Djiksteel was tucked away at the far post 3-5 game over.
Scoring three goals away from home and nothing to show for it is criminal. Phillips must come in for Steer, the lad does not comnand his area and after his poor decision making at Luton for their first goal needs a time out. Phillips distribution might not be as good but a keeper's main job is to stop goals and he is the better option in that regard for me. Page breaking down after 5 mins and Solly at left back, meh! More defensive displays like tonight and we can forget about the play offs never mind automatics, trouble is apart from Beilik who else is there to shore things up ;-(
I'll try and keep it short, only pleasent thing was a nice easy drive home.
Steer has no business starting ahead of Phillips, he looked low on confidence, his distribution is a myth and most importantly to me he barely speaks to his defense, night and day compared to Amos, how we miss him.
I think Bowyer was naive tonight, I'm not panicking because we still played good football at times, but instead of swapping Solly flanks, why not just play Sarr at left back and slot Dijksteel in at right centre back? We had a left footer playing right centre back who couldn't pass his way forward and Scunthorpe picked up on this hence the pressure and panic, a cover left back who can't use his left peg and we left a young out of position player against their fantastic loanee left sided player Jackson and Morris and whoever else was storming down that side. I just don't understand Bowyers logic, surely just keep the players on the side they are comfortable with rather than mess around too much or at the very least switch up to a 532 and have Dijksteel, Sarr and Pearce at the back with wing backs? Just feels like he wanted to stick with a playstyle and he didn't have the players to do it
Our midfield left our full backs exposed quite often, too narrow in the midfield, a flat 442 would have probably been more suited to this type of game. Whilst we were impressive on the attack (thanks to Taylor and Aribo being pure mustard) we just looked a panicked mess when they won the ball back and hit us on the break.
Their pen wasn't a pen and ours was stonewall from what I saw, I'll watch again to make sure though. I was genuinely baffled when we were 3-2 down, I thought we played really well and were very unlucky to be behind, then Joe gets the equaliser and I think game on, worst case scenario a draw, then straight back behind again. Bizarre game, fantastic for a neutral though I would imagine.
That's about it really, no panic stations here but Bowyer needs to not play Pearce on the right ever again cause his right leg is non existent, ditto Solly on the left with his left, it was putting us in all kinds of bother.
I would drop Steer next game and just go back to basics, not fussed who you are against conceding 5 is tragic.
Another special mention to Aribo and Taylor, they really both did have good performances
I just wanna throw out there this is my first game of the season other than watching the ifollow and I have to say I think we are quite a way from being a top2 team
I'm not sure if Phillips is good enough, Steer isn't I am confident of that now
Solly just isn't Solly anymore, love the guy but I don't even rate his one on one defending anymore, we need a proper athletic right back, same goes for Page, Page is good but how can we have any consistency with a guy made of glass, two areas that once Roland fucks off we really need to improve on, as for the centre backs it's the same old, we lose confidence without big Bauer.
Going forward the rest ain't so bad, could do with a proper centre defensive mid and another winger to match Fosu but I think Taylor is our best front man since Yann and comfortably as well, with Grant improving as well I would say we are one solid striker away from having a potent strike force for this level.
All wishful thinking but everytime we play a team like Scunthorpe, Shrewsbury, Doncaster etc I always leave thinking we could do with a few of their players and without trying to sound too arrogant I shouldn't be thinking that against clubs like those
Ah well, safe travels to those that still have to make the trip home and on to the next one
That was so bad defensively. I felt that moving Solly to the left didn't help and I felt that when the sub was made and not in hindsight. This totally unbalanced us at the back. That, coupled with Sarr in the middle, really did unhinge us and we were all over the place at the back all of the game basically.
A bit of an anomaly this game, actually, as it was so unlike how we've been playing all season. And maybe it was going to happen anyway as we were all over the place for their early first goal when Page was still on the field and Solly was at RB.
So, I'm just putting it down to a bad day at the office But, what a bad day it was. So many players were just off. I don't think Pratley contributed anything. Grant was off all game. Taylor, Fosu, Cullen and Aribo were ok but were up against it as our defence was so bad. Couldn't blame Dijksteel. I thought he played pretty well. Steer, Solly and Sarr were all pretty awful. Pearce was up against it and couldn't stem the tide. Our overall shape at the back was just off.
I thought the substitution of Igor for Fosu was wrong. Would have preferred for him to replace Grant who I thought was ineffective the whole game.
Maybe it was the atmosphere (or lack of) that affected the players. It certainly was a dreary game. I don't mind losing if it was a good performance but that performance was woeful. So different to every other game this season. It was all so out of character.
Any other day I believe we would have beaten Scunthorpe pretty easily but not with the defensive shambles we had out there today.
Onwards and upwards. It'll be nice to get back home for Coventry on Saturday.
Comments
And every time our defence were passing the ball about at the back I was sh!thing myself
We were at no time second best, yet somehow contrived to concede 5!!!
Ref wasn’t sure about the pen (didn’t give it right away), but it was the lino who confirmed it.....he swayed the ref to give it.
I've not seen the goals, or the match thread as I was out, but a serious question has to be asked about whether Steer deserves to keep his place over Dillon.
Slightly better to have been unlucky, than knowing you should have lost 5-1, but fluked a 5-3.
Could be more of these high scoring games to come with the way we are at the moment. Lovely house but a leaking roof.
Remember ...... "don't let the highs get too high or the lows get too low".
I like Bowyer's quotes:
"We'll have to sort it out. It's not acceptable. Conceding how many goals? Seven in the last two games. Scoring five away from home and not winning...it's not good enough."
Or this one: “I’ve just said to them you can’t go away and score three goals and not win the game. You can’t. You can’t go away from home and score two goals [at Luton on Saturday] and not win the game. We’ll have to sort that out."
Sort it out, Bow.
If we try and protect the defence more are we going to score 2 or 3 goals away from home.
Even scoring 3 tonight I'm going to say we need to take our chances
I thought we needed to vary it sometimes, if the situation warranted it.
Bowyer said I was wrong. Fair enough.
Perhaps Katrien will then give us Fox back. It would be good to have another scapegoat to share the abuse.
West Brom managed to today.
Oh dear, where to start with that lot tonight? How about 4 mins in from a corner 0-1 Solly seemed to duck under the inswinger whilst Steer appeared to be caught out unawares summed up by one word SLOPPY!
Undeterred by the nonsense at the back we took the game to Scunny and scored from a corner by Cullen which Sarr nodded back across the box for Taylor to score at the far stick. With our tails up we continued to attack and Grant had two good chances but failed to convert. Then Taylor who was enjoying his roaming role out left fed the ball into Aribo who calmly dispatched it into the net off a defender 2-1 to the Londoners.
Then blow me down their equaliser came from a half cleared corner and the ball was returned with venom and took a deflection past the hapless Steer. Not happy with throwing away a lead we then handed it back to the Iron with Taylor going from Hero to villain with a poor ball infield which was like feeding pigs cherries and the oppo broke straight on goal and beat Steer inside his left hand post. For a keeper he's not that big and does not give me any confidence that he'll stop anything unless it is straight at him. HT 2-3 and time for Bowyer to read the riot act to try and get something from the game.
Out we came for the second period a good few minutes before the oppo obviously the words of wisdom were short and sharp along the lines of 'you've taken the lead once now go and do it again and defend properly ffs'. And the first part of the plan came to fruition with Taylor holding the ball up back to goal in the box and feeding Aribo who calmly slotted the equaliser 3-3; here we go here we go methinks. The ref however (we always get Sh*t refs) gives a pen for a cross on the goaline which hit Pearce's hand from about a yard. Absolutely nothing he could do about it, ball to hand, crazy decision! 3-4 down. On came Reeves for Prately and moved the ball around ok but final pass was lacking. We pressed for the equaliser and Aribo was up ended in the box, clear pen? no chance, despite the ref and Lino having clear views of it no more than 15 yards from either of them!
Then the final nail in the coffin in injury time Solly gave the ball away and break away United capitalised yet again and a dangerous cross which eluded both Sarr and Djiksteel was tucked away at the far post 3-5 game over.
Scoring three goals away from home and nothing to show for it is criminal. Phillips must come in for Steer, the lad does not comnand his area and after his poor decision making at Luton for their first goal needs a time out. Phillips distribution might not be as good but a keeper's main job is to stop goals and he is the better option in that regard for me. Page breaking down after 5 mins and Solly at left back, meh! More defensive displays like tonight and we can forget about the play offs never mind automatics, trouble is apart from Beilik who else is there to shore things up ;-(
Steer has no business starting ahead of Phillips, he looked low on confidence, his distribution is a myth and most importantly to me he barely speaks to his defense, night and day compared to Amos, how we miss him.
I think Bowyer was naive tonight, I'm not panicking because we still played good football at times, but instead of swapping Solly flanks, why not just play Sarr at left back and slot Dijksteel in at right centre back? We had a left footer playing right centre back who couldn't pass his way forward and Scunthorpe picked up on this hence the pressure and panic, a cover left back who can't use his left peg and we left a young out of position player against their fantastic loanee left sided player Jackson and Morris and whoever else was storming down that side. I just don't understand Bowyers logic, surely just keep the players on the side they are comfortable with rather than mess around too much or at the very least switch up to a 532 and have Dijksteel, Sarr and Pearce at the back with wing backs? Just feels like he wanted to stick with a playstyle and he didn't have the players to do it
Our midfield left our full backs exposed quite often, too narrow in the midfield, a flat 442 would have probably been more suited to this type of game. Whilst we were impressive on the attack (thanks to Taylor and Aribo being pure mustard) we just looked a panicked mess when they won the ball back and hit us on the break.
Their pen wasn't a pen and ours was stonewall from what I saw, I'll watch again to make sure though. I was genuinely baffled when we were 3-2 down, I thought we played really well and were very unlucky to be behind, then Joe gets the equaliser and I think game on, worst case scenario a draw, then straight back behind again. Bizarre game, fantastic for a neutral though I would imagine.
That's about it really, no panic stations here but Bowyer needs to not play Pearce on the right ever again cause his right leg is non existent, ditto Solly on the left with his left, it was putting us in all kinds of bother.
I would drop Steer next game and just go back to basics, not fussed who you are against conceding 5 is tragic.
Another special mention to Aribo and Taylor, they really both did have good performances
I'm not sure if Phillips is good enough, Steer isn't I am confident of that now
Solly just isn't Solly anymore, love the guy but I don't even rate his one on one defending anymore, we need a proper athletic right back, same goes for Page, Page is good but how can we have any consistency with a guy made of glass, two areas that once Roland fucks off we really need to improve on, as for the centre backs it's the same old, we lose confidence without big Bauer.
Going forward the rest ain't so bad, could do with a proper centre defensive mid and another winger to match Fosu but I think Taylor is our best front man since Yann and comfortably as well, with Grant improving as well I would say we are one solid striker away from having a potent strike force for this level.
All wishful thinking but everytime we play a team like Scunthorpe, Shrewsbury, Doncaster etc I always leave thinking we could do with a few of their players and without trying to sound too arrogant I shouldn't be thinking that against clubs like those
Ah well, safe travels to those that still have to make the trip home and on to the next one
A bit of an anomaly this game, actually, as it was so unlike how we've been playing all season. And maybe it was going to happen anyway as we were all over the place for their early first goal when Page was still on the field and Solly was at RB.
So, I'm just putting it down to a bad day at the office But, what a bad day it was. So many players were just off. I don't think Pratley contributed anything. Grant was off all game. Taylor, Fosu, Cullen and Aribo were ok but were up against it as our defence was so bad. Couldn't blame Dijksteel. I thought he played pretty well. Steer, Solly and Sarr were all pretty awful. Pearce was up against it and couldn't stem the tide. Our overall shape at the back was just off.
I thought the substitution of Igor for Fosu was wrong. Would have preferred for him to replace Grant who I thought was ineffective the whole game.
Maybe it was the atmosphere (or lack of) that affected the players. It certainly was a dreary game. I don't mind losing if it was a good performance but that performance was woeful. So different to every other game this season. It was all so out of character.
Any other day I believe we would have beaten Scunthorpe pretty easily but not with the defensive shambles we had out there today.
Onwards and upwards. It'll be nice to get back home for Coventry on Saturday.