I am going to say it!! Yes I am, Nathan Jones......................

paulsturgess said:

Callumcafc said:

DamoNorthStand said:

MrWalker said:

LargeAddick said:

QCallumcafc said:

LargeAddick said:

The Red Robin said:

Those two points dropped at Blackburn and point dropped at Pompey are looking pretty costly today. 

It’s not only the points we dropped but the fact we allowed Blackburn to earn a point and Pompey to earn all three. Two massive results.

And yet we’re above both in the league. Would’ve been nice if the gap was bigger but I’d still rather be us than be them.

I’d swear that if we were four points adrift of safety with just one game to play you’d still put a positive spin on it.

Except Callum is right. 

Statistically and emotionally 

How do we judge who we are better than?

The league table as it stands, or the form table over the last, say, 15 games.

I think you would learn more (and gain a more accurate reading) from the latter.

It’s not the form table that decides which teams go down.

Obviously if the shit form continues we know what it means, but that’s why it’s form. Because it tends to vary over a 46 game season.

How many times in football have you thought “where’s the next win coming from?” and then it appears.

How many people thought we’d do Northampton 5-0 at their place last December before it happened? And how many people thought our supposed League One squad would win 3-0 at Portman Road this season?

We were always going to have a bad spell this year - and it’s lasting a bit longer than is comfortable for anyone. What’s yet to be seen is how and when we react to it. 

What’s the point in being a supporter if you can’t believe in your team?

It's beyond a spell of form mate. It's the reality of the side/squad we have this season, I would say we're now on a 21 game spell of poor "form" - barring a crazy and wonderful 20 minutes against Ipswich, our performances and results for the entirety of the months of October, November, December and January have been very poor. 

I hope you're right (again) and the tide is about to turn but I don't think anyone can suggest that 4 months / 21 matches is merely a bad spell as it's practically half of the entire season, and about 70% of the season that has taken place thus far 

I completely disagree that we’ve had problems for 21 games.

We’ve played 28 - we only lost three of our first 14, won nearly half of those (six). We were in the playoffs on November 7th. Mad to me that you’ve included an unbeaten run of five games where we won 3 and drawn 2.

Two wins in 14 is an unfortunately long run of bad results but it’s nowhere near 21.

Callumcafc said:

paulsturgess said:

Callumcafc said:

DamoNorthStand said:

MrWalker said:

LargeAddick said:

QCallumcafc said:

LargeAddick said:

The Red Robin said:

Those two points dropped at Blackburn and point dropped at Pompey are looking pretty costly today. 

It’s not only the points we dropped but the fact we allowed Blackburn to earn a point and Pompey to earn all three. Two massive results.

And yet we’re above both in the league. Would’ve been nice if the gap was bigger but I’d still rather be us than be them.

I’d swear that if we were four points adrift of safety with just one game to play you’d still put a positive spin on it.

Except Callum is right. 

Statistically and emotionally 

How do we judge who we are better than?

The league table as it stands, or the form table over the last, say, 15 games.

I think you would learn more (and gain a more accurate reading) from the latter.

It’s not the form table that decides which teams go down.

Obviously if the shit form continues we know what it means, but that’s why it’s form. Because it tends to vary over a 46 game season.

How many times in football have you thought “where’s the next win coming from?” and then it appears.

How many people thought we’d do Northampton 5-0 at their place last December before it happened? And how many people thought our supposed League One squad would win 3-0 at Portman Road this season?

We were always going to have a bad spell this year - and it’s lasting a bit longer than is comfortable for anyone. What’s yet to be seen is how and when we react to it. 

What’s the point in being a supporter if you can’t believe in your team?

It's beyond a spell of form mate. It's the reality of the side/squad we have this season, I would say we're now on a 21 game spell of poor "form" - barring a crazy and wonderful 20 minutes against Ipswich, our performances and results for the entirety of the months of October, November, December and January have been very poor. 

I hope you're right (again) and the tide is about to turn but I don't think anyone can suggest that 4 months / 21 matches is merely a bad spell as it's practically half of the entire season, and about 70% of the season that has taken place thus far 

I completely disagree that we’ve had problems for 21 games.

We’ve played 28 - we only lost three of our first 14, won nearly half of those (six). We were in the playoffs on November 7th. Mad to me that you’ve included an unbeaten run of five games where we won 3 and drawn 2.

Two wins in 14 is an unfortunately long run of bad results but it’s nowhere near 21.

Personally, I think things started to manifest themselves about game 13.  Swansea at home. 

Callumcafc said:

paulsturgess said:

Callumcafc said:

DamoNorthStand said:

MrWalker said:

LargeAddick said:

QCallumcafc said:

LargeAddick said:

The Red Robin said:

Those two points dropped at Blackburn and point dropped at Pompey are looking pretty costly today. 

It’s not only the points we dropped but the fact we allowed Blackburn to earn a point and Pompey to earn all three. Two massive results.

And yet we’re above both in the league. Would’ve been nice if the gap was bigger but I’d still rather be us than be them.

I’d swear that if we were four points adrift of safety with just one game to play you’d still put a positive spin on it.

Except Callum is right. 

Statistically and emotionally 

How do we judge who we are better than?

The league table as it stands, or the form table over the last, say, 15 games.

I think you would learn more (and gain a more accurate reading) from the latter.

It’s not the form table that decides which teams go down.

Obviously if the shit form continues we know what it means, but that’s why it’s form. Because it tends to vary over a 46 game season.

How many times in football have you thought “where’s the next win coming from?” and then it appears.

How many people thought we’d do Northampton 5-0 at their place last December before it happened? And how many people thought our supposed League One squad would win 3-0 at Portman Road this season?

We were always going to have a bad spell this year - and it’s lasting a bit longer than is comfortable for anyone. What’s yet to be seen is how and when we react to it. 

What’s the point in being a supporter if you can’t believe in your team?

It's beyond a spell of form mate. It's the reality of the side/squad we have this season, I would say we're now on a 21 game spell of poor "form" - barring a crazy and wonderful 20 minutes against Ipswich, our performances and results for the entirety of the months of October, November, December and January have been very poor. 

I hope you're right (again) and the tide is about to turn but I don't think anyone can suggest that 4 months / 21 matches is merely a bad spell as it's practically half of the entire season, and about 70% of the season that has taken place thus far 

I completely disagree that we’ve had problems for 21 games.

We’ve played 28 - we only lost three of our first 14, won nearly half of those (six). We were in the playoffs on November 7th. Mad to me that you’ve included an unbeaten run of five games where we won 3 and drawn 2.

Two wins in 14 is an unfortunately long run of bad results but it’s nowhere near 21.

You're looking at results only but that is incredibly naive IMO. (Good) managers should be able to see when things are not going well and it is perfectly possible to nick adequate results (very acutely shown against Sheff U last week) despite having problems and being in poor form.

In October, we lost and played poorly at Preston, we won but clung on in somewhat embarrasing fashion against Sheffield Wednesday (nuff said), were fortunate to steal a draw at Hull, were fortunate to beat West Brom (struggling) and deserved to lose to Swansea (struggling). Even Ipswich away, we were played off the park first half but hung on and then produced that 20 minute storm. 

Generally, poor performances will translate into poor results even if not always, and good performances will translate into good results even if not always. I hoped those performances at the time were just a wobble, struggle period, but what has followed since is just the manifestation of those largely poor performances, and I would say if we perform like we did on the average of those matches listed above, we will continue on our trajectory to get relegated as the outcomes are likely to be broadly in line with what has continued since. So it is completely reasonable to include those within our poor run of form.

Garrymanilow said:

AFKABartram said:

Callumcafc said:

paulsturgess said:

Callumcafc said:

DamoNorthStand said:

MrWalker said:

LargeAddick said:

QCallumcafc said:

LargeAddick said:

The Red Robin said:

Those two points dropped at Blackburn and point dropped at Pompey are looking pretty costly today. 

It’s not only the points we dropped but the fact we allowed Blackburn to earn a point and Pompey to earn all three. Two massive results.

And yet we’re above both in the league. Would’ve been nice if the gap was bigger but I’d still rather be us than be them.

I’d swear that if we were four points adrift of safety with just one game to play you’d still put a positive spin on it.

Except Callum is right. 

Statistically and emotionally 

How do we judge who we are better than?

The league table as it stands, or the form table over the last, say, 15 games.

I think you would learn more (and gain a more accurate reading) from the latter.

It’s not the form table that decides which teams go down.

Obviously if the shit form continues we know what it means, but that’s why it’s form. Because it tends to vary over a 46 game season.

How many times in football have you thought “where’s the next win coming from?” and then it appears.

How many people thought we’d do Northampton 5-0 at their place last December before it happened? And how many people thought our supposed League One squad would win 3-0 at Portman Road this season?

We were always going to have a bad spell this year - and it’s lasting a bit longer than is comfortable for anyone. What’s yet to be seen is how and when we react to it. 

What’s the point in being a supporter if you can’t believe in your team?

It's beyond a spell of form mate. It's the reality of the side/squad we have this season, I would say we're now on a 21 game spell of poor "form" - barring a crazy and wonderful 20 minutes against Ipswich, our performances and results for the entirety of the months of October, November, December and January have been very poor. 

I hope you're right (again) and the tide is about to turn but I don't think anyone can suggest that 4 months / 21 matches is merely a bad spell as it's practically half of the entire season, and about 70% of the season that has taken place thus far 

I completely disagree that we’ve had problems for 21 games.

We’ve played 28 - we only lost three of our first 14, won nearly half of those (six). We were in the playoffs on November 7th. Mad to me that you’ve included an unbeaten run of five games where we won 3 and drawn 2.

Two wins in 14 is an unfortunately long run of bad results but it’s nowhere near 21.

Personally, I think things started to manifest themselves about game 13.  Swansea at home. 

Were weren’t great the week before at Hull, but ‘being in a better place’ than we are now saw us  fighting and staying in the game, then nicking a late equaliser. 

Swansea at home we drew, but we were clearly 2nd best. Read the thread back, we all said Swansea were noticeably the best team we’d played this season, which felt a bit strange as their results didn’t suggest that. 

We were unconvincing at home to West Brom, but masked it with the late winner. Wrexham was a harsh penalty, but they battered us 2nd half. Then Southampton become the latest best team we’d played this season. Again, an outliner to their other results. Stoke never in the game, Cov soundly beat, Boro home never in the game. 

Had a mini pick up v two poor Brum and Oxford teams, then regressed from Norwich onwards, and at a faster rate from Chelsea to now. Sheff U with a bit more luck for them had a chance of being the ‘latest best team in the division’, and then Millwall could easily have scored 7 on Saturday. 

The Swansea game was the one where Bell got injured just before half time. Says it all really. Losing Edwards was a blow but Bell is a brilliant defender and had the pace to support and protect Gillesphey in the middle. Gillesphey was actually good in that period, he wasn't having to deal with pace coming down the side and he got two goals for us. West Brom and Wrexham were the games after Swansea and we had Hernandez at LWB and he didn't convince against West Brom before giving away the penalty in the Wrexham game. He and Apter were murdered against Saints and we were 1-0 up against Coventry before Bell got injured again and we ended up losing 3-1. We were a mess against Portsmouth but then we got a creditable point off Coventry with Bell back and should have held out against Blackburn but TC isn't a wingback. Even then we were good enough to get a point. I think it shows how much we need quality in that LWB spot and how much Gillesphey only works at this level if there's someone really good outside him. We have a very competitive first 11 but almost nothing behind it if the injuries hit. We need to sign another LWB and a LCB this January or we will continue to be in trouble constantly relying on Bell returning to fill that LCB slot

 I'd like to say I agree with every word of that, but I'd quibble with the "at this level" bit, as it was the same last season when you compare the differences between having Edwards outside him or Small. 

The Red Robin said:

I do get tired of any replacement idea having to be an out of work manager or someone in the EFL. I think and hope the club have a better plan than that. 

I'd not bet against it.

.

benjest1989 said:

W D L L D W W D L W W D D W L L L L L D W L L D D W L L  - form has dropped off a cliff - both recent wins have been followed by 2 losses

Two draws and a win coming up next three games then 

stoneroses19 said:

benjest1989 said:

W D L L D W W D L W W D D W L L L L L D W L L D D W L L  - form has dropped off a cliff - both recent wins have been followed by 2 losses

Two draws and a win coming up next three games then 

I’d take that 

ElfsborgAddick said:

paulsturgess said:

NabySarr said:

paulsturgess said:

Callumcafc said:

paulsturgess said:

Callumcafc said:

DamoNorthStand said:

MrWalker said:

LargeAddick said:

QCallumcafc said:

LargeAddick said:

The Red Robin said:

Those two points dropped at Blackburn and point dropped at Pompey are looking pretty costly today. 

It’s not only the points we dropped but the fact we allowed Blackburn to earn a point and Pompey to earn all three. Two massive results.

And yet we’re above both in the league. Would’ve been nice if the gap was bigger but I’d still rather be us than be them.

I’d swear that if we were four points adrift of safety with just one game to play you’d still put a positive spin on it.

Except Callum is right. 

Statistically and emotionally 

How do we judge who we are better than?

The league table as it stands, or the form table over the last, say, 15 games.

I think you would learn more (and gain a more accurate reading) from the latter.

It’s not the form table that decides which teams go down.

Obviously if the shit form continues we know what it means, but that’s why it’s form. Because it tends to vary over a 46 game season.

How many times in football have you thought “where’s the next win coming from?” and then it appears.

How many people thought we’d do Northampton 5-0 at their place last December before it happened? And how many people thought our supposed League One squad would win 3-0 at Portman Road this season?

We were always going to have a bad spell this year - and it’s lasting a bit longer than is comfortable for anyone. What’s yet to be seen is how and when we react to it. 

What’s the point in being a supporter if you can’t believe in your team?

It's beyond a spell of form mate. It's the reality of the side/squad we have this season, I would say we're now on a 21 game spell of poor "form" - barring a crazy and wonderful 20 minutes against Ipswich, our performances and results for the entirety of the months of October, November, December and January have been very poor. 

I hope you're right (again) and the tide is about to turn but I don't think anyone can suggest that 4 months / 21 matches is merely a bad spell as it's practically half of the entire season, and about 70% of the season that has taken place thus far 

I completely disagree that we’ve had problems for 21 games.

We’ve played 28 - we only lost three of our first 14, won nearly half of those (six). We were in the playoffs on November 7th. Mad to me that you’ve included an unbeaten run of five games where we won 3 and drawn 2.

Two wins in 14 is an unfortunately long run of bad results but it’s nowhere near 21.

You're looking at results only but that is incredibly naive IMO. (Good) managers should be able to see when things are not going well and it is perfectly possible to nick adequate results (very acutely shown against Sheff U last week) despite having problems and being in poor form.

In October, we lost and played poorly at Preston, we won but clung on in somewhat embarrasing fashion against Sheffield Wednesday (nuff said), were fortunate to steal a draw at Hull, were fortunate to beat West Brom (struggling) and deserved to lose to Swansea (struggling). Even Ipswich away, we were played off the park first half but hung on and then produced that 20 minute storm. 

Generally, poor performances will translate into poor results even if not always, and good performances will translate into good results even if not always. I hoped those performances at the time were just a wobble, struggle period, but what has followed since is just the manifestation of those largely poor performances, and I would say if we perform like we did on the average of those matches listed above, we will continue on our trajectory to get relegated as the outcomes are likely to be broadly in line with what has continued since. So it is completely reasonable to include those within our poor run of form.

I think there’s some revisionism going on here with that run, the performances weren’t much worse than you’d probably expect of us this season. Just because we started so well it felt like a drop off. 

I don’t think we deserved to lose against Swansea, the stats certainly don’t agree with that. Didn’t deserve to beat West Brom fair enough. Ipswich and Hull away, when we are away against teams in the top 6 we are always going to be up against it and mostly be outplayed. I wouldn’t say that run of games was poor performances, I’d say that it was actually performing to the level of the squad we have.Competitive at home, struggling away but staying in games as best we can 

I’d describe your discussion of the Swansea game as revisionism so have to agree to disagree on that. Even allowing your assessment - the indisputable terrible run still stretches beyond anything that can reasonably be described as just a poor run of form.

by the way, I’m not calling for his head, I’m demanding he swallows some of his enormous ego and makes significant changes to alter the situation post haste because he, and we, are on the precipice 

I gave up watching Jones' interviews, is he still starting off with "look".

Look...yep!!

cabbles said:

My biggest concern is does Jones has what it takes to change things up and turn it around.  @Garrymanilow made a good point re; our ability to see of a result earlier in the season under the traditional NJ set up and ongoing problems not having Bell and Edwards has been, but I do worry about what he tells his teams to do on the ball.

We have lost that keep it tight and hope to still be in a game come 70 minutes and nick a result approach, and actually I fear we look worse for getting deeper into it.  The confidence isn’t there (nor the fitness now we’re in Jan) to sit off.  It was working very well at the start of the season and if we hadn’t had the injuries to key players, we might have 6/7 more points on the board than we do now.

But because of the situation we now find ourselves in, I truly believe it requires a change of approach and one that will need us to take games to teams.  I think we’ve boxed ourselves into a corner here being so reliant on plan A, that I just can’t see how we can take the game to the opposition.  I’m not talking about setting up in a more open attack minded manner, more moving the ball quicker and trying to keep to our structure that Jones believes in, but recognize we need to win games, not grind out results and hope our luck is in.  

As others have mentioned, there’s been plenty of games that we’re warning signals, but we seem to have this absolute fear to our game when we get the ball at the moment.  We showed against Coventry if we have a bit of belief that we can do okay.  It’s up to Jones to find that and get that message across very quickly 

18 games left.  We need 6 wins to get to 50 points.  We won’t stay up by sitting in and nicking points here and there.  At some point we have to be the ones that say, we’re taking the opposition on, let’s have it 

Personally I think the opposite is actually needed. Before we turned things around last season we had back to back 0-0 draws. When we have done well under Jones it’s always started with clean sheets first and then start to build on that. We need to be solid at the back again, stop trying to play so much football, and go back to being a direct teams that scraps for second balls and set pieces. Long balls to a target man or into the channels for TC/Kelman to chase and turn the opposing defence around. It won’t be pretty but it might scrape a few results together that we can then build on and then start playing more football 

We don’t move the ball well enough or anywhere near quickly enough to be a good footballing team. We just don’t have the players for it and changing to a more attacking approach won’t change that fact 

Melrose said:

Nabby....."stop trying to play so much football". Are you sure its Charlton you've been watching 😊

More that we try and play it short from goal kicks, move it around at the back at a painfully slow pace before then hitting a much poorer long ball under pressure or giving the ball away while trying to pass it forward. We had more possession on Saturday but most of it was just us doing this and not getting anywhere 

NabySarr said:

cabbles said:

My biggest concern is does Jones has what it takes to change things up and turn it around.  @Garrymanilow made a good point re; our ability to see of a result earlier in the season under the traditional NJ set up and ongoing problems not having Bell and Edwards has been, but I do worry about what he tells his teams to do on the ball.

We have lost that keep it tight and hope to still be in a game come 70 minutes and nick a result approach, and actually I fear we look worse for getting deeper into it.  The confidence isn’t there (nor the fitness now we’re in Jan) to sit off.  It was working very well at the start of the season and if we hadn’t had the injuries to key players, we might have 6/7 more points on the board than we do now.

But because of the situation we now find ourselves in, I truly believe it requires a change of approach and one that will need us to take games to teams.  I think we’ve boxed ourselves into a corner here being so reliant on plan A, that I just can’t see how we can take the game to the opposition.  I’m not talking about setting up in a more open attack minded manner, more moving the ball quicker and trying to keep to our structure that Jones believes in, but recognize we need to win games, not grind out results and hope our luck is in.  

As others have mentioned, there’s been plenty of games that we’re warning signals, but we seem to have this absolute fear to our game when we get the ball at the moment.  We showed against Coventry if we have a bit of belief that we can do okay.  It’s up to Jones to find that and get that message across very quickly 

18 games left.  We need 6 wins to get to 50 points.  We won’t stay up by sitting in and nicking points here and there.  At some point we have to be the ones that say, we’re taking the opposition on, let’s have it 

Personally I think the opposite is actually needed. Before we turned things around last season we had back to back 0-0 draws. When we have done well under Jones it’s always started with clean sheets first and then start to build on that. We need to be solid at the back again, stop trying to play so much football, and go back to being a direct teams that scraps for second balls and set pieces. Long balls to a target man or into the channels for TC/Kelman to chase and turn the opposing defence around. It won’t be pretty but it might scrape a few results together that we can then build on and then start playing more football 

We don’t move the ball well enough or anywhere near quickly enough to be a good footballing team. We just don’t have the players for it and changing to a more attacking approach won’t change that fact 

I see your point, I just think that as the season has worn on, the cracks have been getting bigger and bigger.  Granted, with someone like Bell in the team, those cracks have been better managed, but I’m looking that midfield for example, and saying what are you doing to take the game to the opposition when we’re on the ball.  I fear that this approach we’ve currently got is just putting too much pressure on the team as a unit and we don’t have the same level of resilience to see it through another 18 games.   

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

cabbles said:

My biggest concern is does Jones has what it takes to change things up and turn it around.  @Garrymanilow made a good point re; our ability to see of a result earlier in the season under the traditional NJ set up and ongoing problems not having Bell and Edwards has been, but I do worry about what he tells his teams to do on the ball.

We have lost that keep it tight and hope to still be in a game come 70 minutes and nick a result approach, and actually I fear we look worse for getting deeper into it.  The confidence isn’t there (nor the fitness now we’re in Jan) to sit off.  It was working very well at the start of the season and if we hadn’t had the injuries to key players, we might have 6/7 more points on the board than we do now.

But because of the situation we now find ourselves in, I truly believe it requires a change of approach and one that will need us to take games to teams.  I think we’ve boxed ourselves into a corner here being so reliant on plan A, that I just can’t see how we can take the game to the opposition.  I’m not talking about setting up in a more open attack minded manner, more moving the ball quicker and trying to keep to our structure that Jones believes in, but recognize we need to win games, not grind out results and hope our luck is in.  

As others have mentioned, there’s been plenty of games that we’re warning signals, but we seem to have this absolute fear to our game when we get the ball at the moment.  We showed against Coventry if we have a bit of belief that we can do okay.  It’s up to Jones to find that and get that message across very quickly 

18 games left.  We need 6 wins to get to 50 points.  We won’t stay up by sitting in and nicking points here and there.  At some point we have to be the ones that say, we’re taking the opposition on, let’s have it 

Apart from Blackburn and Ipswich, that's pretty much exactly how we've got our points all season. And even at Ipswich we had to sit in and ride our luck for half an hour.

Yes, but I think it’s a case of that was then, this is now.  I just think we need to be bold and try to be more aggressive in possession.  I know we might not have the players, but I really do see that approach struggling to produce what it did 

Er_Be_Ab_Pl_Wo_Wo_Ch said:

benjest1989 said:

W D L L D W W D L W W D D W L L L L L D W L L D D W L L  - form has dropped off a cliff - both recent wins have been followed by 2 losses

It's been a long while since we beat a half-decent team. The last 3 wins -
Scraped a 1-0 against a poor West Brom;
Beat a poor Oxford 1-0, who then offloaded their manager;
Defended out a 1-0 lead against 9-man Sheff Utd.

Probably the best performance in the last 3 months was against Coventry - the spirit shown that day, perhaps I mean cohesiveness, is what needs to be rediscovered. Where/why did it go?!

Two words: Amari’i Bell

That game was the last time he played a complete 90 minutes at LCB.

Nicholas said:

Bell played about 25-30 mins before going off injured against Coventry. We played really up until that point. Tanto was playing really well too and causing Coventry all sorts of problems. Jones decided it would be wise to take Bell off for Leaburn and that was game over.

I think we’re talking about two different Coventry games. I assumed @Er_Be_Ab_Pl_Wo_Wo_Ch was referencing the NYD home game which was drawn 1-1 and Bell played a full 90 at centre back.