The Bosted Slab wrote:Strange game in that I thought Scunthorpe played quite well and better than us, passed neatly and accurately, had plenty of movement and found space, but from memory hardly created anything.
In contrast, we were plodding and pedestrian, hardly any movement, didn't find much space, but created quite a few opportunities and were arguably unfortunate not to score on a few occasions.
I can live with players struggling with form and not playing particularly well, but what I can't tolerate are performances more down to attitude and application.
The only player that sent out all the wrong signals last night was Sawyers. His body language and general demeanour was an affront to all paying customers, as he has regressed into his former self with a mixture of ducking challenges, failing to challenge correctly and worst of all failing to challenge at all. When you see Bradshaw chasing back past him to get to a defender bringing the ball out that Sawyers didn't bother to challenge, says it all to me.
Sawyers, combined with the ineffectual performance from Mantom, means offensive central midfield is where our problems mainly lie. Plodding and ponderous, with little attempt to beat their man and create openings.
Sawyers should definitely have been substituted last night, together with Mantom, rather than taking Forde and Lalkovic off who had each been more threatening on the night. Forde and Lalkovic should have been moved into the middle with Lalkovic pushing further forward to link with Bradshaw. I would even have preferred Cook to have been brought on to join Bradshaw upfront in place of Sawyers.
The substitutions were positionally like for like and although Morris and Henry had their moments, in effect we just carried on doing the same thing that wasn't working in terms of goals.
The Manager failed to show any tactical nous last night to tip the balance.
Our situation requires a radical shake up at home before it's too late and perhaps a two man defensive central midfield of Chambers and Bryn Morris is worth a try, with all out attack in front of them.
With each game that goes by more pressure is put on our away performances to keep us in the picture and as such an outstanding record of only one defeat will mean nothing unless we convert commendable draws into necessary wins. Both home and away, we are unfortunately drawing too many games, whereas by contrast Burton mainly deal in wins with occasional defeats.
All is not lost, but we quickly have to see some evidence that we are learning and exploring every possible avenue to break us out of this current sequence of underperformance.
Well said.
We effectively played with Chambo in midfield doing the work of Sawyers/Mantom combined and Forde having one of his games where he disappears.
This is not a personal vendetta on Sawyers - just an obvious statement that he doesn't deserve the shirt at present. Mantom is slow and ponderous doesn't win tackles and adds nothing. So why are they both picked game after game?
Thankfully Downing (again) was excellent (apart from some distribution) and the rest of the back4 and Etheridge all combined to ensure we had a chance of winning the game.
So we end up with the back 4 having the ball and then expected to create the opportunities going forward. Ridiculous.
Apart from Chambo the rest of the midfield treat the ball as something to get rid of either backwards or sideways or avoid completely (a la Sawyers). Flicks and Tricks are great when you are 3 up and someone needs to tell him that bluntly.
Feel sorry for Super Tom who tries hard and gets bullied and kicked and NEVER gets any protection. It's not his best position to be sent high balls to attempt to beat a 6 foot 6 Centre back.
Hence the moves need to come on the ground in triangles played at a quick pace from midfielders going forward. On Tuesday no midfielder could do that albeit we came more alive when Morris and Rico arrived on the scene 20 minutes too late.
Tuesday night has brought out more moans because after the first 20 minutes we looked like relegation fodder and it seems obvious to the fans but not to the Manager that we need to freshen things up and shake up the opposition rather than doing the same slow build ups and the same end results.
Confidence has gone down somewhat - that is obvious. Even worse there are very few in that team who seem to want to shoot and enjoy scoring.
Most recent games we should have won easily except for Wigan and Burton and the problem has been converting the many chances created whilst playing great football.
Tuesday night was different.
I am still confused why Bakayoko is out on loan instead of earning his spurs coming off the bench to give opposition defences a problem. Even Cook has shown sometimes that he can come on and put himself about and add some value.
So the lack of tactical substitutions early in the game and game after game is a real issue for me.
As for Referees. Just when you think they can't get any worse another cretin turns up and proves you wrong. Time after time the team that tries to play football gets no protection and the opposition gets away with pushing and shoving and worse. See the incident with Rico late in the match. Their man gets away with it and their manager refuses to give up the ball and the referee does nothing. On the other hand Chambo tackles (mostly fairly) and gets pulled up for fouls time and time again. And of course it now seems OK for the opposition to kick the ball away at every dead ball and get away with it.
We probably need to get a goal early next match that comes off someone's backside and kicks us off with some confidence.
UTS.