50/50 on Dennis but it seems he is carrying an injury. When he is fit and his head is in the right place I love him.
Ball going out of play but uses forearm (away from his body) to stop/control it and tap the ball in. Couldn’t be more handball if he put on a Michael Jordan jersey and threw it into the top corner. Yeah, the prosecution rests on this one.
Disagree. I think we all know the real reason. Boxing day fixture happened, we played like strangers and get stuffed (just like Millwall last season), season falls off a cliff, manager sacked. Rinse and repeat.
I genuinely can’t tell if you’re being serious. Thankfully, thanks to Gino Pozzo, I don’t really care though.
That's a tough one to take. Soton early on caused us problems we couldn't handle and were value for at least one of the goals they had during that spell. The second was less so fast attack play and more us not clearing our lines but that happens. Bazunu was a disaster waiting to happen for them and I'm surprised he wasn't punished for it on the ball. We were unlucky not to get a point and I question why we changed our shape today but overall, that's another positive performance from Cleverley's team.
I think it's just on the side of a yellow. It was behind and it was late, but I don't think it was endangering Bachmann's safety either.
Nothing a half decent low scoring centre forward (1 in 3) won't sort out . Bayo runs about a bit but you need a bit more than that up top . I shouldn't really have to point this out
Are people still making excuses for Dennis? “He’s not quite fit but when he is he will be amazing” seems to have been rumbling on for a while now.
I agree he hasnt been the Dennis we know he can be. Clearly mentally flawed guy as he needs to be loved to perform properly etc, weird. Plus he seems to be a crock now, will probably get surgery during the summer break. Wont be our problem for much longer.
AT LEAST 7 mins. Haven't seen a recording yet so I don't know what went on in stoppage time. What I do know is that we've been losing out in home matches cos refs haven't increased stoppage time despite time-wasting by our opponents.
Game should've ended after the ball went out of play after the free-kick. Wasn't a corner, it was a goal-kick. Southampton player handled the ball from the resulting corner that should've been a goal-kick into over-time that shouldn't have been played! All of this was right in front of us!! Literally felt as if the game was going to gone on until they scored regardless.
I don't think not being fully fit explains him constantly getting caught in possession because of hus reluctance to pass.
Without doubt the 'well beyond last minute' goal was a disgrace for several reasons given we had clawed our way back to parity with some good honest determination not to lose a match in which we had dug ourselves into a hole. That gives me a lot of hope for next season (Clevs in charge or not). Of course Tom Dele-B made a major c**k-up for the second but what irks me far more was the first goal. Yes, Porto got bypassed easily in his unfamiliar right back role but the cross was slung in to the edge of the 6 yard box to the unmarked Smallbone who nodded home. Any team at our level would reasonably expect their goalkeeper to be concentrating hard in that very first minute, to come out and punch the ball away. Instead Bachmann froze on his line and the goal was scored so easily. Indeed he had taken a step backwards and was just inside the net as the ball went in waving his arms at his defensive colleagues, a pretty regular sight we've witnessed this season. I wish I didn't find myself questioning our club captain so often but he just doesn't exhibit the courage required to act as the last line of defence and clatter the striker and/or take a smack in the chops himself. He is more concerned with scapegoating others after the event than preventing goals. In recent games since replacing Hamer, his shot-stopping abilities have partially returned, Kieffer Moore header at Portman Road, Summerville at the Vic, Asante at the Hawthorns (1st half) and the close range shot at St Andrews. If he could only add to the repertoire he might be a genuine number 1 but I still don't see a goalie that has those skills. All of us who saw Hamer's all round performance at Deepdale know that he looks the part far more than dithering Dan. OK Hamer has made some rickets too and next season we should go all out for a safer pair of hands with Hamer as our back up. Sorry Dan, nice chap but the charge sheet gets longer each season.
Team mentality, and how far it has improved since Clevs came in was on full show yesterday. Dreadful start, 2-0 down within half an hour - if that was VI we would of lost 4-0. You could see the ambition was still there, despite drawing most of our games lately the effort and graft, which had been missing for a long time was there. One loss (all be it quite unfairly) in his first five games is pretty good, and even in that defeat we didn't lay down and let Southampton run all over us for 90+ (sorry 99)mins. How the squad react now at the weekend against a Hull side who's playoff dreams have just about faded now will be interesting. Getting a victory would be massive, and I would probably suggest playing three at the back again as we seemed much better as a defensive unit. Perhaps the back four yesterday was an experiment, but I still cannot understand why we went that route when our two RB's were injured. Possibly a more defensive shape to counter the onslaught? Don't know. But I hope the belief in the side doesn't take a knock, and maybe for once Dennis remembers he's a footballer.
I struggle with this though. If the mentality was on point we certainly wouldn't be 2-0 down with 20 minutes. Twice this season under Val we were 2-0 down (Middlesbrough home & Norwich away) and fought back into the match to 2-2, albeit then losing both. Sound familiar? The only game really where we went 2-0 down and rolled over was Bristol City home on Boxing Day, though even then we got it back to 2-1 before immediately folding again. If anything yesterday supports an argument that Captain Sir Tom has changed barely anything. This squad of numpties is capable of pulling their collective fingers out sometimes and battling back into games, no doubt about it. Val got that out of them just the same as Cleverley. Overall I feel like a lot of people (certainly not just you Sklya, it's rife on X) are sugar-coating anything that suggests Cleveley isn't the man for the job. To me the signs so far as he's a bit of a vibes manager in the Munoz mould, who seems able to keep the squad saying nice things and the majority of fans having fuzzy feelings in their belly. There's some plus points to that but it's rarely sustainable long term and I'd still rather roll the dice on a more experienced head coach like Martinez or Selles if they were available to us this summer.
And the Norwich home game which we won but yes fair point. Had we lost a few games rather than got the credible draws the reaction would be different I guess. Some even say a bad run and he would be under pressure as any manager particularly with us would be.
I think where we have improved is defensively, we were leaky in the 'late Val era' it meant unless we were playing Rotherham, we needed to score at least twice to win. OK we should have conceded at least 1 against Brum, but we reduced Leeds to a worldy and a sweaty, sweaty late goal as we got tired, West Brom got a deflected goal and a keeper error, Preston missed a good chance but hardly tried to score, and we kept out Ipswich really well. We started like **** yesterday, and sure, perhaps some of that has to fall on the manager, but I don't know how much considering we started the game without a proper right-sided defender
Perhaps a little harsh. I think tactically he's set us up very well in what have been 6 tricky games! Arguably he got it wrong yesterday but I think that was more down to the fact Andrews wasn't fit enough to start. TDB clearly shouldn't have started either as he was miles off of it! In fact, I had him at fault for both goals. Didn't track Smallbone for the first, just ball watching and his pathetic attempt at a clearance for the second. I would be very happy if Clevs is given the job permanently this summer, but I guess it all depends on ownership status and off-field politics.
Although apparently he wasn't at right back or was he moved away from that position then then taken off?
That's a fair and valid argument. Last thing I/we want is another Xisco clone. We walked the Championship because we had the best squad in the league who were under performing. One a arm around the shoulder came into play we suddenly played like a team again (ok some of those wins were pretty lucky and we didn't play like prime Barca every week) but we were more than good enough and were very lucky with injuries. I think the real test of Clevs grit will come on Saturday. He's tasted defeat for the first time with the first team, and it will be interesting to see how he goes about preparing us for the visit of a very capable Hull City side. That, and our dire home record. I want him to do well of course, but that's mostly down to the players' more so than him, and if he is given the job fulltime - how much of Gino's penny pinching Transfer Window will be available to him and of course, how much control he gets over it.
Wether TC should be given the job permanently is a matter for discussion however it clear to me that the players are playing for him . It is that extra 5% that makes all the difference . Can we get 6 points from our next 2 home matches remains to be seen .
