Millwall 0-0 Watford Fc - 26/01/2021

Discussion in 'Match Day' started by Johnny Todd Sings, Jan 23, 2021.

  1. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    We are as solid as they come defensively. The problem is creating chances which is improving. Then finishing them which is not. In those matches we should have beaten Muff. They were lucky not to have a player sent off. Swansea we were the better side until we scored and decided to sit back and only a Foster howler gave them the equalizer. Brentford we were awful in the first half but deserved to win it in the second.

    We need to find a striker to replace the imposter who can hit the ground running and rotate in and out. A more creative midfielder to supplement what we have and have a more positive attitude. Especially away from home. We have for the most part but not yersterday thank goodness allowed the home to team to take charge. I don't know why. The losses at Barnsley and Huddersfield are unforgivable in context with player errors (Foster/ Kiko-Capoue/Capoue) the actual cause of the defeats. There is precious little to differentiate the top teams. Even they have been far from impressive in how they have won matches but we have to get a grinding mentality instilled as well as a positive one.
     
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  2. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Agreed. I’d hope as one of the more ‘feared’ teams in this league, we could operate with 2 wingers, 2 strikers and a CM who is capable of being an No.8/No.10. Perhaps that’s one too many and you can take away a winger/striker and have a purer No.10.

    But we are lining up with 1 winger, and 2 strikers - one of whom has no real discernible position as he drops deep. I don’t even think Deeney can be classed as a striker in the way he is now deployed. He drops so deep that he plays between No.8/No.10 and is rarely ever the striker he’s lining up to be.

    When you look behind all that and see Cleverley, Chalobah, Hughes or Garner, there’s just not enough people with out and out attacking instincts being deployed.

    Too much sideways and backwards and not enough forward, save for the odd overhit hoof from the back. The team lacks drive and purpose too often of the time.

    We are desperate for a midfielder who carries the ball between the midfield and forward lines - it could be PZ. But right now we don’t deploy one (or don’t have one) so we rely on Deeney to try and drop in and pass it around (he still doesn’t carry the ball). But when he does, it removes another player from being able to get on the end of the attack.

    Until we sort this issue AND get a more potent threat up front, we will continue to look like we are scraping by.
     
  3. Manatleisure

    Manatleisure Squad Player

    That is indeed a shame. If Deeney didn't have such a 'hold' on the club, I would've liked to have seen PZ, Gray/(Perica when fit), Sarr, Pedro start a league game or two, just to see how it played out. A possibility of playing the ball a bit quicker and make the opposition defence less comfortable stretching them more, and thus creating more space. A bit more pace into the side as it were. I noticed in the 2nd half against Man U ( I missed the 1st half) we seemed to move the ball about with a bit of zip.
     
  4. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    The trouble is if you take Deeney out of the side then all his incisive through balls to Gray dry up and Gray's goal output will drop close to zero.
     
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  5. Manatleisure

    Manatleisure Squad Player

    Depends on the team set up. Can't see why PZ couldn't do that for example. I'm not saying it would automatically solve the Gray goalscoring issue I'm just saying having players that can run in the attacking positions will theoretically help stretch the opposition defence more so if Gray doesn't score, others will potentially have the space to do so and less chance of having their shots blocked.
     
  6. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    He'll still miss it.
     
  7. Happy bunny

    Happy bunny Cheered up a bit

    **** off Manat, I'm the one who does the calming reasonableness around here.
     
  8. hornetfan

    hornetfan Academy Graduate

    Difficult to understand the choice of the starting eleven. Dreadful pitch. Disappointing performance and Watford do need a clinical striker.

    Perhaps not such a bad result if it is put in context. Only one of the top six clubs in the Championship table (Swansea) has beaten Millwall this season and the win was at Swansea.

    Millwall 0 Brentford 0 (26/09/20)
    Swansea 2 Millwall 0 (03/10/20)
    Norwich 0 Millwall 0 (03/11/20)
    Millwall 1 Reading 1 (25/11.20)
    Bournemouth 1 Millwall (12/01/21)
    Millwall 0 Watford 0 (26/01/21)
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2021
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  9. hornetfan

    hornetfan Academy Graduate

    Correction: Bournemouth 1 Millwall 1 (12/01/21)
     
  10. EB Hornet

    EB Hornet Reservist

    Pedro is a better 9 than Gray
    Pedro is a better 10 than Deeney

    So that's one of the 2 issues sorted when he's allowed to play. We only need to sign one good player up front and we will go up top 2 (IMO).
     
  11. Cthulhu

    Cthulhu Keyboard Warrior Staff Member

    Precisely. It's hard to adjust your expectations of opponents downwards so much but we are clearly no longer in the premiership and had gotten used to that over 5 years.
    The best team is Norwich, all the rest have weaknesses. That's why we all have this cognitive dissonance over our performance and where we are in the league.
    We are crap and this team would get their arse handed to them on a bottom 3 plate in the prem but here unnervingly for how bad we are we sit temporarily in 2nd.

    IF, If we do go up we all know there are massive changes needed to stay up and that seems to be what we are judging this team against
     
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  12. Cthulhu

    Cthulhu Keyboard Warrior Staff Member

    He is far and away our worst player.
    If you watch the match he doesn't have any skill as a footballer and without fail misses chances outrageously.
    It is utterly baffling that he gets anywhere near a championship squad.

    He is disliked by the majority of fans as he is bad at football - that is the root of it.
    He was on for 64 minutes. Although nothing is certain playing with a player who cant play football for 64 minutes is a disadvantage and without him it may have been a better result.
    Whilst it is 11 men on the pitch it must be awful playing knowing no matter what you realistically do to get a ball into the 2 strikers for 2/3rds of the game they wont get to it or will waste the chance
     
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  13. PowerJugs

    PowerJugs Doyley Fanatic

    What we got was what we expected. If anyone expected an easy game where they would roll over then that's plain foolish. 4 Wins, 1 Draw and 1 Loss over 6 games is very good going no matter how you dice it. I'll be amazed if we make automatic promotion but at least we're on track to get to the playoffs comfortably and have a shot at autos still.

    As for our starting line up, barring not starting Sema or Zinc on LW and rest Femenia for Ngakia I would have chosen the same team. That pitch was not for slick passing which would have suited JP a lot more and given we have limited other options, having Gray run in behind who has more strength and experience in these conditions while Deeney played deeper again worked in the 1st half after an adjustment period. It's no coincidence Sarr had a better 1st half than 2nd half when this was the case and the anonymity of JP when he did sub in.
     
  14. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    Not after tonight’s match, and we’ll have played (at least) a game more. Top two looks unlikely.
     
  15. carboy98

    carboy98 Reservist

    Maybe I'm being too optimistic. But I actually think it's great that we're right up there despite playing - according to most of us on here - pretty damn poorly most of the season.

    We have a lot of room to improve, especially if a miracle does happen and we sign another striker (or just stop playing Gray). If we've accrued this many points by playing to 40% of our potential... a bit of consistent improvement and we should be a shoo-in for an automatic spot. Hugely helped by how poor the Championship is this year.

    I'm actually feeling quite comfortable about the second half of the season right now - AS LONG AS we find a solution to our striker problem.
     
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  16. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Prepare to feel uncomfortable from 1/2/21 onwards :)
     
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  17. onion8837

    onion8837 Reservist

    Grays goal output IS close to zero already
     
  18. Manatleisure

    Manatleisure Squad Player

    My response to another forum member was merely saying that regardless of whether Gray has played or not played, the away form hasn't been good. He isn't solely to blame for this regardless of what people personally think of him. This has been demonstrated by the away results thus far. I think that he may have started games of late due to the congested recent fixtures which I have covered in other posts on this thread.
     
    Last edited: Jan 27, 2021
  19. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    That was my point :)
     
  20. EB Hornet

    EB Hornet Reservist

    All about opinions of course. I agree with some of what you say.

    I didn’t expect an easy game, but thought we had one first half. Millwall were poor both in defence and attack and I think sometimes we as fans don’t like to give our own manager and players credit when deserved, but overall we were much the better team and probably made them look bad.

    I’m happy with our league position and as you say we are in the mix, but then on paper we should be really so yeah it’s good and I hope we do it, but we seem to be making harder work of being there than we should.

    Agree on Zinc, Sema and Ngakia. Although having said that, watching Kiko is one of the highlights of our matches at the moment for me.

    The bit about Gray I don’t agree with though. I’d say you are thinking about what we believe he is good at, but isn’t even doing that too often now, the fact is this season he has contributed to arguably 2 halves of games. The rest has been absolutely awful, you can’t keep playing him because ‘he’s the only option’. He isn’t the only option, there are U23’s and tweaks to formation that could and IMO would improve us. He’s become a hindrance to our play, and I’m struggling to see how he can turn it around.

    The Deeney bit I would argue is also a bit of a myth, Pedro does the link up play just as well, and is also a goal threat on top.

    But it’s all opinions as I say.
     
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  21. Ybotcoombes

    Ybotcoombes Justworkedouthowtochange

    this should be a new thread , Things Gray could do until his contract runs out
    I will go with car park attendant or janitor

     
  22. I Blame Pozzo

    I Blame Pozzo First Team

    Teaching ravens to swim underwater.
     
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  23. WillisWasTheWorst

    WillisWasTheWorst Its making less grammar mistake's thats important

    Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling’s ambition was greater than that. He was aiming to teach them to fly underwater!
     
  24. I Blame Pozzo

    I Blame Pozzo First Team

    Oh yes indeed it's true,I stand corrected!
    But was it Streeb-Greebling or Greeb Streebling?
     
  25. onion8837

    onion8837 Reservist

    Ah missed the irony, sorry :rolleyes:
     
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  26. EB Hornet

    EB Hornet Reservist

    How about a list of people we’d rather start upfront than Gray?

    I’ll start with these off the top of my head

    Any professional footballer signed up to WFC
    Any professional footballer anywhere
    Any man who plays football
    Any man who ever played football
    Any woman who plays football
    Any woman who has ever played football
    Any man
    Any woman
    Any child
    Any toddler able to walk
    Any toddler
    Any human being
    Any animal
    Any plant life
    Anything living not listed above
    Anything not living not listed above
    Anything unknown to the human race
    Anything not covered in the list above.



    Unless Pedro needs a rest of course in which case Gray must start.
     
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  27. Dorset-Orn

    Dorset-Orn First Year Pro

    Muggins here had convinced myself we were on the red button at 7.45.... Big shock and it was bl@@dy half time. Logged into Hive, only to hear we had had a very decent first half......watched the second half with butt cheeks clenched!
    I understood our need to try and put a lot of long balls over the top etc, but I couldn't get why, towards the end, we continually "floated" balls in nicely for their big centre backs to head away.... No low/quick balls at all. I think they need the break now, it's been a hectic couple of weeks....
     
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  28. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    Sorry I didn’t word that well. I should have said I couldn’t recall any situations in the first half (though in fairness it didn’t help that my stream was very choppy and I probably missed one or two key moments) where we really looked like scoring other than the one I mentioned. IIRC all the chances you mentioned were either horrible misses or easy saves for the keeper.

    Granted the second half wasn’t a big improvement in that department, but at least we had Chalobah’s shot and Deeney’s attempt from the rebound, and throughout I felt we generally looked a more threatening outfit.
     
  29. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    I wouldn’t worry about the results part, in 2005/06 we won the play-offs convincingly after going into them in indifferent form and having picked up just two points from our play-off rivals (although Leeds beating Preston, a team I most wanted to avoid, helped a lot). What I’m more concerned about is how the failure of not getting automatic especially if we just miss out will affect us mentally. In 2005/06 we benefited greatly from there being absolutely no pressure.
     
  30. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    Last 5 games of 2005/2005 were w2 D3 L0.
     
  31. LondonOrn

    LondonOrn Squad Player

    But if you go back further than that you'll find we had back-to-back defeats at home to a relegation-doomed Millwall and at Crystal Palace, and the run you mentioned included a disappointing draw at home to the Scum. We finished the season with just three wins in our last ten, and round that time some of us were worried we were running out of steam and the play-off semis were our best bet, and poor results against the other play-off sides didn't help. But then we gloriously turned it on when it really mattered...
     
  32. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    Before the 2 defeats you mention we won 9 games out of 12. We finished 3rd, 14 points clear of 7th.

    Palace form going into that game W1D2L2. Leeds w1D3L1 so we were in better form than anyone except Preston.
     
  33. Manatleisure

    Manatleisure Squad Player

    I'd have Pedro. Otherwise its Gray. As that is what is available.


     
  34. EB Hornet

    EB Hornet Reservist

    If you mean we stick with 4-4-2 then you could play

    Sarr
    Dalby
    Hutchinson
    Forde
    Potentially Zinc

    Or you could tweak formation and use Zinc as a 10 behind Troy.

    Gray isn’t the only option. But if you are saying you would pick him if manager when Pedro needs a rest then that’s fair enough. Just as long as we all realise that the manager has other things he can do so picking Gray is on him.
     
  35. Manatleisure

    Manatleisure Squad Player

    Its an option, sure, but D, H and F weren't even on the bench against Millwall so probably not all that realistic atm.
     

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