I put myself down to to the preview for Millwall seeing as it'll be my sons first proper away game with me. After that ***** yesterday I don't want to traumatise him for life......
I think that might have been me. Mrs Lloyd made onion soup for lunch which, while very tasty, always causes a catastrophic build up of noxious gas in my guts a couple of hours later
First half, their goalie might as well have brought out a chair, for all the work we failed to make him do. Pishing about for long periods at the back, playing the ball backwards and a failure to manage to string 3 passes together, made yesterday as ***** a performance as I've had to watch for a while. What happened to our earlier season tactic of actually having a go?
I like Ryan but he isn't good enough to generate that much money at the moment, probably a million or two at best. Also, keeping him on the bench is decreasing his value if anything, his sub appearances have been poor compared to when he starts games.
There's a unsourced rumour doing the rounds that VI has lost the dressing room. But being in the middle of the run we are currently on with abysmal performance after abysmal performance, it's easy to see how that rumour has grown. He has clearly fallen out with Andrews (imo) and perhaps that has caused a bit of a reaction from the players? I don't know, but it's hard to make excuses for an inept crap show like yesterday.
You might be right, in which case it’s a clear dereliction of duty not picking him instead of TDB. It will be instructive to see if Ngakia is selected ahead of Andrews in the upcoming games.
I may well be wrong, I often have been!! But I think Ryan Andrews has the potential to be a top class player, I see shades of a young Gary Neville in there.
Seems a genuine nice lad, it's just a shame he's a dreadful footballer. He came on for Dennis, gave the ball away, failed to win ariel duels, failed to hold the ball up, sent an unchallenged header miles wide and missed a sitter that Asprilla laid on a plate for him.
Not sure how he could lose the dressing room when we cleared out all the bad eggs during the Great Reset
I don't think it's 'bad eggs' per say, maybe the players' are starting to see what we can that VI's methods are not working and he is too stubborn to change or adapt to each game. What is the point of consistently playing TDB at right back when we had two perfectly capable ones on the bench yesterday for example? Little things like this have probably been adding up over the course of the season and everyone but VI can see the wood from the trees.
This is a fair assessment- it can work away where we are 6th in the league but at home we are 19th in form after 34 games overall. It was a hard watch today but VI having said so much in the build up to the game and then tried a la Jokanovic at BHA to change it in 1st half had so little response puts most of the responsibility on him. Season ticket renewals out shortly - nearly 19,000 there yesterday apparently - appreciate they include ST holders whether they attend or not - well near us in UGT there were numerous empty seats. I had time to look around a few times to check this when I saw the ball passed forward to Lewis and knew that was the end of its movement towards the Huddersfield half.
Not been that many all season ! Fans have said they won’t go if the football carries on being so poor which will alarm the Pozzos .
I am not disagreeing with your statement but formation does not effect a players ability to control the ball or complete simple passes. The tactics may be bad, but while players can't control or pass the ball the tactics are irrelevant.
I think (as usual) our main issue is a mix of low confidence combined with too much thinking on the pitch. Football is instinctive especially for better players, but a mamager has to understand his players abilities and motivate accordingly. It used to be "let's play in the oppo half" but as already mentioned, playing out from the back is in vogue, and it causes so many problems. VI is clearly trying to get his players playing outside of their capabilities/skill levels (defenders are totally scared of holding the ball and midfielders only want a pass if they're in space) so it only works here and there. VI has to try and get the players playing more in their comfort zone and go from there.... (GT, AB, MM and SD were good at getting the best out of an ordinary bunch, but those days seem to be gone?)
I'm far more annoyed at the performance than the result. Even the most optimistic fan would struggle to take positives from that. Having bought my two youngest children along I think they are going to take some convincing to come back in the future. I very much doubt they're the only ones thinking this. Having slept on it, I maintain that yesterday was firmly the fault of the coach and owners than the players.
I thought Asprilla was our brightest spark yesterday (which wasn’t exactly hard) and done really well to create our first goal. To then see Ismael move him to a more central role was baffling, especially when he was causing trouble down that right wing. I shouldn’t really be surprised though especially when we have Dele-Bashiru starting at RB.
If the players don't feel fully prepared and confident to play in the system then it will likely result in hesitation and mistakes.
You’ll struggle to find a worse 45 minutes than what we saw during that first half. Appalling all round and VI was right to change it- Chak and Ince were better. Kayembe doesn’t look fit and Kone just wasn’t on it at all. Both were rightly hooked. I do feel really sorry for Rajovic- like someone else said, his programme notes imply he is aware of his limitations and how the crowd feels about him. He tries hard but he just isn’t good enough. The season is done now. It’s February and our season is finished. That’s a damning indictment. At least Asprilla will bring in a decent fee in the summer
Also worth bearing in mind that Huddersfield were missing practically their entire first choice defence, along with their best player. Not an excuse Watford have.
I don't think we want to be passing the ball aimlessly between the keeper and the defence, but the oppo are marking us well, nobody is making a run or calling for the ball, so we have no options, and then we hoof the ball up to a striker who can't hold the ball up. It begs the question, are they instructed to just stand like statues, or are the midfield hiding? I struggle to see what benefit we get from nobody making runs or calling for the ball
True although some have felt Asprilla would be better in a central role but then you need a wide man to replace him . I though Chalk did well too - least he looked to get forward !
I don't think there's anything wrong with playing Asprilla in an attacking central midfield role; I think he's equally as adept there as on the RW in general, and I think I've seen him say that it's actually his preferred position. It was when Ismael was briefly playing him on the left wing that was the bizarre one.
I don't think we were able to string one pass together for the first half hour. Even Asprilla couldn't find a team mate.
