Agree 100%. It's the same rubbish at the back every week without fail. We're 1 nil down as soon as the team sheet is announced with TBD at right back and Porteous next to him. It's a bomb waiting to go off as soon as someone goes near it. I like Val but it has become very one dimensional recently, it's like the whole thing has just fizzled out after a great run at the end of last year. I can't figure out why we look so bad, then we will be absolutely all over the opposition for 30 mins, then another mistake at the back will burst the balloon and against the run of play the opposition are back in it again. We shoot ourselves in the foot so much it's not even funny anymore.
We now go into a period of 6 games where on paper we should be the favourites to win. So it’s a shame it’s coming off such bad form as lack of confidence could cause us issues. The 6 games after that spell are horrendously tough.
I know I could look this up myself, but I’m being lazy - anyone fancy looking this up? I’m guessing we’ve conceded first in more games than we haven’t? Especially the last 15-20 games?
What an annoying game. Where to begin? Our full-backs being weak defensively again cost us with our first goal. Ismael seems determined to see if TDB really is hopeless at RB and somehow he's still not satisfied. Maybe Porteous should also be helping out the lost TDB when the cross comes in as Barnes is basically the only player there. The second goal was a rare lapse from Hoedt and probably just about a penalty, however it was also annoyingly soft as their player clearly just intended to try and get on the end of Heodt's foot rather than actually touching the ball (which they didn't do either). Then to top it off, although it's harsh to criticise a goalie who saves a pen, I thought Hamer could have also perhaps parried the ball away when making the save. Going forwards Chak and Martins continue to be infuriating. Both are decent runners with the ball but just continue to screw up their final pass, cross or shot every single damn time. Martins manages to overhit every single cross he makes, and Chak underhits every cross (and corner) he makes. Asprilla after coming on quickly showed why Ismael was at fault in briefly trying him on the left in previous games - he's at his best cutting inside and drifting in to central areas. But as for Dennis, well. He was shocking today. He was actually more of a liability when he came on than an asset as his arrogance and casualness on the ball meant he just kept gifting it to the opposition either through lazy passes or getting caught in possession (including for one of their goals). Ismael being hesitant to use him is perhaps one of the few recent decisions he might have been getting correct. It was also another game to forget for Porteous, who at least picked up a 10th booking today meaning that thankfully we'll be without him for our next two games. Every cloud and all that. Kone was a rare bright spark again but also looked knackered by the end and I'm surprised he wasn't taken off rather than Chak for a rest. The season is well and truly petering out, and the injuries to key players who have only just been starting to return was a major part of that. But also I don't think Ismael has helped himself with his recent fad for shuffling around players' positions. It seems to have contributed to a bit more confusion in our play. In general we seem to have reverted a bit more to a hesitant, negative approach where we look for backwards passes rather than trying to quickly progress it through the lines, and then pass the ball in to the net when in the final third rather than just focusing on getting crosses in when the option is there or getting shots away when the opportunity presents itself. The season is over basically, but Ismael could do with getting back to basics.
Norwich were hopeless. Scored 4 and won after spending 60 minutes avoiding going near our area. That own goal attempt also put our flaky defence to shame.
An absolute disgrace that the game wasn't abandoned on 88 minutes due to the Carrow Road footbridge incident, whatever it was. Resulting post-match traffic mayhem is 100% down to the FA I reckon. Well, an entertaining match with a disappointing ending. We wuz shyte, we wuz great, then we wuz shyte again. Raj played well I thought, even though his goal was a bit shinned. His closing down is improving. I liked his firm-jawed, steely-eyed and stern-faced, ball under the arm, fast jog back to the centre after scoring too. Top stuff. Ken was shyte and Martins was shyte, but Dennis was absolute and complete shyte. Hero to zero......What a let down. He looked absolutely shot after 5 minutes. Norwich recognised how weak he was straight away and ganged up on him. He didn't seem to be able to even jog. A beautiful dummy in the centre of their goal sees it come beautifully for him to hit first time, but no, he has a touch and then another touch until he gets closed down. Perhaps he didn't like the rainy cold conditions or was mentally affected by the trauma of the footbridge incident or something. Asprilla's goal was a peach. A scorcher.... The equaliser had looked inevitable. We were all over 'em. North Norfolk Digital who were providing the commentary for my viewing platform said it was one of the best goals scored by an opposition player at Carrow Road ever. In all it's history. Still think it gets marginally edged out for GOTS By Hoedt's stunner though... The we collapsed. What can you say. At least we scored some goals. We go again!
Is Dennis playing like someone who hadn't played a game since November? I presume Andrews has been dropped for some sort of reason. Still probably got a few more quid on Asprilla's price tag. Might mean we go out and get some useful defenders...
‘Thought we did well to get back into it. Need to be moar ruthless in the areas. Never a penalty. I love a small squad. Players are really tired after so many games. FA should change the rules. A good step forward. I’ve never even heard of Colman’s Mustard. We go again.’ - Ismael probably
Dennis is playing like someone who hasn't played since November and has eaten more cake and pies than he's admitting.
How long does it take for a supposed professional footballer to become fit ? Dennis is still clearly out of shape. It's not acceptable. VU needs to stop his cRd shuffling of players, dispense with DB at RB. This division is mainly dross and we still cannot get out of it or will as we are equally bad. The limited options, the signing of an unfit striker all leads back to Gino's wasting of resources and his blunders. April last will be gone on the summer. Brighton probably despite the wealth of starlets they have like Adibgra, Buonnanotte and Enciso. I wouldn't blame him. His career will go on to shine. Sad when you look at how the two clubs trajectories have gone in recent seasons Bristol City could well sneak into the playoffs . Impressive win tonight. Midtable mediocrity for us. More dross bought in desperation late in August and VI booted our to look forward to.
Do we really? I think we still massively lack any offensive cohesion, and barely move the ball forward effectively at any point. I think it's quite a marked element of our play under Val*, even when the good times looked like they might be rolling. As I said on the Shoutbox, the way this has gone is pretty much exactly what West Brom fans warned us would happen with Val - an early(ish) period of excitement, followed by the wheels falling off and Val left utterly incapable of doing anything to adapt to that or affect the rot, stubbornly doing the same, sometimes inexplicable, things again and again, instead. That's not necessarily me yelling 'Val out' for many reasons, but I am extremely unimpressed by most elements of his tenure here at this point. (*and, of course, many previous head coaches)
He's only just back from a fairly long injury (yet despite that still as you say provided one of our few best moments).
I love Ken, and he's had some good games for us this season without getting any reward, but before his layoff, he had 1 goal and 3 assists all season, and all 3 in comfortable wins against the two worst teams we'll play all season, which is not great
Decent result in the end. To come back from 2 down shows spirit. This time last year we'd have lost this without drawing level.
I hope that sand doesn’t block your ears too much once you’ve pulled your head out. We’re in free-fall, just as I predicted we would be, but I’m amazed fans still cannot see it and are still trying to justify it’s not happening.
I'm not sure this is the same scenario which the West Brom fans described - if anything I think Val has been doing too much to try and affect the rot by coming up with increasingly novel, usually inexplicable things again and again.
HB1 posting that we're in free-fall has at least provided some hope and expectation that our form is about to go on an up-turn again.
With those kinds of things I'm thinking stuff like stubbornly persisting with TDB at right back, but at the same time I don't think randomly casting about for ideas that also fail is that far from the West Brom experience. I'd have to do some research, though - maybe I'll go trawl some reddit threads etc to see what they were literally saying at the time.
I'm struggling to fathom how far backwards Porteous has gone in the last 6 months, he surely came to us to enhance his international position. Why he's still picked is way beyond me. Hoedt must despair whenever Braveheart is picked alongside him or Pollock, or Sierralta for that matter. The passing ability of all 3 is dire. I would take any half regular Championship centre half in preference to those 3. And I'm now baffled by Chakvetadze's efforts that seem to lead to a starting slot. He really contributes f*** all at the moment. He's great at breaking up play, sadly that is uniquely our attacking moves. He looked like a Rolls Royce in the QPR home game when introduced. He now performs like a Milk Float with a failing battery. Our full backs TDB and Lewis were a complete liability tonight although i thought Lewis partially improved for much of the second half. As other posters speculate, is this an Andrews disciplinary issue allowing TDB to remain the experiment that seeks to answer the age-old question whether anthrax might not be good for your health. We do seem to be re-cycling failing team selections to see if they might, just might, come good and take us up the table after all. Managerial alarm bells have started clanging again. Unfortunately Rotherham on Saturday is assuming a greater importance than it deserves...
We won’t go down this season. Next season though, I think we’re down. We will then have fans telling us how much they can’t wait for the league 1 season to start as we have a real opportunity of winning the league.
You missed ‘I only want players I 100% want and are ready to hit the ground running - Emmanuel Dennis ticks both boxes. Forget all those others I turned down. If they existed….’
By order of Valerian Ismael, we need to remain as the most bang average team in World football, and in order to do so, we need to have the same amount of wins as losses and draws. Standing in at 10-11-11, it’s written in the stars. Whatever happens, we’re winning our next game.
I see in his actual quotes, he’s criticised the subs for giving the ball away. There was only one that noticeably did. Trouble incoming.
This is my take too. We’ll finish in the bottom 8 but next season will be relegated, unless Gino sells or at least gets outside investment to properly build a team, not this feeble fobbing off so many fans have bought into this season
He has not gone backwards in the last 6 months. He's basically been the same player since at least the end of last March, if not a bit earlier. It just wasn't as obvious to many sooner as the rest of the team around him at the end of last season were playing even worse and with less enthusiasm, and so his mistakes didn't stand out so much and his enthusiasm earned him plaudits. I did also think he seemed a decent signing initially, but his faults increasingly became more apparent, e.g. I posted back on April 10th: "Porteous had a second half to forget. He's been worryingly error prone these last few games. Still has lots of potential mind, but now we need to add "not heading the ball straight to the opposition" to "not get easily sucked away from the man you're supposed to be marking in your over-eagerness to reach a ball you'll never get" to things he really needs to work on for next season." And on April 15th: "Porteous was absolutely terrible - he made a couple of sloppy clearances straight to opponents next to him again, his lack of pace got exposed, and his positioning was all over the place at times. His performances in the last few games have been of major concern." And on April 23rd: "[Porteous] is, but generally the club and fans will want us to be more than just a Championship side. His initial enthusiasm and commitment was something we'd been lacking when he joined, but that's turned in to him becoming very rash and he's shown he still has a lot to learn. Would be good if he could pick up an extra yard of pace somehow over the summer as well. Otherwise he could find himself out the team after not too long." And I also predicted him and Healey to be the 'Flops of the season' in the pre-season prediction thread.
I think stories of us going down next season are, whilst not far-fetched, I'd say they are unrealistic. We are in a dark spot. Little-to-no money and really not very good. But we are far better than the likes of Rotherham, Wigan and a few other yo-yo sides of recent years. Now, I agree...I wouldn't rest on our laurels in this regard given Portsmouth and Bolton look like they are heading back to an extent....but so did Sheff Wed and that's been a disaster. We are crap. But we have a way to go to hit relegation fodder. We are far more likely to settle into Preston/Millwall/Bristol City territory...and that's Ismael's natural level. And many of the players in this squad level too.
Seriously though, Norwich are one of the worst teams we've seen at Vicarage Road and they are in the playoffs? Damning Just send the relegated sides up and the promoted sides down and call it a year.
