the_eristic

Think he's being overruled by Shakespeare's signature hoof.

Made some good passes to Ollie and Bailey first half, too, but they forgot to bring their feet.

Just put on all the strikers. Nevermind who'll pass it to them, passing is overrated.

Looked like he pulled out of a challenge on the shot for their goal.

There were many The Wire memes posted here January '11.

They'll probably say we need a different kind of striker with some height to give us options, like the option to just lump the ball forward at every opportunity... oh, wait.

kapitaltalk.com

Hope we're back in for Boubacar Kamara and Rafinha Alcantara in January (assuming the Summer interest was real). The former will be in the last 6 months of his contract and has been turning down OM's offers, the latter 18 months and not getting the minutes he would at nearly any other club in the world, so shouldn't be incredibly expensive in terms of fee. I worry about our ability to attract better players if we're mired in the bottom half, though, and wages might be an issue.

I'd normally say give him the next 2-3 at least, but if we just roll over again for a poor Soton, be done with it.

Well, that's the ol' kiss of death, then.

I can't shake the feeling we rushed him back from his injury in the offseason before he could get back to full fitness. Minimal, heavily disrupted preseason then straight in vs Sarr and he's been behind the ball ever since.

I get the feeling from listening to his dad talk about how he trains his kids, he's going to raise his hand for everything whether or not he actually has it in his wheelhouse.

ftfy

Lost his head in the Wolves game when booked for time wasting, has looked out of sorts since. His interview after that game was difficult to watch. Worried he might need a real break if he's struggling with something.

Real DM and ball-retaining CM and LB in Jan.

Having a set piece coach is good, long throws are good, but we have to drill the routines to extreme consistency, which we clearly haven't done yet, then use them judiciously, which we clearly don't. The latter is the area where Smith needs to be making adjustments based on what's happening in games to better control tempo, defensive exposure, etc, but it seems like it's been fully delegated to McPhee, who is always going to tell them to try one of his routines.

Shakespeare was behind the shift to the more direct, counterattacking style that worked well early last season but which fell apart with no Grealish for the ball to stick to. Now we've also brought in Danks to coach more a technical game, and there appears to be a real confusion in the side as to how they're supposed to be playing..... which is precisely what Deano should be sorting out, but he's just too passive.

lol

If/when we actually play football, we create a little bit. Waiting around to be pressed in our own half, then hoofing it at our sub-6-footers vs Zouma and Ogbonna is never ever going to work. We have to get Johnson and Cresswelll isolated or pulled out of position to make anything happen.

Are we Scunthorpe in disguise?

If AEG is headed to Roma, plus KD on loan in January and Trez likely to go in Summer (not to mention Wes), there's definitely going to be room.

From the Reaction thread right after. Top of page 3.

Someone said the same about Sanson here either in the match thread or reaction thread right after the game. Didn't see it on camera, though, afaik.

It's a problem throughout our side. We don't have a single consistent, high volume passer, we have a collection of high risk, low volume passers, who largely prefer to attempt to switch play quickly or hit it over the top when they can't turn and carry. We desperately need that skilled, stable recycler 6 or 8 to keep the ball and work it to create instead of trying to play 200 mph fast break stuff 24/7 (which worked ok when we had a guy they could just blast anything at and he could control it, papered over the weakness somewhat... until he was injured), and, importantly, to reduce the number of times the ball just comes straight back at us.