Barham Blitz

Blackburn are in severe danger of going down. Only 3 points ahead of Wednesday and still have to play Leeds, Wednesday, Coventry and Leicester...

I don't disagree at all re. Barnes and unlike Wagner I don't see Gibbs as an attacking midfielder / second striker anyway, but there is at least a semblance of logic in playing him off Barnes in that situation. Fassnacht and Barnes together was just daft. It just shows our lack of options up front without Idah - once Gibbs went off though I agree we should absolutely have gone with another striker to offer some form of outlet ball though.

Gibbs at least brings energy alongside the terminally immobile Barnes. Replacing Gibbs with (the only slightly less immobile than Barnes) Fassnacht on the other hand was absolutely handing the initiative over, particularly given how Wednesday couldn't cope with any semblance of movement defensively. They could throw everything at us with no fear of any counter. There was one moment towards the end where Barnes was second to a ball two yards away from him when he had a four yard start on the defender.

Apparently you set the cine film rolling and then a bloke emerges out of your living room floor playing an old style cinema organ.

They won't be though. If it even looks likely, I'm sure Stockley Park and their squiggly lines will intervene to ensure the correct result and avoid a fixture pile up ...

From the first two sentences I thought it was going to be a neo-Marxist explanation as to how the intricacies of Wagner's tactical structure meant that he couldn't play Sainz or Van Hooijdonk for weeks. But then I realised it was just mildly amusing Delia bashing.

As the BBC have just commented, no pressure on Stacey this half then ...

I once played in a local league game where I scored an own goal, gave away the penalty to make it two nil, then scored two headers from corners to gain a draw. Still maintain it was a dive for the penalty mind.

In an unrelated professional capacity I have heard it suggested that UEA are in some financial bother at the moment and are undergoing some pretty significant cost-cutting exercises if that is likely to have had any bearing (haven't read the article ...)

It certainly shows how long Shilton kept the top spot for. And Banks before him. We basically only had two goalkeepers for the national side for over 30 years - the period of indecision with Clemence aside.

Thanks - not read that one so I shall fire up the Kindle this evening ...

If you are in to the evolution of football tactics have a look at Inverting the Pyramid by Jonathan Wilson. Really interesting book and not as dry as it sounds ...

That's a really interesting stat Hoggy - certainly at odds with my yellow tinted recollection of the season although thinking back Krul did come up with some blinding performances that year. I'd be interested to compare it with the previous promotion season - perhaps my benchmark was particularly low as a result of that - or indeed the premiership season in between - and any improvement seemed exponential ! We did concede 21 fewer goals than the first promotion season (36 as opposed to 57 which is quite a difference) but equally scored 18 fewer (75 as opposed to 93) for a fairly similar overall points breakdown so perhaps the illusion of control was offered by the fact that we just didn't have as many 5 goal thrillers that year !

That was the tragedy of Farke's second promotion squad - with Skipp and some tweaks in the set up, the game management was so much better than the first promotion season and the whole thing just seemed so controlled in comparison. It boded so well for another crack at the Premier League. But then Spurs changed manager and wanted another look at Skipp. And for whatever reason Emi moved on and suddenly the blueprint was aflame ...

That's both the strength and the weakness of Farke though isn't it ? To an extent, his approach was almost Lobanovskian - players knew where their teammates would be at any given moment and could play simple or no look one-touch passes: the collective effect was certainly greater than the sum of the collective parts and where that didn't suffice there was the vision and touch of Emi combined with the movement and finishing of Pukki available to add the necessary stardust if required. But without that weaponish ability to unlock a defence or create and finish a half chance it can appear a little sterile or one dimensional and be relatively easily defended - just remain disciplined and sit narrow and deep and wait for the misplaced pass. I think it is one of the reasons why so many of those relatively recent players have been less successful after leaving (with the obvious exceptions of the star-dust sprinklers Buendia and Maddison if you can count him in this context) - success was less about their individual ability and more about their fit in the collective. We had a lot of average players in a side that performed beyond itself as a whole - particularly in the championship - because with Emi and Pukki (as a gross over-simplification) all the rest needed to do was to make a run, control a ball, make a short pass and repeat. And you didn't need to be a world beater to fit in doing that. Whereas now we are asking Grant Hanley to pick out a winger from 40 yards under pressure with predictable results ...