Jim Smith

I note it’s £56 for the coach to Liverpool and was £53 last night. it’s been a long time since I went on the club coaches to an away game but that seems a lot. Is that typical for a distant away trip? Does it cost £3k to hire s coach for the day to Liverpool and back?

McCallum had a pretty ropey first half but was very good going forward after the break. Sorensen was playing CB for the last hour.

Went to the game tonight. Horrendous first half. Really bad. To be fair big improvement second half and I thought we looked really sharp on the break for 15-20 minutes or so until Wagner made one of his ridiculous substitutions and took off all our pace on the counter when we were causing them lots of problems. This prompted a wobble but we eventually killed the game off. Nunez is now an important player for us and made a big difference. There were spells in that game when he, Sara and Sainz started to move the ball quickly and we looked a good side. Only spells though. There is a team in there, if only it could be unleashed more regularly.

To be fair Attanasio said something to that effect at the AGM

I’m now assuming they’ve taken the decision not to spend much on players for Wagner in this window as they are saving it for the summer and intend to ditch him at the end of the season.

What we are searching for Nutty is to see our team play well and not have to set up and play like a league 1 team playing against Man City in order to take points off (or not at the case may be) some pretty average sides in the championship.

I don’t know what their XG was but Southampton had 21 shots against us, of which 15 were in our penalty area. They had a 19% shooting accuracy. So this notion that we held them at arms length or restricted them to shooting from distance is not correct. West Brom had 21 shots against us also of which they only managed to get 3 on target. 12 of those were inside the box. Millwall had 11, 10 of which were inside our box. In our last 4 games, the opposition have had 74 shots at our goal. We’ve had 34 shots at goal. it was a huge theme in the games leading up to our slump earlier in the season that teams were having circa 20 shots against us per match. We have not addressed that and until we do, good results will not be sustainable. We may be getting more bodies in the way by sticking 10 men behind the ball at times and Gunn is saving more shots than Long did because he’s a much better keeper but we are still easy to play through and present teams with a lot of decent opportunities.

I think you can undoubtedly say he’s not getting the best out of the players. He may be getting decent performances out of some of them individually but as a team they are functioning well below par

we have essentially been fined £10k for calling ourselves sp…….. As others have commented it is staggering that we alone get done when any idiot could tell that the initial chant will have come from KL fans. Clearly those on the panel have zero understanding of how football fans are nor it appears if the significant cross over between the supports of Norwich and KL given their comments about segregation.

The problem is more that the team is less than the sum of its parts though. Leaving aside league position, we can all see it.

And they had about 15 situations in our attacking third where they should have done better but didn’t. They were wasteful. Great result but there is no world in which I will accept that was a good performance. Until we stop being carved open through the mid field with such ease this team will continue to regularly lose games. We may win some as well I do agree. But we can’t control a match at all.

Well it kind of did. Our keeper played a blinder, Rowe scored a high quality goal out of nothing and apart from that I thought we defended determinant but were generally sh*te. Hull played through our midfield with utter ease as usual and had they not been extremely wasteful and Gunn been inspired it would have been very different. The scum game was similar also. These tactics (if you can even call them that it’s basically sticking everyone behind the ball - pub team stuff) will not consistently win you football matches over the long term. Rowe and Gunn won’t do that every week although I completely accept that good players, playing well is part of what a football team is entitled to rely on. But relying on the opposition not taking chances is luck. There has been a consistent trend leading into our downturns in form under Wagner of us conceding close to or over 20 shots a game in matches. We did so again on Friday night. It’s not good tactics it’s stick everyone behind the ball and hope someone produces something out of the ordinary. There is no coherent possession or shape to our play. That is the point the analyst is making. Regardless of the odd scraped win, these players are performing as a unit at nowhere near the level they should be. As usual, it all comes back to the midfield and the fact Wagner either has a complete blind spot to it or is willing to cede control of that area and turn games into end to end slugfests with last ditch defending.

Agree completely with this. There were positives in terms of effort, commitment and resilience but it is not sustainable in terms of winning points to play like that regularly as there were also some really awful elements to that display.

The plus side is and always has been that the effort is there. Wagner is not a man who is easy to dislike so I can see the players will give their all for him. I also agree that at full strength we will potentially scrape enough results despite his awful tactics. But we will not beat a decent side over two legs in the playoffs or win a playoff final unless he can change the way we are playing significantly and his tactics over the remainder of the season.

Didn’t think the Dimi one was a red. Thought Gunn was perhaps a bit fortunate when he took out Connolly. The way their players were diving was a disgrace. Good to see the ref book a couple of them but Tufan should have had two yellows and been off.

i don’t have any issue with the subs he did make (for once) but the sub he didn’t make is the one that worries me. He just does not see the issue with the midfield. Complete blind spot.

I don’t agree it was an acceptable performance I’m afraid but we will have to agree to disagree. For me it was another lucky win that papers over the cracks and will allow them to carry on in denial for longer. Play that way every week (which we do) and you will lose 9 times out of 10 against any reasonable side. And Hull aren’t that great anyway. I agree it was a very good result.

I don’t think they were as the sensible substitution was to bolster the outnumbered midfield but he got lucky in that we got a breakaway goal.

It was a good away result. It was not a good performance. I just want to see the team play somewhere close to the level it is capable of. Nobody expects to dominate but we are consistently being dominated and we were again last night. It was a smash and grab job. That’s ok if it’s the exception to the rule. The “we weren’t at our best but….” argument applies. But the problem is when have we been at our best?

I don’t think he did get it right. I think he got lucky to be honest. It’s ironic that the man he has criticised recently (Rowe) is almost single handedly keeping him in a job.

I’m pleased with the win as always but let’s get real, there was NOTHING in that performance that was much different from the dross we’ve been serving up under Wagner most of the season. Yes we defended a bit better in a backs to the wall sense but Hull had 67% possession snd 19 shots. They chose bad options at times in promising positions but they played through us as got shots on our goal so easily and 9 times out of 10 they win that game. We were set up wrong again. We had no decent possession or control over the game again. We won that game due to a moment of individual brilliance, some great goalkeeping and a breakaway goal near the end with a degree of luck involved. It changes nothing for me, in fact it highlighted how the general quality of our game with the ball has regressed hugely and that consistent results are not sustainable playing like this.

Duffy had a great game tonight to be fair

I agree entirely. This is a huge problem for us until he sees the light, which he won’t

Good win. Despite the tactics. Cannot fault the effort from these players. Individual quality getting us some results out of some fairly awful performances.

This is his blind spot and why for me he has no future. He cannot see it. A Wagner team will never control a game against vaguely decent opposition