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Petriix

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Posts posted by Petriix

  1. Posted

    Just now, S_81 said:

    Oh come on man, it’s obvious by now that Wagner would only ever deliver one way out of this league. And it isn’t up. 

    I've seen enough glimpses of his system clicking to believe that, with the right tweaks, it could work. Tweaks to both the squad and tactics. Surely Knapper will be instigating some changes which we will need to allow time to unfold before we can judge.

    I really don't think there's much to be gained by acting now over waiting until Christmas. This season is a write off whatever happens. 

    • Haha 1

  2. Posted

    14 hours ago, Pugin said:

    Yes, but he says NOTHING specific in terms of what to build in place of what he wants to see dismantled. Governance? A fine word. Accountability? Equally fine, but if someone is funding the club, who should they be accountable to? The fans? Sorry, unworkable. Sack Wagner? Yes, but then what?

    He puts pressure on Knapper, and implies that he should have done more already. Take a breath, Jack, he's just arrived.

    It's all well and good to have the power of a YouTube following without any accountability, but with it should come some sense of responsibility.

    Too click-driven for my liking. No constructive thoughts and rather beholden to his audience, while consciously keeping in with Attenacio, while appealing to the zeitgeist.

    I never mind swimming against the tide, btw!

    It's very much a 'young person' idea that it's easy to immediately fix everything that's wrong by making the necessary changes. As we get older we tend to understand (believe) that things are more complicated and want to retain more continuity. Of course either extreme would be wrong but, often, it's only with hindsight that we can tell. 

    Webber brought radical change. It took time to work and required a period of continuity even when it wasn't bringing results. But then he brought more change which broke everything good he had done (on the playing side at least). 

    It's easy to see how Delia is convinced that we're currently in exactly the same position we were in Farke's first season. We have a similar seeming squad of randoms and rejects and are taking the time required to build an identity. It's crazy to say it but she could actually be right; imagine if Wagner tweaks his midfield system and plugs the holes so we stop conceding, we're scoring goals so we might start winning regularly... 

    But there's, ultimately, a lack of acknowledgement of just how much of a mess Webber's last two and a half years have been. The complication is that, despite the recent past, there's no objective solution to our current plight. Sacking Wagner doesn't undo the last five transfer windows and his replacement might be worse not better.

    • Like 1

  3. Posted

    1 hour ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

    Farke is gone. Hes left. Never coming back. Proved to be unable to keep us in the Prem twice. twice.

     

    Move on.

    I'm sure we'll all be happy to move on just as soon as we're in as good a position as we were when he was sacked. Until then we can rightly point to the massive error of judgement that was sacking him. 

    • Like 2

  4. Posted

    1 hour ago, Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man said:

    We had the one it should've been but we sacked him.

    Absolutely this. I'm finding it unfathomable that they're holding on to the hope that Wagner will come good in the end when they so quickly turned on Farke just weeks after giving him that 4 year contract.

    There's an incredible disparity between what we can see from outside and the beliefs held within the club. They see it as bad luck, an unforeseeable injury crisis and individual player errors. We see awful recruitment, flawed tactics and lack of oversight. It's hard to imagine how these things can realign without a seismic shift at the club. The word 'delusional' is maybe too strong but it's bordering on that level of wishful thinking.

    The positives are clear: Knapper and Attanasio are making far more reasonable noises and the money side of things might not be as bad as it appears. We just need to remain patient and allow things to unfold. 

    Unfortunately we are unlikely to see the sudden paradigm shift that many of us were hoping for. 

    • Like 2

  5. Posted

    Hopefully not too long until:

    “I’m sorry, Dave, but in accordance with sub-routine C1 532/4, quote, ‘When the crew are dead or incapacitated, the computer must assume control,’ unquote. I must, therefore, override your authority now since you are not in any condition to intelligently exercise it.” 

    • Haha 1

  7. Posted

    20 minutes ago, Coneys Knee said:

    What’s the thing with his driving?

    His driving is a perfect indication of his (lack of) intellect, as anyone who has seen him (attempting) to drive or park (usually diagonally across two disabled bays) will attest to.

  8. Posted

    20 minutes ago, FenwayFrank said:

    Range Rover with personalised number plate

    Last time I encountered him he was in a Mercedes G-class (with a very distinctive number plate) holding a mobile phone while badly negotiating a roundabout at great speed. 

    • Confused 1

  10. Posted

    The problem with Idah (as anyone who's encountered him driving or parking will testify) is that he's quite simply stupid. There's no amount of coaching that could teach him how, when and where to run.

    He's got great physical attributes and a reasonable level of skill but he has no idea how to turn those things into success on the pitch. He virtually never gets assists because he can't work out how to play the simple passes in the final third. He might score 10 goals in the season but he's never going to improve the team. 

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

    No one is going to buy any of the players we don't want. The wages we pay are far higher than anyone at these players' level could realistically afford. If we want to offload anyone it's going to be mutual agreement or free transfers, often the 'selling' club still has to subsidise the wages for the remainder of the original contract term.

    The long contracts given to Hernandez, Idah and McLean come with a significant commitment to pay those high wages for the term. It's very difficult to rebuild against the backdrop of the recent mismanagement of the playing squad. Our best hope surely lies in making the most of what we have with just one or two shrewd acquisitions (CDM anyone?). 

  12. Posted

    It's almost like people want to forget how good we were last time we won the Championship. It wasn't all Buendia and Pukki; Cantwell and Dowell were 2/3 of our first choice attacking midfielders and both are vastly superior to anyone we still have on our books. We're playing Hernandez and Fassnacht FFS. Anyone who would genuinely prefer the current incumbents has a very short memory. 

    • Like 2

  13. Posted

    5 minutes ago, BigFish said:

    In dropping Sara would end up playing exactly where he does now

    Which would be ideal because there would now be another midfielder doing the actual defensive work that he doesn't; that DM would also free McLean to play more box-to-box. Obviously this would be at the expense of having the second striker, but it's what most properly organised teams do in practice.

    Let's face it: we have had a huge hole in central midfield all season (well, actually since Skipp went back to Spurs). We're conceding goals as a direct result of our flawed tactical setup. Sara is one of our few attacking threats so it kills two birds to (ostensibly) move him forwards: it plugs the hole he already leaves and it affords him more time in an attacking position from where he can create and score goals. Win-win! 

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    18 hours ago, Ian said:

    The fact that Fassnacht stayed on despite contributing nothing defensively makes me wonder if Wagner has actually lost the dressing room and is playing those who show a sense of loyalty, because I cannot for the life of me work out why he and Hernandez stayed on as long as they did otherwise.

    It's not just a personnel thing though; much as I think Hernandez is not at the required level, having our wingers pressing high up the pitch and pushing our fullbacks on too leaves a huge amount of space for our opponents to exploit. Sara and McLean aren't able to cover everyone so we're regularly left with overloads and players arriving unmarked into the box. The tactics are pretty flawed. 

    • Thanks 2

  15. Posted

    He's obviously not the 'worst ever player' but I absolutely agree that he's nowhere near good enough. The problem is that he's actually very good at some aspects of the game; good enough to get a new contract and a regular starting spot, but then so awful at picking a pass under pressure that he negates everything positive. If he was genuinely rubbish then it would be far better for the club because he could simply be dropped and forgotten.

    People love to throw around the 'scapegoat' thing but it's actually true that carrying certain players in certain positions is undermining the whole team. With Rowe in for Hernandez, Sara behind Sargent and McLean at 8 along side a decent 6, I think we'd have a decent enough team ( kamikaze pressing aside). With Hernandez in the team many of our attacking transitions simply break down. 

  16. Posted

    1 hour ago, BigFish said:

    Broadly true, however the problem with Sara is that he does his best attacking work deep, or arriving late - he isn't really a 10. I think Wagner's idea was that one, or both,  of the false 9s would drop to help him out but while Sarge & Barnes have been out that hasn't been happening.

    A 10 can drop deep and generally has more space (than an 8 ) when doing so. Sara is more of a Modric than a Rice/Skipp etc. so ideally shouldn't be playing as a 6.

    The main issue, however, is playing wingers who are so poor that only 1 out of every 10 touches results in a completed pass. We need players who can reliably turn openings into chances. Sara is pretty good at that but he's pretty much the only one, especially while Rowe is out. 

    • Like 1

  17. Posted

    3 hours ago, canarybubbles said:

    I agree with almost everything you say, but I'd point out that we do have one very skillful player in midfield - Sara - although even he is getting flakier by the week. But we can't even manage to successfully build our team around him.

    The problem with Sara is his off the ball work. I think he's our best player, but he is positionally poor and lacks defensive awareness. He was tracking the Watford player who scored their first goal and put in a very half-hearted attempt to block the shot where any decent midfielder would be throwing their body in the way. 

    I don't think we can carry a player like that without serious defensive cover. Either play him at 10 behind the striker or put a proper defensive midfielder behind him. 

    • Like 10

  19. Posted

    We simply lack the required passing ability to perform at this level. There's literally no point in Hernandez being on the pitch because he can't ever play a successful attacking pass. We can't hit teams on the break because we can't play the two or three quick passes to cut teams open. There's been so much emphasis on physical attributes and workrate, they entirely forgot to sign players who can actually kick the ball in the right direction. This squad is going nowhere until we find a way to get some skillful players into the midfield.

    • Like 6
    • Thanks 4

  22. Posted

    I have to say Saturday was probably the least interesting game I've witnessed for ages. Normally there's a gory post-mortem to pick over the carcass of what went wrong, otherwise there's the highlights of what went right. Saturday was one moment of quality then an entirely sensible (but highly boring) defensive slog. We got the three points, didn't do much wrong (or right) and don't have much of an indication as to what's going to come. Meh. 

  23. Posted

    4 minutes ago, Grumpy said:

    So I am assuming that you also thought Webber did when he was the SD.In which case from the entertaining football under Farke to the rubbish that Smith and then  Wagner turned out were because Webber changed his mind

    That's exactly what happened as far as I can ascertain. First Webber bought players that Farke didn't want, then dictated a change in system. I'm fairly sure Farke knew he was being sacked and, as a final fingers up to Webber, he reverted to the 4-2-3-1 and finally won against Brentford. 

    Webber arrogantly thought a different manager would be able to make his awful squad work and doubled down on the system he wanted to play. If the head coach was dictating the tactics then why is it that Smith played the exact same system that Farke had switched to (and failed)?

    I sincerely *hope* that much of the problem has left with Webber. Now it requires time and patience for the players and coach to regain confidence and find a more balanced way of playing. Going more defensive is a pragmatic start. 

  24. Posted

    2 hours ago, Capt. Pants said:

    For some reason he doesn't like English football and seemingly the physicality and work rate that goes with it - fine it's not for everyone.

    I thought it was more the never playing thing that he disliked. He wanted to be believed in but was only given fleeting moments and never had the opportunity to find his feet. He was totally mismanaged here. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic but it's a pretty messed up state of affairs when Tzolis is shipped out on loan while Onel is starting every week. 

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  25. Posted

    1 hour ago, Jim Smith said:

    We weren’t harder to play through.

    This is objectively untrue. Yes, we made some errors which allowed a few chances but we were generally more compact and mostly very difficult to break down. We basically shut up shop after scoring aside from a few brief forays forward towards the end. It wasn't pretty but it was reasonably pragmatic from a team low on confidence and lacking ability in the final third. 

    Sadly it's quite telling of our current predicament, scrapping around for 1-0 wins against a bottom 3 team. But it beats the previous three home games. Going more defensive is definitely the right move for now. Swap Hernandez for Rowe and we might be a little more threatening on the break. 

    • Like 1
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