Beetley Yellow

Coventry….., the complete lunacy that is the modern PL will see Robins sacked when they are bottom and only 3 points from safety in October ‘23. Just in time for us to appoint him with us in the lower half Championship and looking completely clueless. (* Disclaimer - there is a lot of complete guesswork and supposition in this prediction *)

Too many influential people at the Club are too comfortable. Mediocrity is becoming accepted in many areas. A ‘90%’ commitment attitude tends to result in such.

It was onside, to be fair a very good call (… lucky guess?) because I was convinced it was off at ‘live’ first view and even after seeing the first replay.

Two very poor teams in today’s game IMO. As others have said if SU are the second best team in the Division, it’s a real indicator as to the actual quality of the Championship. That we are still in touch with the top 6 I suppose confirms this opinion. Seeing the team selection before the game was quite intriguing, we could not fathom how it would work. As it turned out, to have so many attacking players and still show so little creativity and guile was nothing short of alarming. All it takes is a well organised defence and we’re totally negated. I’d like to think it’s because we’re missing Dowell and Hernandez, but I’m not really sure they are the answer either. It’s difficult to see what we can do about improving matters without significant investment (and somebody to spend it wisely this time).

Also remember it well. Turned up late to a packed CR, the only place left was the ‘no man’s land’ segregation pen in the Barclay, so had the joy of 2 hours of being gobbled at by the neanderthal away support, did leave a few quid richer due to the constant barrage of coins from our left hand side. Remember it being a glorious sunny day, Leicester were already down, but were well up for it on the day, we were just a bit ‘along came Norwich’. I think we needed Liverpool to beat Sunderland at Anfield to help save us (… if we could draw) and even they managed to lose.

The goalkeeper catching the ball and throwing himself on the ground is now an almost universally used time wasting tactic. It becomes painfully obvious as soon as you become aware of it, it usually wastes 20s+ and I cannot believe it has not been picked up and made a bookable offence. That and the seemingly interminable substitutions we now have in the game. It was always annoying when used as a tactic to break up play in the final minutes of the game, it is even more so now the numbers available have increased. I always wondered why a simple rule of no subs to be made after 80/85 mins could not be introduced or at the very least not allowed during injury time. That and/or add a more realistic time for subs made. 30s for each occurrence is now a joke, when 3 are made at once, invariably each player (on the winning side), do the ‘who me?’ charade, applaud the crowd and only then slowly trudge off, a procedure sequentially repeated for players 2 and 3 being replaced. Independent time keeping and a ref with an option to declare ‘time off’ (as per rugby union) would be quite startling I reckon.

Chris Woods catching the ball a minute into injury time and launching it up field for an attack rather than theatrically throwing himself on the ground to waste 30 seconds……, simpler times!!

Certainly was. Me and a mate bunked off evening lectures at City College, supposedly ‘to get his car fixed’, to which the lecturer replied “going to the match are you lads?”, with a knowing grin. I think I and several thousand of us in the River End lower terrace surged forward with SB to nod it in. It was mayhem, never seen before (… or since?) in the RE. I know we won the Final and that was special, but the very fact it was ‘them’ in the SF makes it that little bit better.

Having so much (relative) quality to bring off the bench is a massive advantage in this division, the 3 subs today changed the game, we seemed so much better on the ball and moved their tired defence around, which is how the goal came. Resolute defending kept us ‘to nil’ to be fair, an awesome job especially big Grant and Andy O who were under intense pressure at times.

Dear oh dear. Tippy-tappy-tippy-tippy-HOOF. Or more tippy-tappy and then give the ball way. Pretty it is not. Only some last ditch defending has kept us level in the last 5 mins. We really need someone to take charge in midfield.

And in past recent seasons their issue has very much been competing with the better teams in the division. Didn’t they only have one win either home or away against ‘top 10’ teams a couple of seasons ago? That will be the true test, but this year they have the momentum that an easy start has given them.

Indeed, it was quite noticeable that we had some ‘set plays’ on the corners, rather than just launching it in and hoping. Obvious input from the set-piece coach, it worked well both times as Kenny and Sarg had free headers, but there was little quality with the finishes. Another situation where against us in the PL, the quality would have been there and we’d have conceded two. Good to see some progress though and hopefully it will bear fruit at some point.

Agreed, I thought Sarg had been fouled (at least once) before the ‘trip’- he just wanted it more and fair play to the ref to view it as ‘six of one…’. Also fair play to the Milwall fan for the YT post, a good and fair summary IMO, he must be the one in their fan base with the brain cell.

And going on and on about how talented their subs brought on were. Apart from one toe punt shot that hit the bar they contributed nothing. Our defence was pretty sound tonight.

Jeez, that made me realise how much I miss Emi. And just how little creativity we have in our current squad.