Bottlers?

[funny old game 1]

Well, what a depressing Saturday morning, I''ve been so looking forward to this fixture & looking forward to following all the results today with us sitting proudly on top of the pile, hoping for a slip up from our rivals, unfortunately yet again I''m left completely gutted & bitterly disappointed as we once again choke at the final hurdle, the staff deserve huge credit for the efforts since AN has been at the club to haul themselves back into contention but unfortunately our old nemesis has ultimately returned to haunt us, we haven''t been good enough at home all season & although AN has found away of archiving great results on the road his home record pro rata is probably not much different to NA we simply cannot break sides down, which brings me to question our current squad, yes on paper we have a terrific bunch, but in reality something just doesn''t click going forward, look at our two other promo'' rivals & compare there recent performances against Middlesborough each created & scored to secure comfortable wins. Our efforts last night seemed to be almost desperate & relied heavily on a long high hopefully ball into Jerome, who came second best nearly every time, (Danny Ayala? Looked half decent) which leads me to question the mentality of most of the squad in big game situations, I don''t think these players have the bottle needed to perform under the ultimate pressure of a one off head to head, Tettey, Johnson, Olson & Dorrans, all seemed almost panic stricken when given the ball. We now have 2 games to maybe freshen things up for the play offs (& or hope for a miracle) I just hope AN works his away magic to guide us through the play offs ( at least there are potentially 2 away fixtures in them!!!!!) never give up OTBC

[Branston Pickle 4,150]

We didn''t bottle it, we just couldn''t find a way past the stingiest defence in the league - should''ve had a pen and weren''t at all helped by the ref buying in to the antics of their players stopping our momentum at regular intervals.

Maybe It was that we should''ve had a bit more guile, I think I''d have kept Wes on, but we have struggled against sides wholly intent on defending this season and it has little to do with ''bottling'' it.

[sgncfc 1,330]

I''m not sure bottling is the right word, and I don''t think last nights game qualifies as a "final" (even if Boro seemed to think it was) but we do seem to frequently fail in the very big games - in 50 years of supporting I can only recall two games (Palace in 1972, Sunderland 1985 ) where we didn''t fail and which were "final" in nature.

Against that we have 2 League Cup finals, a Play Off Final, Fulham away (twice), Sheff Weds away (though we still went up, we lost the game).

A trend we can hopefully improve at Wembley on May 25th.

[funny old game 1]

[quote user="funny old game"]Well, what a depressing Saturday morning, I''ve been so looking forward to this fixture & looking forward to following all the results today with us sitting proudly on top of the pile, hoping for a slip up from our rivals, unfortunately yet again I''m left completely gutted & bitterly disappointed as we once again choke at the final hurdle, the staff deserve huge credit for the efforts since AN has been at the club to haul themselves back into contention but unfortunately our old nemesis has ultimately returned to haunt us, we haven''t been good enough at home all season & although AN has found away of archiving great results on the road his home record pro rata is probably not much different to NA we simply cannot break sides down, which brings me to question our current squad, yes on paper we have a terrific bunch, but in reality something just doesn''t click going forward, look at our two other promo'' rivals & compare there recent performances against Middlesborough each created & scored to secure comfortable wins. Our efforts last night seemed to be almost desperate & relied heavily on a long high hopefully ball into Jerome, who came second best nearly every time, (Danny Ayala? Looked half decent) which leads me to question the mentality of most of the squad in big game situations, I don''t think these players have the bottle needed to perform under the ultimate pressure of a one off head to head, Tettey, Johnson, Olson & Dorrans, all seemed almost panic stricken when given the ball. We now have 2 games to maybe freshen things up for the play offs (& or hope for a miracle) I just hope AN works his away magic to guide us through the play offs ( at least there are potentially 2 away fixtures in them!!!!!) never give up OTBC[/quote]

Well Im afraid we appear to be running out of steam just at the wrong time, our form is now gradually slipping to that of an also ran. We''re told week in week out by some posters on here that our rivals are not as good or haven''t got the squad/ resources keep grinding out results. What they have got is bottle, something Grabbon lacked yesterday, unlucky yes, but if you raise a hand you run the risk with some referees.

Since Wigan at home we''ve blown three opportunities to get ourselves into automatic positions, that''s not bad luck, the championship is unforgiving & unless we can find additional energy levels over the coming weeks our current league position will be our final position

[Move Klose 303]

To be fair i dont think we have bottled it or run outta steam.

Vs Boro we had a sloppy first 10 which cost us. Dominated the game but couldnt get through (not for the first time).

Vs Rotherham we played more than an hour with 10 men away from home. With 11 men we would have won that game.

Keep the faith.

[funny old game 1]

[quote user="CJRV 2014"]To be fair i dont think we have bottled it or run outta steam.

Vs Boro we had a sloppy first 10 which cost us. Dominated the game but couldnt get through (not for the first time).

Vs Rotherham we played more than an hour with 10 men away from home. With 11 men we would have won that game

I''ll always keep the faith CJRV 2014

I''d counter those claims, it was more like the first 20 minutes against Boro.'' Add to that the constant time wasting that went on after it equates to almost a third of the game, a game that we needed to win to go top!! May have been nervous tension.

Either way it wasn''t good enough & the reason we had so much possession once they scored was simply because Middlesborough sat back & allowed us the ball because we struggle to break sides down who set up two banks of four.

Rotherham, I agree if we had 11 we would have probably won the game, the reason we didn''t have 11 was unlucky but nevertheless self inflicted by a moment of ill discipline, which is unprofessional or lacking the mental strength to keep that discipline, we will see what AN thought about it in due course, my feeling is that he will come down like a tonne of bricks,

Still hope we can go up via a wembley final & get to lift a trophy in the bargain!!

Keep the faith.[/quote]