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Time to go Delia

Job not on the line next 2 games

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[quote user="Midlands Yellow"]I thought you believed when the crowd turn that''s it Ricardo ? So if more dross is served up Tuesday then your not expecting too much of a reaction at the whistle ?[/quote]It takes more than one game of very muted booing MY.Think back to Hughton, people started calling for his head from very early on and despite some poor results the crowd reaction never reached the unsurvivable level. He very nearly survived the season and probably would have but for that single goal defeat against WBA. It was the straw that broke the camels back.If we lose tomorrow the boo''s will undoubtedly begin again but until you experience it, it is impossible to say whether it will be enough to shift him. Who knows, he may do well enough in these two home games to banish all thought of booing. At the moment it is only speculation.

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You may be right Ricardo but where I sit in the upper Barclay the moans and groans are growing louder. I really think that it will be a poisonous atmosphere if we go behind early.

If "promotion promotion promotion" really is the objective then another couple of defeats will render us out of contention!

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[quote user="GJL Mid-Norfolk Canary"]"Goal averages"...you''re giving your age away there Ricardo!...[/quote]Its still one of the best indicators of the relative strength of teams.

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I never call for a manager to be sacked. They run out of road soon enough without any help from me. However, I have been known to boo when I think that time has arrived.

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We need an early goal tonight, if anything just to settle the crowd down

The first wasted opportunity or defensive mistake is going to be pounced on by the crowd - we need to take it to Villa from the start to get that early goal

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In my view if we lose tonight the crowd will turn big time. There are very, very few fans who think he should still be the manager and there is massive frustration amongst most of the fans I speak to or have contact with at the boards refusal to make a change. I don''t think it will take too much to see that frustration boil over tonight if it goes badly, particularly given the symbolism of Villa, who were 15 points behind us yet have been proactive and got in a proper manager, going above us in the table. It will be too much for large sections of the crowd to take.

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[quote user="Rogue Baboon"]I think it will turn as soon as it starts to go against us

Lafferty with a 94th minute winner to save Neils job anybody?[/quote]

The problem in relying on players you''ve slagged off or treated like sh*t is that they may not be hugely inclined to save your job. That''s if they are given more than 5 minutes to do so anyway!

Personally I would be playing Wes tonight if I was him yet he seems to have been inexplicably made the fall guy for our runs of losses despite the fact he is one of the few players who has always put in a committed shift.

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But surely Pritchard has done enough recently to warrant starting as well..

And if Naismith is fit, so has he...

And Hoolahan will always put in a shift...

3 into 1 just doesn''t go. But Naimsith seems to link well with Pritchard & Oliviera

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[quote user="Jim Smith"][quote user="Rogue Baboon"]I think it will turn as soon as it starts to go against us

Lafferty with a 94th minute winner to save Neils job anybody?[/quote]

The problem in relying on players you''ve slagged off or treated like sh*t is that they may not be hugely inclined to save your job. That''s if they are given more than 5 minutes to do so anyway!

Personally I would be playing Wes tonight if I was him yet he seems to have been inexplicably made the fall guy for our runs of losses despite the fact he is one of the few players who has always put in a committed shift.[/quote]He hasn''t slagged anyone off or treated anyone like $hit though Jim, has he?He has rightly questioned some players attitudes and application, which he has been entirely correct to do so.Who has made Wes the fall guy exactly Jim? The last game I saw him play in, he didn''t play particularly well, and now isn''t in the team. Whats the issue with that exactly? Should we play him regardless, just because he is Wes?

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[quote user="Rogue Baboon"]But surely Pritchard has done enough recently to warrant starting as well..

And if Naismith is fit, so has he...

And Hoolahan will always put in a shift...

3 into 1 just doesn''t go. But Naimsith seems to link well with Pritchard & Oliviera[/quote][Y]

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He''s our best creative player and should be playing more often than not. That he and Jerome were dropped to the bench at QPR despite having done little wrong was yet another of Neil''s bizarre decisions and just because he happened to have the good fortune to stumble across Brentford at home at the right time does not change anything.

That said I would not object to Pritchard starting in that position as at least that would have some logic to it and Pritchard played very well against Brentford before being made the fall guy in that match when actually the problem was with the rest of the team. One of Neil''s issues is that he makes scapegoats out of or drops certain players in positions that are not actually at the heart of our problems. Yes Wes''s form has dipped a bit at times but he or Pritchard have not been the problem in any of our defeats this season, the problem has been that the structure of the team around them has not always been right and the defensive mistakes have undermined any good play we have produced. Same with Jerome. Yes Oliveria is doing quite well now and has scored a couple of goals but Jerome has done nothing wrong when he''s played for us either (truth b e told there''s probably not a lot between them) and yet is now banished to the bench and is not getting much of a look in. Again I would argue that of all the senior players who have been on show, Jerome and Hoolahan have been the least culpable in terms of some of the no-shows we have seen this season.

His handling/man management of players is pretty awful in my view.

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Naismith hasn''t done anything to deserve to be in the starting line up at the expense of Wes or Pritchard.

Of course tonight he will want to play Mulumbu (rightly) so we will no doubt see Howson played in the wrong position again.

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Couple of things Jim.Jerome has been injured, and was carrying the injury before he was "dropped". Who are these people setting who is the fall guy Jim? I have literally seen no one blame Pritchard for Barnsley.Take your Wes glasses off, he hasn''t been in good form at all. Thats why he isn''t in the team. And if you look at any thread here, where people are asked to name teams, Wes really isn''t featuring in many peoples.

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[quote user="Jim Smith"]Naismith hasn''t done anything to deserve to be in the starting line up at the expense of Wes or Pritchard.

Of course tonight he will want to play Mulumbu (rightly) so we will no doubt see Howson played in the wrong position again.[/quote]Well I have been at the last 4 games Jim, and in my opinion, he has.

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Jerome has done nothing wrong, but Oliveria is scoring.

Hoolahan is creative, but Pritchard has played well there the last few games

You say Neil is dropping players who have done nothing wrong (I agree - players seem to disappear before reappearing a few games later) but then seem to be prepared to drop 2 players who have been performing well for players who were not performing well before being dropped?

The alternative is to play Pritchard & Hoolahan, but on the left we would be defensively week against a team with good wingers

If I had my way, my front 4 would be:

Oliviera

Naismith Pritchard Murphy

Although given Villas strength, I can see Brady starting on the left as he is more defensively minded

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I think Wes and Pritchard would work together on occasion but probably not tonight and probably only with Mulumbu and Tettey sitting as the two in the 4-2-3-1 formation.

My point really (and its been a bit of a problem all season) is that I cannot often see the correlation between the players who get dropped (whether to the bench or from the squad entirely) and the performances that they personally have put in or alternatively that some players get jettisoned after one bad performance (or even half) whereas others a given chance after chance. I accept entirely that Hoolahan''s performance levels have dipped in this recent run but no more so that anyone else really and yet he now finds himself on the bench and not even getting on as a sub despite the fact that he''s really not done anything wrong. Ditto with Jerome. Meanwhile it now seems to be accepted that Naismith is somehow worthy of a starting place?

I hope Naismith continues to improve and comes good for us but I just think that the way Neil juggles his squad shows really bad man management skills and I would not be surprised if there are a lot of players in that squad who are not really happy playing for him because they do now know whether they coming or going.

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See, now we are getting somewhere Jim. Hoolahans performance level has dipped, and he isn''t getting in the team. I would call that good management by the manager? Do you agree?What I have seen of Naismith in recent games, yes he is worthy of a starting place. Have you seen recent games Jim, would you not agree? Jim what part of "Jerome has had a back problem, meaning he has hardly been training" are you struggling with here?

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Goal averages and where it is clear a team have strengths or weaknesses.

As we approach mid-way of the season we can see that Newcastle and Brighton have scored the most goals and are in the top 3 for least conceded. Safe to say they are looking pretty comfortable for being in the top 2 or 3 come the end of the season and as a result it''s no surprise they currently sit 1st and second. On the otherhand, Rotherham have conceded a whopping 45 goals and have a GD of -25. I''d quite happily say they are certain for relegation. Sadly, we have conceded a lot and scored a lot, with a GD of 3 which leaves us roughly where we should be - mid table. Along with other teams in the same bucket as us, such as Nottingham Forrest, Barnsley, Preston and Fulham.

The same goes for the Premier League, it''s hardly surprising to see a team with +22GD top that has only conceded 11 goals this term, and 3 teams that have conceded about 30 goals with -12, -18 and -13 all sitting in the bottom three.

There''s only facts being used there. If we can stop conceding so much and score at the same rate we would be fine.

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You should pick a team based on how they work as a team, not because certain players must play.

If Naismith, Oliviera & Pritchard work well together, which they have recently, they should start ahead of Hoolahan & Jerome who were out of form

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[quote user="Rogue Baboon"]You should pick a team based on how they work as a team, not because certain players must play.

If Naismith, Oliviera & Pritchard work well together, which they have recently, they should start ahead of Hoolahan & Jerome who were out of form[/quote]

They worked well together against a sh*t team that didn''t try and tackle us for most of the match. How would that match have gone if Jerome and Wes had started instead of Pritchard and Oliveira? Probably little different I would suggest.

I''m not saying that Oliveira should be dropped now anyway, that would cause its own problems as he doesn''t deserve it. I''m merely saying that Neil has created these problems for himself with his ridiculous recent p**sing about with the team and random jettisoning of players.

Pritchard/Wes is probably a 50/50 call so I would be happy with either. Pritchard is probably the best example of a player who has been f**ked about to be honest. Had a great game at home a few weeks ago against Rotherham (I think). Then dropped at Fulham. then brought back in at Brighton before being dropped again after our defenders made 5 schoolboy errors at Brighton. Then gets his chance against Brentford and plays a blinder but is then hauled off after 45 minutes at Barnsley (with the manager making some pretty unprofessional comments about him at the press conference yesterday) because the manager got the starting line up around him wrong.

For what its worth I think there is a fair chance that we will see Brady, Howson and Murphy behind Oliveira tonight and none of the three we are arguing about will start!

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I can actually see Murphy being dropped tonight - no through his own fault but Villa like to get the ball wide (I think)

Playing Pinto & Murphy will see that side get exploited repeatedly

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Yes. I suppose he may play Howson on the right as he seems to think that tightens us up. He will then probably play Naismith behind the striker and Brady wide left.

I would not be particularly happy with that as I think Howson is wasted out wide but Neil must be tempted to go for experience and solidity tonight given that his neck is on the line.

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Jim, when forming your opinions on anything, do you start out with "Alex Neil can do nothing right whatsoever" and just go from there?

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Its a hard one tonight.

We are at home, we want to dictate our game to Villa to win the game.

However, playing that way will leave us light in areas where Villa are strongest.

Playing to nullify Villas strength will be a negative way to set up.

I can see this going the way of Newcastle last year where we think we are on top & putting pressure on,l only to be picked off on the break over and over again

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