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3 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

But we haven't scored a goal against them in 180 mins. Middlesbrough is similar with just a penalty scored in 180 mins. Our defence won us 6 points across the four games. 

Or our lack of attack cost us 6 points. I'm not upset about the point NN, if you can't win a game just make sure you don't lose it, but what I am concerned about is for 3 games in a row now we've been utterly toothless going forwards, barely troubled the opposition keeper and seem unable to penetration Championship defences when we're supposed to be aiming to play in the top tier next season. In every comparison against the 2018/2019 team we're worse off when it comes to going forwards. I'm really happy with our defence but even great attacking displays like against Bristol now feel like ages ago after 3 matches of such poor offensive quality.

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The lack of goals and chances is worrying. Trying to be optimistic, Pukki, Dowell and a lot of our attacking players have been out of the team through injury so I would hope that they are going to get better again and things will click (as we all know they can). Would be nice if things started to click again offensively on Friday!

Also being optimistic, it's pretty amazing how we seem to have improved defensively this season. Gibson has been a great signing so far, and I think we are playing a bit more conservatively, which hopefully will stand us in good stead if/when we go up again.

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For me, the midfield is not right at the moment, Pukki looks completely out of sorts and Cantwell has gone missing just at the point we needed him most. Todd needs a new set of boots/studs, to stop flinging himself to the floor and to play to the bl**dy whistle. I'm really not sure what has happened with him as he was playing brilliantly 3 weeks ago. With him doing very little and the Placheta's absolutely abysmal decision making on the other flank we are not getting the right balls into Pukki who in turn seems to have lost confidence (temporarily I hope).

Although we "somehow" kept another clean sheet it was more through luck than anything else. i just feel that in the last few games the midfield has been passed through/byepassed too easily and whilst on an indivisual basis Rupp has looked quite good I don;t think that combination in there is working. Millwall got 4 or 5 decent chanes just by playing one or two passes into their front players iunder zero pressure. I felt the team was wrong last night and I think if we go with that same line up at Swansea we will get beaten. It needs Kenny or Sorensen in there (or maybe both) to give us a bit more physical presence in the middle. 

 

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13 hours ago, KeiranShikari said:

Seem tired at the moment which is not surprising considering post project restart schedules on top of how injuries have affected us.

Good job we can defend this season.

 

Can we defend this season? i just think we've been incredibly lucky and our opponants vefy wasteful. I don;t think we are actually notably better defensively although i think as an individual Gibson is an improvement.  

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Maybe due to the window shutting and certain players no longer being in the shop window, they have eased up a bit. 

Todd's social media appears to have increased though... 

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5 minutes ago, Canary Wundaboy said:

Or our lack of attack cost us 6 points. I'm not upset about the point NN, if you can't win a game just make sure you don't lose it, but what I am concerned about is for 3 games in a row now we've been utterly toothless going forwards, barely troubled the opposition keeper and seem unable to penetration Championship defences when we're supposed to be aiming to play in the top tier next season. In every comparison against the 2018/2019 team we're worse off when it comes to going forwards. I'm really happy with our defence but even great attacking displays like against Bristol now feel like ages ago after 3 matches of such poor offensive quality.

Yes but if we'd got those 6 points we'd now be on 61 points from 27 games and on target for 104 points.

I honestly didn't think we would get anywhere near that this season. Scraping into the top two seemed the very best I could hope for.

At least we didn't bottle a cold January Tuesday night at Millwall.

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1 hour ago, king canary said:

We've just had two performances in a row where we've barely looked like troubling the opposition keeper, I don't think people being concerned is pant wetting.

I honestly don't know what you expect from a fan forum after games like this- just 50 people posting 'oh well, we didn't play brilliantly but we're still top!' and then logging off?

No not at all. 

There's some balanced views and then there's the OTT "Farke was sh*t" and "Throwing it away" comments which are the ones I'm aiming my comments towards. There's the "couldn't lay a glove on the 18/19" comments from, ironically the same people who criticised how open and poor defensively we were the following season. Theres the "thrown 6 points" as if we have a divine right to win every game.

Of course we didnt create enough. But I'm confused in regards to the expectations. It genuinely feels like some on here expect us to win every game and if we don't, we're failing.

Equally, its the same select posters that have been desperate to criticise Farke etc but not had the opportunity so far this season really - the same people I defended Farke against preseason. Some of it is from the same people who pre-criticised the board for selling all our young talent and watching us languish midfable in the championship. Now that hasn't happened its almost like a cringe fest from a select few to jump in whenever we don't win a game.

For me, the main problem is when Cantwell, for example, has a poor game, none of our subs at the moment are looking capable of changing a game. Onel needs to step up, Dowell probably needs a run in that 10 position before I can fairly judge but he's struggled coming on from the bench to have a significant impact too.

Edited by hogesar

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2 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Can we defend this season? i just think we've been incredibly lucky and our opponants vefy wasteful. I don;t think we are actually notably better defensively although i think as an individual Gibson is an improvement.  

I seen to remember we were also extremely lucky in 2018/19. All the stars aligned...

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2 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Can we defend this season? i just think we've been incredibly lucky and our opponants vefy wasteful. I don;t think we are actually notably better defensively although i think as an individual Gibson is an improvement.  

I think we are. We're definitely less vulnerable to set pieces and we look less likely to be cut open by counter attacks. 

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6 minutes ago, Jim Smith said:

Can we defend this season? i just think we've been incredibly lucky and our opponants vefy wasteful. I don;t think we are actually notably better defensively although i think as an individual Gibson is an improvement.  

Only two teams in this league have conceded less goals so your incredibly lucky comment is a bit of a joke, and kind of backs up my last post.

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1 minute ago, king canary said:

I think we are. We're definitely less vulnerable to set pieces and we look less likely to be cut open by counter attacks. 

I'd agree on set pieces. Fair enough that has been an improvement. Even against two big sides in the last two games we've done ok defending them.

To be fair, most of the defensive problems we have these days result from us giving the ball away trying to play out from the back and losing it in our own half. 

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Just now, hogesar said:

Only two teams in this league have conceded less goals so your incredibly lucky comment is a bit of a joke, and kind of backs up my last post.

Based on watching the games i think we've been very lucky and our goals conceded tally flatters us a bit. 

Last night Millwall should have scored two or three. Thinking back over other recent games bith QPR and Barnsley missed last minute open goals that could have made those results very different.

We may be better but I think we are a long way off being good enough defensively for the premier league. Thankfully we are not in the premier league.

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4 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Only two teams in this league have conceded less goals so your incredibly lucky comment is a bit of a joke, and kind of backs up my last post.

There is a point there- the XG table from experimental 3-6-1 suggests on the conceded side of things we could have conceded 13 more than we have.

https://experimental361.com/2021/02/03/expected-goals-table-championship-2-3-feb-2021/

The noteable thing is we seem to be the most of whack on xg- both in terms of not scoring as many as we should based on chances created but also not conceding as many as we should based on chances allowed. So in part it may be that we've been a bit lucky and one end but not at the other, or Pukki is having a bit of a stinker and Krul is having a blinder. Overall though I'd argue it kind of evens itself out. 

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9 minutes ago, king canary said:

There is a point there- the XG table from experimental 3-6-1 suggests on the conceded side of things we could have conceded 13 more than we have.

https://experimental361.com/2021/02/03/expected-goals-table-championship-2-3-feb-2021/

The noteable thing is we seem to be the most of whack on xg- both in terms of not scoring as many as we should based on chances created but also not conceding as many as we should based on chances allowed. So in part it may be that we've been a bit lucky and one end but not at the other, or Pukki is having a bit of a stinker and Krul is having a blinder. Overall though I'd argue it kind of evens itself out. 

Cheers, hadn't seen that table. Swansea interest me there because they're generally seen as having the best defence in the league (hard to argue since they've conceded something ridiculous like 15 goals this season), yet looking at that they could have conceded 13 more too.

Edited by hogesar

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Just now, hogesar said:

Cheers, hadn't seen that table. Swansea interest me there because they're generally seen as having the best defence in the league (hard to argue since they've conceded something ridiculous like 15 goals this season), yet looking at that they could have concede 13 more too.

Maybe Swansea's defence has been lucky too? 

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9 minutes ago, Greavsy said:

Maybe Swansea's defence has been lucky too? 

Having watched our matches do you not think we've been a bit lucky that the opposition have missed a lot of good chances?

Having a good keeper obviously makes a difference as well.

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If I have checked this properly.....of the 18 fixtures we have played this season, that we also played in 2018/19, the breakdown is thus:

18/19 - 12 wins, 5 draws, 1 loss, 41 pts

20/21 - 11 wins, 6 draws, 1 loss, 39 pts

Read into that what you want 

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1 minute ago, Jim Smith said:

Having watched our matches do you not think we've been a bit lucky that the opposition have missed a lot of good chances?

Having a good keeper obviously makes a difference as well.

I do see your point, but I also think, to a point, you make your own luck. 

We aren't firing well, so it's bad form, but other teams who are scoring, are they just lucky or good form? 

Also in defence we have tightened up, but some see that as lucky, whereas others just have a good defence. 

I guess it's human nature to be more critical of 'your' own team, and I must confess I don't study other teams as much as I do my own. 

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32 minutes ago, nutty nigel said:

 

At least we didn't bottle a cold January Tuesday night at Millwall.

Maybe if it was a cold Tuesday night in January Millwall would have got their dates muddled and not have been there to play us and we would have come home with the 3 points. 😂

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11 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Cheers, hadn't seen that table. Swansea interest me there because they're generally seen as having the best defence in the league (hard to argue since they've conceded something ridiculous like 15 goals this season), yet looking at that they could have conceded 13 more too.

Yeah it seems that we're both top 2 because we're outperforming that metric right about now.

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6 minutes ago, Greavsy said:

I do see your point, but I also think, to a point, you make your own luck. 

We aren't firing well, so it's bad form, but other teams who are scoring, are they just lucky or good form? 

Also in defence we have tightened up, but some see that as lucky, whereas others just have a good defence. 

I guess it's human nature to be more critical of 'your' own team, and I must confess I don't study other teams as much as I do my own. 

I think this last sentence is a key factor that's often overlooked. We don't watch other teams' matches in anywhere near as much detail. Couple this with the brain's inbuilt negativity bias, and we often tend to be hyper-critical of our own teams.

For example, I think it's a bit of a false positive to say that opponents missing sitters is a contributory factor to our excellent defensive record; this is the flipside of the argument about how 'mistakes get punished' at PL level. The standard in the Championship isn't as good, attackers will miss more chances, and we don't have an accurate frame of reference as to how many other top-six teams have benefited from profligate finishing.

Whichever way you dress it up, you'd have a hard time arguing that our defence hasn't improved hugely compared to the last two seasons. Hanley and Gibson look totally solid, Aarons has been quite remarkable, and Sorensen was a revelation. Let's hope Giannoulis gets up to speed soon, I expect him to bed in well once Swansea's out the way, he has a week to train with the lads, and we have an easier run of fixtures to follow (on paper, at least).

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12 minutes ago, TIL 1010 said:

Maybe if it was a cold Tuesday night in January Millwall would have got their dates muddled and not have been there to play us and we would have come home with the 3 points. 😂

February! When did that happen? 😯🙃

 

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1 hour ago, nutty nigel said:

February! When did that happen? 😯🙃

 

Lockdown hasn't been good to you! 

Keep up. 

Nearly valentines, so remember to get something for your loved ones if not @FenwayFrank will get upset with you. 

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2 hours ago, Jim Smith said:

For me, the midfield is not right at the moment, Pukki looks completely out of sorts and Cantwell has gone missing just at the point we needed him most. Todd needs a new set of boots/studs, to stop flinging himself to the floor and to play to the bl**dy whistle. I'm really not sure what has happened with him as he was playing brilliantly 3 weeks ago. With him doing very little and the Placheta's absolutely abysmal decision making on the other flank we are not getting the right balls into Pukki who in turn seems to have lost confidence (temporarily I hope).

Although we "somehow" kept another clean sheet it was more through luck than anything else. i just feel that in the last few games the midfield has been passed through/byepassed too easily and whilst on an indivisual basis Rupp has looked quite good I don;t think that combination in there is working. Millwall got 4 or 5 decent chanes just by playing one or two passes into their front players iunder zero pressure. I felt the team was wrong last night and I think if we go with that same line up at Swansea we will get beaten. It needs Kenny or Sorensen in there (or maybe both) to give us a bit more physical presence in the middle. 

 

Agree with this. We were lucky to come away with a point last night and our defending as a team was pretty poor. I'm sure there are lots of excuses but the simple fact is that getting 2 points from the last 2 games is not promotion form. Hopefully this is our blip and we will come through it as we have before.

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1 hour ago, nutty nigel said:

February! When did that happen? 😯🙃

 

I am assuming of course you know it is now 2021 ?

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Personally I'd still love to see us give a back 3 a try and some point- if we're confident in Sorenson's ability there. 

I think we'd benefit hugely from freeing up the wingbacks to bomb further forward and really stretch a team, while letting Cantwell or Idah play closer to Pukki too. It would also allow us to play Vrancic a bit deeper if we wanted to. 

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20 minutes ago, king canary said:

Personally I'd still love to see us give a back 3 a try and some point- if we're confident in Sorenson's ability there. 

I think we'd benefit hugely from freeing up the wingbacks to bomb further forward and really stretch a team, while letting Cantwell or Idah play closer to Pukki too. It would also allow us to play Vrancic a bit deeper if we wanted to. 

I would like that too. However it's difficult because we've looked solid defensively with a four and the few times earlier in the season where we switched to a back 3 / 5 we conceded a couple of poor goals.

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Just now, hogesar said:

I would like that too. However it's difficult because we've looked solid defensively with a four and the few times earlier in the season where we switched to a back 3 / 5 we conceded a couple of poor goals.

That's fair, would be interesting to see it from the start though.

My main question mark right now is Dowell. Bought as a creative number 10, our main creative player is suspended and we're struggling to create chances yet can't get more than 15/20 off the bench most weeks. Did the Barnsley performance make Farke less keen on our backups?

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8 minutes ago, king canary said:

That's fair, would be interesting to see it from the start though.

My main question mark right now is Dowell. Bought as a creative number 10, our main creative player is suspended and we're struggling to create chances yet can't get more than 15/20 off the bench most weeks. Did the Barnsley performance make Farke less keen on our backups?

Possibly. They've not looked great in that game or the couple of cameos since. Dowell has a case that he's been constantly injured and not given a run at Number 10. I know some don't rate him, and at a higher level I agree, but we do miss Stiepermann a bit as that 'different' number 10 with a bit more physicality

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