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CANARYKING

Got away with it …….again

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Yes I know we win again but we can’t keep giving the ball away, letting the opponent run with the ball without any challenge and keep pissing about in our own penalty area. Sooner or later we’re going to come up against better opposition.

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Bristol City were something like 4th and 6 unbeaten, how much better are we going to come up against? I'm not sure there was anyone in better form other than ourselves.

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Got some guy and his friend behind me who constantly cry 'FORWARD' when we're playing it around the back.  If you don't like it I'd advise you go and watch some local football because it's commonplace now.  The stats show that it's successful and leads to more chance creation that just aimlessly pumping the ball up to the strikers and looking for scraps off them.

We weren't at our best last night, but we also barely needed to try to get a two goal lead.  Be careful what you wish for.

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Possibly but I don't think there will be enough teams better than us so we will continue to get away with it most games.

The problem is when Krul hoofs it long, more often than not it's to Sargent stuck on the wing with very little pitch to do anything.

At least we're trying to vary it a bit.

 

 

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It's disturbing that a performance like that was good enough to beat a very good team. But we have players who are capable of getting a goal out of nothing at this level. 

The worrying thing is that 7 or 8 of the starting 11 just aren't good enough to play in the Premier League and as we found last season, £10m doesn't necessarily buy you a Premier League player. Forest spent £160m in the summer and have a grand total of 4 VAR assisted points. They'd be bottom if the officials hadn't made mistakes against West Ham. 

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Routine win yesterday. Even on a off day we are better than every other team in this league.

E I E I O and all that 

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39 minutes ago, CANARYKING said:

Yes I know we win again but we can’t keep giving the ball away, letting the opponent run with the ball without any challenge and keep pissing about in our own penalty area. Sooner or later we’re going to come up against better opposition.

I think you've got to remember what we're missing. There is no way with a fully fit squad Smith is setting up with a midfield trio of Ramsey, McLean and Nunez. 

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33 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Bristol City were something like 4th and 6 unbeaten, how much better are we going to come up against? I'm not sure there was anyone in better form other than ourselves.

We're not going to see much better at this level, but the thing is that we do really need to be thinking about next season, when the standard of competition is going to jump dramatically once again. 

That was one of the more competitive games of the season and I enjoyed it for having a bit of suspense, but next time we meet them I want us to be so much better that all threat is contained and it's a walkover; that's what we need if we're to go into next Premier League season with a fighting chance. 

That said, that's not a reason not to enjoy the wins as they come. 

Edited by littleyellowbirdie

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23 minutes ago, Tetteys Jig said:

That’s the fine margins! We’d have lost that game 2-1 in the prem 

If we put in a performance like that in the prem it would've been 6-0.

Constantly giving the ball away, poor distribution from Krul, getting over run and letting a team put in that many crosses from out wide.

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How many saves did Krul have to make that troubled him? I don’t think the passing from the back can get much worse than last night. The worry for me is how poor we are in front of the defence. McLeans two goal involvements were very good, but he was so bad helping the defence out.

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17 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

We're not going to see much better at this level, but the thing is that we do really need to be thinking about next season, when the standard of competition is going to jump dramatically once again. 

That was one of the more competitive games of the season and I enjoyed it for having a bit of suspense, but next time we meet them I want us to be so much better that all threat is contained and it's a walkover; that's what we need if we're to go into next Premier League season with a fighting chance. 

That said, that's not a reason not to enjoy the wins as they come. 

I get what you're saying, and despite what I'm about to post, I generally speaking agree with you.

But if we take Brentford as 'the poster child', did they give the ball away in games, did they look weak defensively at times, did they nearly throw games in the Championship? Did they look like they'd struggle in the Prem at the time? How would they perform with one fit natural CM, no DM and no LB?

The answer of course is they lost 4-2 at home to Preston, 3-2 away to Stoke, 2-0 at home to Barnsley, 3-1 away to QPR, 2-0 away to Coventry.....

We're concerned about the Premier League season because of our last two (poor) attempts at it. But this is football, we have to take each game for what it is, we have to concentrate on this season first and foremost.

 

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I'm really not sure which elements of the performance people are unhappy about. Ultimately we should have scored a couple more and conceded a couple less, but that's in an ideal world. 

Bristol City set up in such an attacking way it was always going to be open. They seemed happy to try and defend 3 on 3 (sometimes 3 on 4) and ultimately paid the price. 

The two goals we conceded were both avoidable: the first we had plenty of players back but Hanley lost his man; the second had two fouls in the buildup then Nunez totally fluffed it up in our own box. Otherwise we allowed them plenty of possession, especially in wide areas, without great risk. 

Sinani had two great chances. Pukki could have had a third. Nunez missed two perfect opportunities to put Pukki through. I honestly think that 5-0 wouldn't have been an unfair reflection of the game.

I'm not a Dean Smith fan. But I'm really happy with the way the team is playing, especially since binning the 4-3-3. A decent holding midfielder and a few more weeks for Nunez and Sara to get up to speed and we'll be much more solid.

 

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4 minutes ago, Petriix said:

I'm really not sure which elements of the performance people are unhappy about. Ultimately we should have scored a couple more and conceded a couple less, but that's in an ideal world. 

Bristol City set up in such an attacking way it was always going to be open. They seemed happy to try and defend 3 on 3 (sometimes 3 on 4) and ultimately paid the price. 

The two goals we conceded were both avoidable: the first we had plenty of players back but Hanley lost his man; the second had two fouls in the buildup then Nunez totally fluffed it up in our own box. Otherwise we allowed them plenty of possession, especially in wide areas, without great risk. 

Sinani had two great chances. Pukki could have had a third. Nunez missed two perfect opportunities to put Pukki through. I honestly think that 5-0 wouldn't have been an unfair reflection of the game.

I'm not a Dean Smith fan. But I'm really happy with the way the team is playing, especially since binning the 4-3-3. A decent holding midfielder and a few more weeks for Nunez and Sara to get up to speed and we'll be much more solid.

 

Pretty much this, a great summary. Those suggesting we would have lost this in the Prem need to realise we are not in the Prem. Bristol are a good side at this level and we won this pretty easily.

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12 minutes ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

How many saves did Krul have to make that troubled him? I don’t think the passing from the back can get much worse than last night. The worry for me is how poor we are in front of the defence. McLeans two goal involvements were very good, but he was so bad helping the defence out.

He just can’t do that role. Not his fault but he’s bye passed too easily. I agree with the other post above that Krul did not have too many saves to make. Our last ditch defending and defending from crosses is seeing to that and has improved hugely, but our full backs are left so exposed and teams who put better quality into the box will exploit that. Thankfully we won’t meet too many this season so will get away with it most weeks but we are far from convincing defensively, in terms of ball retention and our ability to control games. The CDM vacuum continues to haunt us. 

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I'm really hoping now that Smith gives Sara a start. He has looked sharp and quick thinking in two of his recent cameos. It's about time he got the nod alongside Nunez.

Last night was exciting in terms of it being an open game - maybe one for the neutrals - but for my yellow and green eyes, can't help feeling disappointed that we didn't exercise more control (Fair play to BC, they were very good across the whole pitch. Surely they will be one of the top 6).

As a few have been saying we desperately need to dictate that midfield. We have missed Gibbs so much. Incredible as he is only 19. But his play was starting to look like a version of Olly Skipp. Get him back as soon as we can and give Sara more minutes (even before we get a glimpse of the long awaited Hayden). 

As I write I remind myself of just how many options in midfield we have (attacking and more central) .... Gibbs, McLean, Sorensen, Sara, Nunez, Hayden, Cantwell, Dowell, even Sinani. The challenge for Smith is to get the right combination for each bi-weekly test.

 

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12 minutes ago, Petriix said:

I'm really not sure which elements of the performance people are unhappy about. Ultimately we should have scored a couple more and conceded a couple less, but that's in an ideal world. 

Bristol City set up in such an attacking way it was always going to be open. They seemed happy to try and defend 3 on 3 (sometimes 3 on 4) and ultimately paid the price. 

The two goals we conceded were both avoidable: the first we had plenty of players back but Hanley lost his man; the second had two fouls in the buildup then Nunez totally fluffed it up in our own box. Otherwise we allowed them plenty of possession, especially in wide areas, without great risk. 

Sinani had two great chances. Pukki could have had a third. Nunez missed two perfect opportunities to put Pukki through. I honestly think that 5-0 wouldn't have been an unfair reflection of the game.

I'm not a Dean Smith fan. But I'm really happy with the way the team is playing, especially since binning the 4-3-3. A decent holding midfielder and a few more weeks for Nunez and Sara to get up to speed and we'll be much more solid.

 

The thing I'm not so happy about from last night was the work we did off the ball. Yes having a DM would help that but I'd still expect to see midfielders doing more in terms of pressing and making life a little more difficult for the Bristol midfield, even if it isn't their natural game. 

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1 minute ago, king canary said:

The thing I'm not so happy about from last night was the work we did off the ball. Yes having a DM would help that but I'd still expect to see midfielders doing more in terms of pressing and making life a little more difficult for the Bristol midfield, even if it isn't their natural game. 

Agreed, and there seemed to be a number of instances where the ball broke in a 50:50 area and we were really slow to react.

Can't argue with the results obviously, but I hope Smith can actually get us playing to our potential.

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I don't mind us passing the ball around at the back, but passing directly to one of their players on the edge of the area is another thing altogether !


Also when our players receive the ball in the box they need to be alert for players around them, as shown by their last goal.  OK it may have been distracting that everyone was expecting the foul on Aarons to be given, but given the new directive to refs and the general poor quality of refs in this division, our players need to wise up !

 

I am expecting Smith will improve all of this gradually - fact is, we still have a lot of new players in key positions.  The fact that we're on a winning run of 6 games despite clear areas that need improvement, and we ended a good unbeaten run for Bristol last night, all bodes well for me.

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12 minutes ago, king canary said:

The thing I'm not so happy about from last night was the work we did off the ball. Yes having a DM would help that but I'd still expect to see midfielders doing more in terms of pressing and making life a little more difficult for the Bristol midfield, even if it isn't their natural game. 

Don't disagree with this, I thought Todd was a culprit last night (off the ball).  He looked good when we were going forward in those first 20 mins, but he left Byram exposed to the point where I started feeling very sorry for him.

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4 minutes ago, ncfcstar said:

Don't disagree with this, I thought Todd was a culprit last night (off the ball).  He looked good when we were going forward in those first 20 mins, but he left Byram exposed to the point where I started feeling very sorry for him.

Yes, and the same happened against Cov during that awful second half spell.

Todd drifts inside and it leave a huge amount of space down that flank. It makes us hard to defend against when we have the ball because it allows us to overload teams through the middle and makes Todd hard to pick up. But when other teams have the ball he's slow to get back into position and last night the guy playing on the right for Bristol City was unmarked and with 40 yards of space to run into constantly. It changed a bit after Onel came on because he stayed wide and also their defender dropped a bit to keep an eye on him. If Sykes had been a better player we would have lost that game last night. WBA have decent wingers. We must not play the same line up on Saturday. 

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7 minutes ago, It's Character Forming said:

I am expecting Smith will improve all of this gradually - fact is, we still have a lot of new players in key positions.  

Only 2 new players in the 11 (and 1 on the bench), so not sure that's should be a major factor. A couple in less familiar positions I suppose.

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56 minutes ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

 The worry for me is how poor we are in front of the defence. McLeans two goal involvements were very good, but he was so bad helping the defence out.

I've just ranted about those sticking up for Kenny on another thread,mainly about his lack of screening of the defence which was his main role last night. But this is another important part of his role last night he did so badly. He should be showing for the ball and at least occupying some of the opposition when we have the ball at the back, but as usual he was completely missing in action, only getting involved when we got into trouble. If only he was more pre-emptive! We really need to ditch this square peg in a round hole as soon as possible.

Edited by shefcanary

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14 minutes ago, ncfcstar said:

Don't disagree with this, I thought Todd was a culprit last night (off the ball).  He looked good when we were going forward in those first 20 mins, but he left Byram exposed to the point where I started feeling very sorry for him.

In the end we now know Byram was exposed mainly because he was playing narrow to cover for Hanley's shoulder injury. On another night Gibson would be back on form and Byram could have been out wider and allowed Cantwell to get on with his job of pushing forward.  

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34 minutes ago, sonyc said:

I'm really hoping now that Smith gives Sara a start. He has looked sharp and quick thinking in two of his recent cameos. It's about time he got the nod alongside Nunez.

Last night was exciting in terms of it being an open game - maybe one for the neutrals - but for my yellow and green eyes, can't help feeling disappointed that we didn't exercise more control (Fair play to BC, they were very good across the whole pitch. Surely they will be one of the top 6).

As a few have been saying we desperately need to dictate that midfield. We have missed Gibbs so much. Incredible as he is only 19. But his play was starting to look like a version of Olly Skipp. Get him back as soon as we can and give Sara more minutes (even before we get a glimpse of the long awaited Hayden). 

As I write I remind myself of just how many options in midfield we have (attacking and more central) .... Gibbs, McLean, Sorensen, Sara, Nunez, Hayden, Cantwell, Dowell, even Sinani. The challenge for Smith is to get the right combination for each bi-weekly test.

 

I think we could win games more conclusively at this level by being more controlled in the approach, but with more discipline comes the risk of more rigidity. Being too disciplined and systemic makes things more predictable and easier to counter, which may be a part of our problem in the Premier League. 

You need structure, but you also need to give players a bit of freedom to develop.

Edited by littleyellowbirdie
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9 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I think we could win games more conclusively at this level by being more controlled in the approach, but with more discipline comes the risk of more rigidity. Being too disciplined and systemic makes things more predictable and easier to counter, which may be a part of our problem in the Premier League. 

You need structure, but you also need to give players a bit of freedom to develop.

Agreed, and Gibbs was giving us that control to enable our better players the freedom they deserve. However last night, relying on McLean shows just how poor our recruitment and reliance on Hayden has been! The sooner Gibbs is back the better, I'm certainly not hanging my hat on Hayden being fit, or McLean suddenly upping his game.

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13 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

In the end we now know Byram was exposed mainly because he was playing narrow to cover for Hanley's shoulder injury. On another night Gibson would be back on form and Byram could have been out wider and allowed Cantwell to get on with his job of pushing forward.  

Pretty sure Smith said Hanley felt his shoulder after half time, I was mainly referencing the first half.

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5 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

Agreed, and Gibbs was giving us that control to enable our better players the freedom they deserve. However last night, relying on McLean shows just how poor our recruitment and reliance on Hayden has been! The sooner Gibbs is back the better, I'm certainly not hanging my hat on Hayden being fit, or McLean suddenly upping his game.

To a degree, but at this level Gibbs and Sorensen are capable, which I'm guessing was part of the pre-season thinking.

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i think with the new Signings and Gibbs now Mclean will be benched 

until we have a fully fit squad he will be ok and at this level a good squad player 

One thing that annoys me more than anything about Mclean is he is so so quick to point and shout at others mistakes but he makes just as many if not more 

to be the pointer in the team  you have to be the Best / most effort and lead by example i can do it why can you not type Kenny has to be 8/10 to be that guy and sadly he is not good enough to lead by example 

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