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Post by andyl on Feb 7, 2015 22:02:19 GMT
Didn't mention that the game ended with the most glaring one o one professional foul on Le Fondre. It was a model red card dismissal and somehow the referee missed it. It may have seemed an irrelevance by then but it was a very bad lack of decision indeed
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2015 10:42:50 GMT
Just 1 question has NL signed a contract or not? because I read somewhere on here that he has not signed a contract I hope for our sake he does not decide to go to a prem club
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Post by whitesince63 on Feb 8, 2015 10:59:50 GMT
It beats me that people are expecting the rag bag collection we currently have should suddenly turn into what they never were before. Reducing the wage bill in many ways actually means reducing the quality. that would certainly be true in the case of some of the players from the BSA era and even dare I say the Megson one. The last of our quality players, Chungy has now gone and it's too early to properly judge the youngsters such as Vela and Clough. So basically we're stuffed with average loanees and journeymen. It's been a constant reducing of quality over the last 10 years yet with debt still increasing to unsustainable levels. If we're going to challenge for promotion any time soon either we have to hope our kids come through or NL has to unearth half a dozen hidden gems. What we won't have is the finance to bring in quality ready made players to change our fortunes. Personally I don't think Lennon will be here for the length of time needed to do that. His aspirations are for the PL and just from what he's done so far his stock must be pretty high and I'm sure he'll soon be on a few hit lists.
I think we all need to be realistic in our hopes and expectations. We're basically starting again and to be honest the best hope for us is for an investor to come in and restore the funding capability. It's obvious whatever management tries to tell us, the financial aspects of the club have been atrociously handled. We need a clear out and start again, a new era. Whether NL will be part of that remains to seen. I hope so but sincerely doubt it.
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Post by cadders on Feb 8, 2015 11:14:41 GMT
Whites, whilst you are right what disappointed me yesterday was the apparent lack of fight after we conceded, that's more about commitment than quality. Derby could easily have scored another 2 or 3 in the second half. Given the resources at his disposal NL is doing a great job and I for one hope he stays. It's a pity some of the players don't have his "fight"!
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Post by OohMac on Feb 8, 2015 11:28:40 GMT
Back to back drubbings in the league, those Liverpool games have come at a cost. Now we're still looking over our shoulder. We need a few wins now to seal our Championship status never mind play offs. We could do without the midweek games for a while but got 2 big games coming up. Least they're both at homes though tough games against Fulham and Watford. Would love 4 points but think maybe 2.
I thought for all the lack of attacking options at least our defence was solid and sturdy but thats been ripped to shreads. I've not known the best 4 or 5 to play all season. Sometimes Wheater and Mills look the obvious pairing but then sometimes they go off the boil completely. Dervite too is hit and miss and as for full backs thats anyones guess. When we were doing well it was Vela and Ream in a back four but we really need Vela in midfield. I'd like to see a Trotter and Feeney free line up for a couple of games.
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Post by andyl on Feb 8, 2015 12:22:18 GMT
You are of course broadly right, whitessince63. To balance this, however, we need to allow that the club owns many of its assets and has a splendid academy, training and club infrastructure with excellent facilities ( I'm not here talking about the players) and its debt is essentially to one man who has indulged previous spending and not called time on his loans. NL, DF and OC before them all remarked on how the set up had attracted them. Many other clubs have worse. I've said this more than once but not everything DF did was bad. NL has joined a club where he could hit the boards running.
And yes Chungy was our best player and he has left. But this can be balanced by the fact that Spearing, who wasn't, has left at least temporarily. I understand that their wages amounted to more than all the recent new recruits aggregated. We are now unthreatened by FFP. That's good. But of course we cannot aspire to Premier League without new backers and as a balance to that we are after yesterday a whole lot closer to the relegation scrap than the play off fight. Losses to Fulham and Watford would illuminate that.
I spoke to at least one person at the game and after and we both, whilst hating the defeat, also saw some really promising shoots of recovery especially in the first 30 minutes. Bannen looked really good and so too did Twardzik in an understated way. And although Simeon S was off the pace for most of his debut right at the end crossing to the left he made a splendid run with excellent close control.
Although we were clearly well beaten and that very fact is bound to demoralise,I dispute that we gave up . Towards the end we broke through really well on the left and but for Moxey ploughing into a defender to no purpose after previous excellent interpassing would have forced a corner with lots of momentum with us because of the power and finesse of the build up. A stupid foul which deserved a caution. Even at the very end we sliced them apart and only a red card challenge halted Le Fondre. At 3-1 we were most definitely in with a shout and if Feeney had been a better player than he is he would have been more easily found with passes ( it was often passes aimed at him which went into touch) then he would have made some good chances. This was not a Freedman style negative effort. It was not the sort of game endured at Fulham under Coyle or ditto in his last match Freedman. No one threw in the towel. They battled well against the best team in the league and without : Mills and Wheater, deadlegged midway through the first half, at the back; Danns 'holding role which he has played a lot better than most of us realised and attested by our collapse after he departed on Wednesday; and a whole stack of others undergoing physio. So result apart it wasn't that dispiriting.
Clough made some excellent runs and again breathed life and vitality into our forward movement. He is good at holding the ball to allow others to make incisive runs to create opportunities. On the ground he is good with Le Fondre. He just needs to learn to release when under pressure. At present he always opts for the difficult pass or hold. It's a bit like a good spin bowler in cricket who can do something challenging with every ball but has to learn the art of doing something boring 80% of the time so that the exceptional can be more effective and surprising. It is hard to learn attritional skills at a young age and both Clough and Vela struggled with that yesterday.
We do though need to plug deficiencies at the back. We need more experienced full back play. Vela has done well until yesterday but Ream struggles there.in a back four, lacking positional sense on the flank , not being the quickest off the mark and sometimes being physically muscled off possession . If we play three at the back Ream is better and the left looks stronger. Yesterday Ince had Ream on toast and it gave them a real lift. We were actually a bit better I thought when Moxey played the deeper role after half time. But in back three we have a glaring gap on the right at the back which Feeney is ever slow to cover and even in the four we had a gap there yesterday because Vela was so disoriented.
And we really need Bogdan back. You could look at the four goals yesterday and think Lonergan was horribly exposed and had no chance with any. And at one level it's true. And yet he just looked flimsy and off the pace throughout, an impression enhanced by his realy poor and flow breaking distribution. Goal one saw him lift off slowly and arrive late and low- he almost finished up in a curled position but it was a great free kick and only a brilliant save could have thwarted it. Goal 3 he had spurned a roll out and conceded possession albeit a couple of phases of play before Vela's mistake. And goal 4 he was left flat footed as the ball moved across him twice. But for all three the goal that ensued weren't really his direct fault and nor was Goal two- on the face of it the one where he was the most blameless. But I think that it is to Goal 2,the Ince shot late on against the post and Dicko's goal last week from a similar position that we need to look to identify why he appears flimsy. And in all three cases he dives when the forward is one on one and the ball goes under his body whilst he dives. In the case of Ince's shot although guarding the nearpost he dives to his left and over it. You would expect perhaps that he would guard the post with his legs and dive to his right to anticipate a text book cross shot but no he shows the left post to the attacker and dives over theball when the attacker accepts. What is the problem? I think it's that he doesn't seem willing or able to use his feet and legs . Pat Jennings was an old time master of this art, so too was Peter Schmeichel but others of the modern era are good too- for example De Gea, Lloris and actually our own Bogdan is quite good at it too as was Jussi who was better still. They approached those situations quite differently to Lonergan. Yesterday Hendrick seemed to make a mistake in his approach to goal two. He got past Wheater, stumbled past an ineffective Vela and then with a simple pass to an unmarked colleague in front of an open goal opted to crack it straight at Lonergan. Lonergan dived as is his wont so the ball fired underneath his body and he had no chance at all. Hendrick peeled away to deserved acclaim. But if in the middle of his goal Lonergan advances two yards as he had time to do and stands tall and spreads his legs wide that shot stands a chance of hitting his body and all Hendrick would have received would have been abuse from his better placed team mate and manager. OK sometimes diving works for him. He has better spring than Bogdan and he has pulled off some excellent saves when guessing right and they fire high but this apparent lack of ability or willingness to attempt to block shots with all parts of his body is a weakness. Bogdan had a good game at Liverpool and blocked out Sterling several times from the left. Even more markedly Joel, Everton's keeper made several Sterling stops yesterday like this. The stops aren't pretty but they are effective. Lonergan makes it easier for the attacker too often. he nees to add some uglier leg and body blocks to his repertoire. We would look solider and the whole team would gain in confidence. A goalkeeper can affect that when you can sense that the opposition are unsure how best to beat him. Bogdan demonstrated that at Liverpool. It wasn't so much the saves he made but the aura he radiated on that day that gave confidence.
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Post by riochforthereebok on Feb 8, 2015 12:25:24 GMT
It beats me that people are expecting the rag bag collection we currently have should suddenly turn into what they never were before. Reducing the wage bill in many ways actually means reducing the quality. that would certainly be true in the case of some of the players from the BSA era and even dare I say the Megson one. The last of our quality players, Chungy has now gone and it's too early to properly judge the youngsters such as Vela and Clough. So basically we're stuffed with average loanees and journeymen. It's been a constant reducing of quality over the last 10 years yet with debt still increasing to unsustainable levels. If we're going to challenge for promotion any time soon either we have to hope our kids come through or NL has to unearth half a dozen hidden gems. What we won't have is the finance to bring in quality ready made players to change our fortunes. Personally I don't think Lennon will be here for the length of time needed to do that. His aspirations are for the PL and just from what he's done so far his stock must be pretty high and I'm sure he'll soon be on a few hit lists. I think we all need to be realistic in our hopes and expectations. We're basically starting again and to be honest the best hope for us is for an investor to come in and restore the funding capability. It's obvious whatever management tries to tell us, the financial aspects of the club have been atrociously handled. We need a clear out and start again, a new era. Whether NL will be part of that remains to seen. I hope so but sincerely doubt it. Spot on W63 We've got to the point now that any obvious talent on display is there for the vulchers to take.. I wish Andy Kellett well and I hope Zac Clough is our new McAteer, but these promising kids, the ones Freedman ignored, are more than likely all that the club has on offer, therefore, we have to blood the kids to put them in the shop window to keep ourselves afloat and that means that we have to become a selling club. I can't see any other way, unless of course NL stays on a long term deal to rebuild and revolutionise BWFC and dictates to Gartside and Davies how it should be fone. Other than that, the two aforementioned should resign and sell up to new investors and we go the Emirates way!!!
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Post by whitesince63 on Feb 8, 2015 18:18:15 GMT
I think the main difference between the era's is that whilst BSA paid high salaries for high quality which showed on the field, others since, starting with Sammy Lee have paid high wages for mediocrity culminating in Freedman just importing rubbish as his effort to reduce wages. There's no way we can expect these players to perform to a high level because they won't do consistently. You get what you pay for and that's showing just now. Time will tell whether the recent signings allied to our new kids will do the trick. I sincerely hope so and that one or two of them might be real gems but sadly if they are with our new wage restrictions they would soon be poached by those who can pay. Only a take over will really help but there doesn't appear to be one on the horizon so it doesn't look rosy for us in the short term but then I hope I'm wrong!!! ?
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Post by megsontilidie on Feb 8, 2015 19:42:30 GMT
Back to back drubbings in the league, those Liverpool games have come at a cost. Now we're still looking over our shoulder. We need a few wins now to seal our Championshi p status never mind play offs. We could do without the midweek games for a while but got 2 big games coming up. Least they're both at homes though tough games against Fulham and Watford. Would love 4 points but think maybe 2. I thought for all the lack of attacking options at least our defence was solid and sturdy but thats been ripped to shreads. I've not known the best 4 or 5 to play all season. Sometimes Wheater and Mills look the obvious pairing but then sometimes they go off the boil completely. Dervite too is hit and miss and as for full backs thats anyones guess. When we were doing well it was Vela and Ream in a back four but we really need Vela in midfield. I'd like to see a Trotter and Feeney free line up for a couple of games. some good points there O.M. you've pretty much summed up my view. still can't believe Feeney is getting so many minutes. he's decent at times, but should be a 60 min player or from the bench. injuries are taking their toll, and it's the key ones to players like Cravies, Pratley etc that hit you hard. the midfield engine room was completely missing the legs of Danns, and Pratley. at least Danns will be back next time out and will be fresher. Vela and Ream could be the next ones to get injuries if they aren't rested too but we can't really afford to rest either. i've always said DF over-rotated , but NL still has a thing or 2 to learn about injury prevention with so many soft tissue injuries ( a good reason for him to learn it here and not rush to the Prem !!..unless that's taking us there too ) . the lack of physical presence up front (heskey ,cravies ) is hurting us, esp in tough away games . Lonergan is very hit and miss. made some good saves v Liv, but errors are appearing all too frequently... v rotherham, dicko, the 2nd yesterday. his long run of clean sheets seems a distant memory. really annoying that Bogdan should get injured after a great display in 1st leg v liv. his injury record is becoming a real problem. Mcnaughton was one of Df's better loan signings last year, it's a bit odd he's been frozen out so much. fine to focus on your own players rather than loanees when you have a fully fit squad but make use of them during injury crises like this to protect your own from further damage.
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Post by Phil from Smithills on Feb 8, 2015 20:33:20 GMT
Just 1 question has NL signed a contract or not? because I read somewhere on here that he has not signed a contract I hope for our sake he does not decide to go to a prem club I did read that he has a 3 year deal, but whether he has signed it, we will have to wait and see, but with Leicester sacking Nigel Pearson today ( Sunday) we will have to see what happens.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2015 21:06:45 GMT
I can't think were I saw it but now Leicester have sacked there manager or have they who knows. Did NL play for Leicester? Anyway lets look forward to Tuesday night and hope we can get 3 points but it will be an interesting last 17 games full of ups and downs
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Post by Phil from Smithills on Feb 9, 2015 12:19:08 GMT
Looks like "SKY---First With News" was a little incorrect this time as Nigel Pearson was still in office Monday morning according to BBC 5 Live.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2015 19:35:38 GMT
told you that last night ,under lennon 2nd fav .
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