| Yesterday was absolutely gutting 11:53 - Feb 23 with 3685 views | SomethingBlue |
Really, really gutting. I can't shake it. I am thinking about everything that has been squandered. The excellent start to the season and lead at the top, yes, but also the goodwill and enthusiasm for the task in hand that was — pretty much against expectation — generated among the fanbase. That's right on the edge now, if it hasn't already fallen off the cliff, and I fear it's going to be a very long way back once the mood has turned again. Was reasonably ugly at the end and I don't think any of it was unreasonable.
The game itself? For 35/40 minutes I was happy enough; we probably all were. Seemed as if we could use that performance as a solid platform to go on and win it in the second half. I wonder if subconsciously the players began to think that too as the clock wound down. This might sound ludicrous but I saw their goal coming and said shortly before it that we needed to be careful. In the preceding five minutes our energy had dipped; things had begun to drift for the first time. Lambert and Taylor had both spotted it on the side, you could tell from their body language, but the seeds had been sown. We aren't really a team that can do that and get away with it, and we were duly picked off by a goal that looks worse every time I see it.
That second half was abysmal. Just dreadful. By the end we were playing like a team three goals down; one that had a duty to keep going and trying to salvage something, but with no real hope or belief that it could happen. Oxford are billed as an exceptional passing team but here they just did a job on us, and did it brilliantly under little strain. If only we had different sides to us like that. I never once felt we would score.
Lambert messed it up. At Norwich he would win games for them with his changes and in-game tweaks, time and again. He was brilliant at it; their fans will say as much. So what was that yesterday? Putting Bishop on the left and going to a four made a deteriorating performance worse, actually managed to rob us of any width whatsoever and left us short in the middle. Couldn't Sears have come on as a wide man if that's what we were after? Wouldn't Dobra be an option for those games, which seem to come every week now, where we have zero spark against well organised opponents? Why no Huws or Dozzell given that Nolan, after a good start to the game, shrunk to the extent that I can barely remember a forward pass or run beyond the front men? It was all wrong.
Keane had a good first half but, quite aside from his unwillingness to contest headers, was embarrassingly flat-footed in the second. This would actually have been a good game for Norwood to get under their centre-backs' skin, as he did to an extent in the away fixture. I would like to know exactly what has happened there as it is going to cost us massively. We were clearly aware his issues had not gone away and that there would be the risk of another absence. Why was no striker brought in during January? It's not acceptable.
Don't know what happens now, especially without our two front-line strikers for three massive games. Maybe it will focus us a little and, just as we did when apparently injury-ravaged at the start of the season, we'll pull some results out of the bag. But I make the margin for error virtually zero, the odds incredibly long, and this team well short of what it needs to avoid an outcome to the season that will debilitate us beyond recognition.
|  |
| |  |
| Yesterday was absolutely gutting on 15:54 - Feb 23 with 472 views | brogansnose |
| Yesterday was absolutely gutting on 15:31 - Feb 23 by textbackup |
If ME were to sit down at end of season, having seen us finish 8th, could even he think that PL will ‘do better’ the follow season with a weaker squad?! Lol
Whole thing will be An absolute joke if he stays |
He can't stay 5 year contract or not. We've seen enough, the bloke hasn't got it, he was lucky the once with fkn Norwich of all teams and that's it. |  | | |
| Yesterday was absolutely gutting on 16:18 - Feb 23 with 438 views | itfcjoe |
Another problem now is that PL now so on the back foot that he has a big proportion of the fan base turning against him - once that happens people are very stubborn to turn back no matter how he does |  |
| |
| Yesterday was absolutely gutting on 21:47 - Feb 23 with 338 views | backwaywhen |
You do realise it was not Lambert that made those tweaks at Norwich ....it was Culverhouse the tactical brains behind their success , without him Lambert is clueless, and all Nodge fans back that statement up , they were dreading The possible return of Culverhouse when Lambert joined us . | | | |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
