| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? 11:06 - Nov 21 with 2844 views | SomethingBlue |
A lot of pressure on Rotherham game now, just as there was at Wycombe. Win it and yesterday can more or less be chalked off, we'd be on about par for what you'd expect from this tricky run.
Fall short and we're back in danger territory, for me. Can't make any argument that four points from Plymouth, Oxford, Wycombe, Sunderland and Rotherham would be good enough and I don't think five would be either. We need to deliver, it's going to be the toughest game yet but can't really see any available excuses.
My expectation: we draw and then beat Crewe pretty comfortably, meaning we're not out of contention but still not doing anywhere near enough. It's not hard to see us continuing to bob along like that. Hope I'm very wrong. |  |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:17 - Nov 21 with 2799 views | clive_baker |
Yep. Always feel a bit arbitrary to carve up the season into small amounts of matches but I did think pre Sunderland that we needed 6 points from Sunderland, Rotherham and Crewe. That would maintain our 2 points per game average that we had seen for the prior 7 matches. 20 points from the past 10 would be very good and for that will firmly see us into the playoffs. Puts a huge amount of pressure on Tuesday though. Follow up with a good performance and win against them and Crewe and you would have to say it’s a good return from the 10 games (20 points, 6 wins, 2 draws, 2 defeats. Both of which away, both of which we probably deserved a point).
All ifs and buts though. Need 3 points Tuesday. |  |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:30 - Nov 21 with 2756 views | LankHenners |
The best teams in any division are consistent. They may not always be the strongest team on paper in terms of quality or play in a particularly expansive or eye-opening way but they know how to keep picking up results. Right now we're not that team - we can seemingly turn it on occasionally when things go our way but to be frank our high goals scored tally is padded out by some big wins and game-to-game we don't create enough or test the opposition GK enough whilst still having the ability to be fragile at the back (despite some recent improvements, largely down to Edmundson coming right into form and Walton steadying things).
Have to win Tuesday really just to get back to roughly where we were a few weeks ago, anything else and we've failed the assignment we set ourselves from before Plymouth. We could well pick up wins again against teams in mid and lower table but then we're back to last season - even if we did make it to the playoffs, is there enough evidence that we'd get through it? |  |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:43 - Nov 21 with 2731 views | SomethingBlue |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:17 - Nov 21 by clive_baker |
Yep. Always feel a bit arbitrary to carve up the season into small amounts of matches but I did think pre Sunderland that we needed 6 points from Sunderland, Rotherham and Crewe. That would maintain our 2 points per game average that we had seen for the prior 7 matches. 20 points from the past 10 would be very good and for that will firmly see us into the playoffs. Puts a huge amount of pressure on Tuesday though. Follow up with a good performance and win against them and Crewe and you would have to say it’s a good return from the 10 games (20 points, 6 wins, 2 draws, 2 defeats. Both of which away, both of which we probably deserved a point).
All ifs and buts though. Need 3 points Tuesday. |
Agree re arbitrariness, but this run against higher-fliers was always going to be telling after such an inconsistent start. Think seven points from it is totally fine — no better no worse — but any fewer and we still haven't got it together with the halfway mark getting closer. Definitely one we can win so hopefully we show up as at Wycombe. | |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:44 - Nov 21 with 2733 views | SomethingBlue |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:30 - Nov 21 by LankHenners |
The best teams in any division are consistent. They may not always be the strongest team on paper in terms of quality or play in a particularly expansive or eye-opening way but they know how to keep picking up results. Right now we're not that team - we can seemingly turn it on occasionally when things go our way but to be frank our high goals scored tally is padded out by some big wins and game-to-game we don't create enough or test the opposition GK enough whilst still having the ability to be fragile at the back (despite some recent improvements, largely down to Edmundson coming right into form and Walton steadying things).
Have to win Tuesday really just to get back to roughly where we were a few weeks ago, anything else and we've failed the assignment we set ourselves from before Plymouth. We could well pick up wins again against teams in mid and lower table but then we're back to last season - even if we did make it to the playoffs, is there enough evidence that we'd get through it? |
It's funny, I watched the highlights expecting to see we'd missed some sitters but we ... really didn't. You're right, we don't generally create enough for all the control we have in games. | |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:08 - Nov 21 with 2676 views | PhilTWTD |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:44 - Nov 21 by SomethingBlue |
It's funny, I watched the highlights expecting to see we'd missed some sitters but we ... really didn't. You're right, we don't generally create enough for all the control we have in games. |
The highlights missed two of the best chances, Celina's early shot and Aluko's effort in the second half. If you create those chances - and the other one Celina missed twice - away from home you really should be winning the game, especially when preventing the opposition from managing a shot on target until the 85th minute. |  | | |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:23 - Nov 21 with 2637 views | SomethingBlue |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:08 - Nov 21 by PhilTWTD |
The highlights missed two of the best chances, Celina's early shot and Aluko's effort in the second half. If you create those chances - and the other one Celina missed twice - away from home you really should be winning the game, especially when preventing the opposition from managing a shot on target until the 85th minute. |
Ah fair enough. Not the first time those short EFL packages have missed out key events! | |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:30 - Nov 21 with 2610 views | pointofblue |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:30 - Nov 21 by LankHenners |
The best teams in any division are consistent. They may not always be the strongest team on paper in terms of quality or play in a particularly expansive or eye-opening way but they know how to keep picking up results. Right now we're not that team - we can seemingly turn it on occasionally when things go our way but to be frank our high goals scored tally is padded out by some big wins and game-to-game we don't create enough or test the opposition GK enough whilst still having the ability to be fragile at the back (despite some recent improvements, largely down to Edmundson coming right into form and Walton steadying things).
Have to win Tuesday really just to get back to roughly where we were a few weeks ago, anything else and we've failed the assignment we set ourselves from before Plymouth. We could well pick up wins again against teams in mid and lower table but then we're back to last season - even if we did make it to the playoffs, is there enough evidence that we'd get through it? |
If we make the play offs from here we’d be going in on a high as we would have had to have entered a superb run of form to manage it. | |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:31 - Nov 21 with 2602 views | Darth_Koont |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:08 - Nov 21 by PhilTWTD |
The highlights missed two of the best chances, Celina's early shot and Aluko's effort in the second half. If you create those chances - and the other one Celina missed twice - away from home you really should be winning the game, especially when preventing the opposition from managing a shot on target until the 85th minute. |
Indeed. While I think we should still have had more cutting edge/cohesion in the final third we missed enough actual chances to win the game fairly comfortably.
Massively frustrating to go away to a supposedly top team, make them look very ordinary and then come away with nowt. |  |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:34 - Nov 21 with 2580 views | PhilTWTD |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:23 - Nov 21 by SomethingBlue |
Ah fair enough. Not the first time those short EFL packages have missed out key events! |
Yes, they can be very inconsistent. The Morsy chance was a decent one as well. Away from home if you create four or five good chances while keeping it tight at the other end - for 85 minutes - you ought to have done enough to win the game.
Lee Johnson's presser was among the more ridiculous I've heard, BTW. Totally tried to portray the win as one achieved through clever tactics and a good defensive performance rather than through the good fortune of Town finishing poorly, profiting from an error and a daft penalty award. | | | |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:36 - Nov 21 with 2555 views | chrismakin |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:34 - Nov 21 by PhilTWTD |
Yes, they can be very inconsistent. The Morsy chance was a decent one as well. Away from home if you create four or five good chances while keeping it tight at the other end - for 85 minutes - you ought to have done enough to win the game.
Lee Johnson's presser was among the more ridiculous I've heard, BTW. Totally tried to portray the win as one achieved through clever tactics and a good defensive performance rather than through the good fortune of Town finishing poorly, profiting from an error and a daft penalty award. |
TBF Phil, 2nd half they let us have the ball dropped off and we didn't hurt them at all. As a manager you would be delighted with that, they aren't the first to do it to us. |  |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 13:02 - Nov 21 with 2498 views | itfcjoe |
It’s hard to see things really clicking from here, just to get in the play offs we are going to need something like 2ppg, and it’s going to take some really good runs of form - we could win next 5-6 on the bounce and would likely not even be in the top 6. Hard to overstate just how far off it we are currently.
Back to back wins at PR this week the only option |  |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 13:07 - Nov 21 with 2484 views | ElderGrizzly |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 13:02 - Nov 21 by itfcjoe |
It’s hard to see things really clicking from here, just to get in the play offs we are going to need something like 2ppg, and it’s going to take some really good runs of form - we could win next 5-6 on the bounce and would likely not even be in the top 6. Hard to overstate just how far off it we are currently.
Back to back wins at PR this week the only option |
It was a huge achievement to win 2 in a row for us it appears. Winning 4 or 5 in a row appears like a fairytale right now. |  | | |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 13:16 - Nov 21 with 2464 views | clive_baker |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 13:02 - Nov 21 by itfcjoe |
It’s hard to see things really clicking from here, just to get in the play offs we are going to need something like 2ppg, and it’s going to take some really good runs of form - we could win next 5-6 on the bounce and would likely not even be in the top 6. Hard to overstate just how far off it we are currently.
Back to back wins at PR this week the only option |
6 points from these 3 would be a good return, and represents 2 ppg which we had averaged in the 7 prior to Sunderland. 20pts from 10 is very good but it relies on us winning 2 games in the next week, and I’m not overly confident we will do that. | |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 13:55 - Nov 21 with 2376 views | itfcjoe |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 13:16 - Nov 21 by clive_baker |
6 points from these 3 would be a good return, and represents 2 ppg which we had averaged in the 7 prior to Sunderland. 20pts from 10 is very good but it relies on us winning 2 games in the next week, and I’m not overly confident we will do that. |
If we aren’t able to do that, and it’s a big ask on Tuesday to even do the first leg of that, then feels difficult to cut our recent results in any way that puts us in good enough form | |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 13:57 - Nov 21 with 2371 views | LankHenners |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:44 - Nov 21 by SomethingBlue |
It's funny, I watched the highlights expecting to see we'd missed some sitters but we ... really didn't. You're right, we don't generally create enough for all the control we have in games. |
Clearly it seems the highlights didn't include everything but the way some people talk about our games it's almost 'well if we scored the 5 shots we had and the other team didn't have any shots at all we'd have won comfortably' which unfortunately isn't the real world.
As has been said in other circumstances you could take yesterday as 'one of those days' but we've had too many of 'those days', particularly with the dire run at the start of the season but equally Cambridge and Oxford were both games where 3 points were right there for the taking and for different reasons we only took 1.
I appreciate we're unlikely to be having several good chances every game and scoring 3 or so of them, and in this division (or any, really) there'll be games where you just have to take what you get and hold onto it but we can't do that on a consistent basis which is very frustrating.
It's all well and good saying 'well if we win x amount of games then we'll end up y' but in a few weeks it's gone from 'a few wins might see us into the playoffs' to 'oh, it might take several wins just to get near there'.
I hope we can pull ourselves to the coattails (at the very least) of 6th, although that still isn't good enough, by NYD as January and February are a healthy couple of months of games where we should be backing ourselves to get a good points haul even at our most mediocre. Do that and you never know but unfortunately it's hard to see it at present. | |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 14:01 - Nov 21 with 2341 views | JDB23 |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 13:55 - Nov 21 by itfcjoe |
If we aren’t able to do that, and it’s a big ask on Tuesday to even do the first leg of that, then feels difficult to cut our recent results in any way that puts us in good enough form |
I don’t think I’ve been less confident of a home win since being in League 1 tbh. Rotherham are a genuine title contender and we’re miles off that. Really do hope we buck the trend and put in a great display in a big home game. As you say, anything less than 6 in the next 2 and we really are struggling. | | | |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 14:37 - Nov 21 with 2241 views | PhilTWTD |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:36 - Nov 21 by chrismakin |
TBF Phil, 2nd half they let us have the ball dropped off and we didn't hurt them at all. As a manager you would be delighted with that, they aren't the first to do it to us. |
Think allowing us quite so much of the ball was down to incompetence to some degree, they lost it quickly almost every time they had it for the first 25 minutes or so of the second half! | | | |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 14:46 - Nov 21 with 2213 views | Churchman |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 14:01 - Nov 21 by JDB23 |
I don’t think I’ve been less confident of a home win since being in League 1 tbh. Rotherham are a genuine title contender and we’re miles off that. Really do hope we buck the trend and put in a great display in a big home game. As you say, anything less than 6 in the next 2 and we really are struggling. |
I can’t agree with that. This time last season we played a sequence of games against the better teams and it was obvious we’d lose. It was just a question of how many. And so it proved. This season, we could lose easily to Rotherham or we could go out and batter them. We are that inconsistent. |  | | |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 14:48 - Nov 21 with 2211 views | istanblue |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 11:17 - Nov 21 by clive_baker |
Yep. Always feel a bit arbitrary to carve up the season into small amounts of matches but I did think pre Sunderland that we needed 6 points from Sunderland, Rotherham and Crewe. That would maintain our 2 points per game average that we had seen for the prior 7 matches. 20 points from the past 10 would be very good and for that will firmly see us into the playoffs. Puts a huge amount of pressure on Tuesday though. Follow up with a good performance and win against them and Crewe and you would have to say it’s a good return from the 10 games (20 points, 6 wins, 2 draws, 2 defeats. Both of which away, both of which we probably deserved a point).
All ifs and buts though. Need 3 points Tuesday. |
I always look at fixtures month-by-month. Most people said we needed 10-12 points from November if we are to maintain any hope for top 6. So far we are on 4, meaning we MUST beat Rotherham and Crewe to stay on track for the minimum requirement. Personally, I can only see us drawing with Rotherham and beating Crewe i.e. doing just enough to remain remotely competitive and keeping Cook in a job. |  | | |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 15:02 - Nov 21 with 2168 views | gazzer1999 |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:34 - Nov 21 by PhilTWTD |
Yes, they can be very inconsistent. The Morsy chance was a decent one as well. Away from home if you create four or five good chances while keeping it tight at the other end - for 85 minutes - you ought to have done enough to win the game.
Lee Johnson's presser was among the more ridiculous I've heard, BTW. Totally tried to portray the win as one achieved through clever tactics and a good defensive performance rather than through the good fortune of Town finishing poorly, profiting from an error and a daft penalty award. |
Good fortune? What about Oldham was that not good fortune? you still have to put the ball in the net. They did and we didn't, don't try and gloss over it we lost yesterday and got lucky at Oldham. It's a results business and we are showing zero consistency in being able to sustain a promotion push. Cook has been a disaster since the day he came through the door, bar a couple of blips where we scored a few goals. As I said in a previous post the support this club is getting from the fans is probably the best I have seen, including from Sir Bobby's time, it is now time for Cook to demonstrate he is doing the same, he has got the players he wants so he should prove it or move on else where. All of the last 20 years has been abysmal, nothing for supporters of that age group to sing and shout about, change needs to come fast before it is too late this season. |  | | |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 15:24 - Nov 21 with 2113 views | jontysnut |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 12:30 - Nov 21 by pointofblue |
If we make the play offs from here we’d be going in on a high as we would have had to have entered a superb run of form to manage it. |
Yes. 6 league wins in 18 games is mid table form and unfortunately there are no points for playing well. We have the players to improve that win ratio but they need to start doing that sharpish or else we'll need snookers. |  | | |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 15:35 - Nov 21 with 2094 views | Steve_M |
I think it’s quite telling that we’ve won successive league matches only once under Cook. There have been enough good results this season to provide a bit of optimism but we just don’t seem capable of building on them. That, 18 games into the season, we’re still doing questions about the three behind the stroller is concerning too.
It’s just middling form all round, not really much different to the end of last season or Lambert’s time here. So we’re left needing a really big week now just to drag ourselves back into contention. Very disappointing. |  |
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| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 15:35 - Nov 21 with 2090 views | Steve_M |
| Basically back where we were after Plymouth, aren't we? on 15:02 - Nov 21 by gazzer1999 |
Good fortune? What about Oldham was that not good fortune? you still have to put the ball in the net. They did and we didn't, don't try and gloss over it we lost yesterday and got lucky at Oldham. It's a results business and we are showing zero consistency in being able to sustain a promotion push. Cook has been a disaster since the day he came through the door, bar a couple of blips where we scored a few goals. As I said in a previous post the support this club is getting from the fans is probably the best I have seen, including from Sir Bobby's time, it is now time for Cook to demonstrate he is doing the same, he has got the players he wants so he should prove it or move on else where. All of the last 20 years has been abysmal, nothing for supporters of that age group to sing and shout about, change needs to come fast before it is too late this season. |
You’ve not understood the point Phil was making there have you? | |
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