| This season 19:09 - Mar 8 with 2697 views | lunatic1988 |
Seen a lot of posts about this season and what’s killed us, people saying the gap is just too big. My personal opinion is Ithink it’s basically down to game management, just off my head
Brentford away (2-0 up) lost 4-3
Leicester at home (last minute equaliser)
Bournemouth at home (conceded two in last 5 minutes)
Fulham away (stoppage time penalty conceded)
Southampton at home (last minute winner)
Add these points up and would look pretty decent
Quality is definetly there, we’ve competed, still don’t think McKenna knows his best team, subs have been strange at times
Like to know everyone else’s opinions |  | | |  |
| This season on 19:11 - Mar 8 with 2664 views | Blue_Heath |
Saints/Leicester/us and last season shows the gap is too big.
This years bottom 3 on track to be worst bottom 3 in premier league history.
Like many I was naïve, the premier league has moved on hugely, we can't even compete with 14k Bournemouth for crying out loud. | | | |
| This season on 19:12 - Mar 8 with 2650 views | redrickstuhaart |
True. Though that is a function sometimes, of pressure and clinical opposition who are a bit quicker and stronger than you.
Also worth nothing highly questionable red cards at Brentford at Leicester, and the leicester pen. | | | |
| This season on 19:14 - Mar 8 with 2607 views | Blue_Heath |
| This season on 19:12 - Mar 8 by redrickstuhaart |
True. Though that is a function sometimes, of pressure and clinical opposition who are a bit quicker and stronger than you.
Also worth nothing highly questionable red cards at Brentford at Leicester, and the leicester pen. |
Even with those 5 points Wolves still above us with a game in hand. Equally they had some poor decisions at start of season too. | | | |
| This season on 19:18 - Mar 8 with 2584 views | the_toff |
Works both ways. Injury time goal at Southampton, injury time winner at Wolves, a point at Brighton after being 2nd best all game. Plenty more examples.
That’s just how football works isn’t it? We’re going down because we’ve only got 17 points and haven’t been good enough. It’s not a disgrace but it’s the reality. | | | |
| This season on 19:28 - Mar 8 with 2547 views | bluefunk |
Brentford is the game that changed everything IMO.
We were cruising at 2-0 in that game until Ogbenne got injured, and that unsettled us, and they then exploited our left hand side relentlessly. Add in the ridiculous Clarke sending off and we up against it. Then conceding the winner as we did destroyed the growing trust with Muric and the back 4 and a team that looked like it was growing into the season suddenly lost their momentum. |  | | |
| This season on 19:36 - Mar 8 with 2498 views | Swansea_Blue |
Better players manage those big moments better. It’s largely down to that.
Our transfer strategy may have backfired a bit. It was brave going mostly for younger players with potential, especially across that front four. They’ve not had long enough to learn and start delivering. |  |
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| This season on 23:27 - Mar 8 with 2251 views | mikeybloo88 |
What’s killed us is not enough goals. I’ve said all along that we have next to no goal threat or creativity from midfield and we have no clinical finishers. Defence of course hasn’t been brilliant but good enough imo...just not got enough quality at the sharp end |  | | |
| This season on 00:28 - Mar 9 with 2158 views | SaffronWaldenBlues |
The quality isn’t there, we won’t manage 30 points, for 100million we’re doing worse than Luton did with arguably a far weaker squad than we’ve come up with. What killed us was poor recruitment and over paying in both transfer windows. We’d have had roughly the same points had we come up not spending half of that money, that’s just how poor those windows were. |  |
| An East Anglian Town overtaken by Londoners |
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| This season on 00:52 - Mar 9 with 2124 views | Cafe_Newman |
We get shown up for lack of pace, physicality and ball retention far too often.
I thought team spirit and cohesiveness would pull us through.
I'm now relying on huge dollops of luck.
COYB |  | | |
| This season on 02:31 - Mar 9 with 2041 views | TheBlueGnu |
I think what has been the main problem can be summed up very quickly and very easily without any deep analysis at all. It's simple - we never played Barbara Knox upfront alongside Delap. | |
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| This season on 06:43 - Mar 9 with 1935 views | PioneerBlue |
There is something in many of the posts here which illustrates that it’s no one thing, some rightly carry more weight but when we all step back to review the season in the cool wet summer air of June we will know
MA gave it everything - the resources were maxed
KMcK and coaches gave it everything - the analytics and coaching hours
Players gave it everything - hours and hours on the training pitch and huge games against superior players
: Player development has been slower than we hoped
: Key positions in midfield attack and defense have lacked strength and impact
: Goals have been too difficult to create and score
: Recruitment was not poor, but the squad faced a disadvantage competing fully in the league when having to carry L1 players and introduce more technically adept players in a short time.
Mistakes will have been made, many with match deciding consequences. That. Is. Football.
How we finish this season as a club is important for how we start next. [Post edited 9 Mar 18:52]
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| This season on 07:42 - Mar 9 with 1804 views | mikeybloo88 |
| This season on 06:43 - Mar 9 by PioneerBlue |
There is something in many of the posts here which illustrates that it’s no one thing, some rightly carry more weight but when we all step back to review the season in the cool wet summer air of June we will know
MA gave it everything - the resources were maxed
KMcK and coaches gave it everything - the analytics and coaching hours
Players gave it everything - hours and hours on the training pitch and huge games against superior players
: Player development has been slower than we hoped
: Key positions in midfield attack and defense have lacked strength and impact
: Goals have been too difficult to create and score
: Recruitment was not poor, but the squad faced a disadvantage competing fully in the league when having to carry L1 players and introduce more technically adept players in a short time.
Mistakes will have been made, many with match deciding consequences. That. Is. Football.
How we finish this season as a club is important for how we start next. [Post edited 9 Mar 18:52]
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Good post...don’t think recruitment was great but maybe it was the best we could do. Just wasn’t good enough for what we now know is required at this level | | | |
| This season on 07:46 - Mar 9 with 1788 views | FrimleyBlue |
As Joe has pointed out before. KM does appear to know his best team. We've just not been able to field it as a team to often.
But its basically that we just aren't good enough.
Hopefully next time we come up we can recruit some quality from abroad. Think that's been our biggest weakness. |  |
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| This season on 07:52 - Mar 9 with 1766 views | tractorboy1978 |
We just don't have good enough players, that is the long and short of it. People can say we recruited poorly but really we recruited the only profile of player we could. We were never going to be in the market for PL pros with 100+ appearances under their belts.
You look at even our closest rivals Wolves and they have a raft of internationals and players with hundreds of top flight games under their belts.
Southampton and Leicester seem to be struggling even more than us and they came up with better squads with even more PL experience than us. The gap is huge now. | | | |
| This season on 07:59 - Mar 9 with 1729 views | badadski |
| This season on 07:46 - Mar 9 by FrimleyBlue |
As Joe has pointed out before. KM does appear to know his best team. We've just not been able to field it as a team to often.
But its basically that we just aren't good enough.
Hopefully next time we come up we can recruit some quality from abroad. Think that's been our biggest weakness. |
Team we have does not have a strength or style to play towards/nurture that will be better than an opposition. We will not have more possession through ball retention like we used to have due to quality and fitness of opposition, same reason that having finishers doesn’t work this season as teams don’t tire after 70. We don’t have a physical dominance and infact are quite a small team so actually get bullied bar delap. We don’t have any height so actually are constantly second to most throw ins or long balls and do not have the physical presence to pick up the second ball. Essentially we have a team of jack of all trades master of none. It’s suited to championship but not premier league. What’s surprised me most is McKenna not mixing it up and trying to change up the team to be more of a threat from one area. Go for height in the last 20 mins and stick burgess, greaves, wolf, Hirst, delap on same time - try and get corners and take advantage of your height. Power in the wings, stick delap on the wing to act as a John Walter’s and try and bully a light wingback etc [Post edited 9 Mar 8:14]
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| This season on 08:08 - Mar 9 with 1692 views | EssexBloo |
I think we’ve been competitive in a lot of games. Top sport is often down to fine margins and the games you’ve listed is evidence of that. Yesterday was another good example, we had 3 half/good chances that top sides would have put away. Arguably most PL defenders would have been stronger for the Palace goal. It’s these big moments which just haven’t gone our way. | | | |
| This season on 10:40 - Mar 9 with 1471 views | mikeybloo88 |
| This season on 08:08 - Mar 9 by EssexBloo |
I think we’ve been competitive in a lot of games. Top sport is often down to fine margins and the games you’ve listed is evidence of that. Yesterday was another good example, we had 3 half/good chances that top sides would have put away. Arguably most PL defenders would have been stronger for the Palace goal. It’s these big moments which just haven’t gone our way. |
But what you have just said has been the story of many matches this season...not good enough to finish chances we create, not good enough to create enough chances and defensively not strong enough to overcome the first two problems and see out games for a draw. | | | |
| This season on 13:06 - Mar 9 with 1392 views | BrentwoodBlagger2 |
| This season on 10:40 - Mar 9 by mikeybloo88 |
But what you have just said has been the story of many matches this season...not good enough to finish chances we create, not good enough to create enough chances and defensively not strong enough to overcome the first two problems and see out games for a draw. |
Yep correct about not scoring enough and conceding too many, but when we do compete like we did yesterday and a few other games, when we reach 80 minutes we always look like conceding at the end like we have so many times this season. Its been a journey, but sadly unless there is a miracle, we're down realistically. | | | |
| This season on 15:43 - Mar 10 with 1084 views | N2_Blue |
| This season on 07:42 - Mar 9 by mikeybloo88 |
Good post...don’t think recruitment was great but maybe it was the best we could do. Just wasn’t good enough for what we now know is required at this level |
I think the recruitment was ok (GK aside) but lacked vital Prem experience. Ironically i think thats why we probably signed Muric, because he'd played PL games and unfortnately it just didn't work out for us.
Expecting players like Clarke, Philogene to hit the ground running is a huge ask. I hate that fans have written them off.
What gives me most hope is i think players like Clarke and Philogene will be huge assets once they're settled and with another season under their belts. I think recruitment really was made with a thought to the fact we may or are likely to go down. It was prudent to do so as much as we all wanted to think we were going to be ok.
Even for Omari, this was his first PL season, it's a hge ask for it to happen immediately. Each one of the younger players will have learnt so much. They are going to be better for it. It's frustrating we are likely going down but look how difficult teams find it now and we were a L1 team 2 years ago whilst Southampton and Leicteser were PL teams.
Sell Delap (yes i wish we didn't have to but thats inevitable) and keep the bulk of squad we will be a very good place.
We have 2 seasons to get back up, and should we do it we would be in a far better place then when we went up last year, and that will give us a better opportuinty at trying to establish ourselves as a PL side. |  |
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| This season on 15:55 - Mar 10 with 1021 views | Reus30 |
| This season on 19:11 - Mar 8 by Blue_Heath |
Saints/Leicester/us and last season shows the gap is too big.
This years bottom 3 on track to be worst bottom 3 in premier league history.
Like many I was naïve, the premier league has moved on hugely, we can't even compete with 14k Bournemouth for crying out loud. |
I think that is a little bit strange to note the capacity when you look how Bournemouth have been ran since they were a yo-yo club not too long ago.
They spent £40m on Evanilson this year but prior to that significant funds on Jordan Ibe, Solanke and it didn't pay off for them and they went down too.
I think we are on a similar path, sure it might involve relegation but we are only going to get better as the club develops. |  | | |
| This season on 16:50 - Mar 10 with 936 views | ITFCSG |
| This season on 15:43 - Mar 10 by N2_Blue |
I think the recruitment was ok (GK aside) but lacked vital Prem experience. Ironically i think thats why we probably signed Muric, because he'd played PL games and unfortnately it just didn't work out for us.
Expecting players like Clarke, Philogene to hit the ground running is a huge ask. I hate that fans have written them off.
What gives me most hope is i think players like Clarke and Philogene will be huge assets once they're settled and with another season under their belts. I think recruitment really was made with a thought to the fact we may or are likely to go down. It was prudent to do so as much as we all wanted to think we were going to be ok.
Even for Omari, this was his first PL season, it's a hge ask for it to happen immediately. Each one of the younger players will have learnt so much. They are going to be better for it. It's frustrating we are likely going down but look how difficult teams find it now and we were a L1 team 2 years ago whilst Southampton and Leicteser were PL teams.
Sell Delap (yes i wish we didn't have to but thats inevitable) and keep the bulk of squad we will be a very good place.
We have 2 seasons to get back up, and should we do it we would be in a far better place then when we went up last year, and that will give us a better opportuinty at trying to establish ourselves as a PL side. |
Yes, but the prices we have paid for Clarke, Hutch and Philogene are shocking. Muric also. If they don't come good (there is no guarantee they will) we are going to be in trouble when we revert to being a Champ club. Many clubs run afoul of FFP precisely because they overspent in the Prem and carried the expensive baggage down to the Champ after relegation. Leicester is a good example, plenty of expensive players bought who underperformed and they could't flog.
If they are good, we better go up again, because remaining in the Champ will result in us being a developer of talent just to feed Prem clubs higher up the food chain. | | | |
| This season on 19:55 - Mar 10 with 804 views | lazyblue |
That Fulham penalty is still a sickening and what could have been if that didn’t happen. | | | |
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