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What we were missing today (and in a way the Birmingham game) was an energy, desire and drive to take the game to the opposing team. When we play teams that sit back and apply the low block we have struggled for a long time now. The teams that come at us, that affords us the space and opportunities. Without that, the onus is on us to generate those "opportunities". Manning referred to it as being "brave", but a number of players today were playing it easy with regards to taking a chance on the ball. Take Tanner for instance. Millwall obviously saw that Weimann was playing rather than Sykes. They knew that Weimann doesn't have the legs to go outside his man and would come central. They condensed our left side, stopped Mehmeti and Pring and forced us to go right. Tanner was taking up positions 10-15 yards clear (particularly in the 1st half) and would then retreat those 10-15 yards (unnecessarily at times) to take a pass from Zak. Wallace would follow his retreat from LWB and thus Tanner's first touch would be over protective followed by a pass back to Zak 90% of the time. So frustrating, negative and got the crowd sighing at times. And as for Conway. 2nd half, bad pass from Millwall and with space to attack the CB from 35 yards and at the very least get a shot off. He neither attacks the CB with intent or gets the aforementioned shot off, taking the easy option to lay it off to Sykes and a wasted opportunity. What would Semenyo have done there, or a striker that drives with a purpose. All boils down to our intent on the ball. 30 goals in 26 games tells it's own story.

So pleased for him. Obviously a confidence player and can be a liability at times defensively, but ultimately that's not his game. He's now starting to do the things well that we bought him to the club for in the first instance. So unlucky last weekend against Sunderland to hit the inside of the post and deserved his goal tonight for his perseverance. Mehmeti is a confidence player and needs a manager to believe in him. It seems like the pair of them have a good relationship building.

Plymouth ST at work has said that Stoke quadrupled Schumacher's salary, as well of that of all the other coaches and backroom staff that have left with him. They certainly much be big payers of managers as they convinced Jones to leave Luton, Neil to leave Sunderland and O'Neill to go from Northern Ireland job (where he were over achieving by the look of it). Has their covid clawbacks finally been accepted by the EFL @Mr Popodopolous? They seem to think that they were impacted to a far far greater degree than any other EFL club .

Plymouth's DOF Neil Dewnship is an ex- Everton (Barton had a go at him for releasing him as a kid). Through him as a club they've maintained good relations with Everton and Baines is currently their U18 coach.

Agree with all of the above, but also in the second half Knight was on the end of an abysmal challenge. The ref played advantage as we were going forward and in possession. As per the majority of the second half, this ended within a matter of seconds. Did Mr Martin go back and book the Sunderland player, did he heck. No wonder there was some aggro between the sides at the end, pent up frustration from both sets due to his extremely poor performance.

Leaving at 8am, as they seem to be going to East London via Grimsby

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That's exactly what others have said.

Got 4 x Upper Tier seats no problem when logging on at 10. Was hoping to get a lower tier, as my eldest has just had an ankle operation , but heh ho. My issue is that over 4k Lower Tier had already sold out by 10am, in addition to of course a significant amount of Upper Tier tickets. I'm led to believe that there was an issue with the priority ST sale ( over 3 away games) that afforded the one eligible priority sale ST the ability to purchase unlimited normal ST holders tickets. Either moving forward, the club need to fix this, or just put it out to all STs at the same time; regardless or how many away games they've been to.

Zak really struggling at the moment for me. Like Conway, Bell, Pring; they seem to have been impacted the most by the change in management and tactics. Manning said tonight "maybe we've overloaded them too much with information". Quite a few player's body languages show they're not enjoying their football out there. A case of too much change, too soon for me. I think LM has already probably seen enough to conclude he'll be going to the board for a raft of new arrivals next month unfortunately, as it's not happening with this current bunch of players for him at present. Why the board thought such a monumental change in management style and tactics could occur in the middle of a season and have a positive upward effect is beyond me. Clearly the players will need a pre-season to absorb the new style and LM will want to bring in his own players that can play the way he wants to play. Makes a mockery of the comments of the senior leadership team of "let's build on the back of the top 6 underachieving squad we have here". The tactics are so different, that LM would never be able to merge the two styles of playing effectively.

My Eldest has some friends in the Under 18s and 21s and I'm led to believe that training has certainly changed. Alongside the magical lines on the train pitches, LM only takes around 14-15 first teamers that train together. The young ones are now back training with the Under 21s and Under 18s respectively. Cue a few bruised egos I'm sure, but it certainly looks like LM has his own ideas of both training and game management for young players now.

City has always suffered from poor right backs, compared to left backs where we seem to excel. I'm not Tanner's biggest fan (particularly at the moment), but he is far far better than the likes of Brian Mitchell, Nicky Hunt or Gus Caesar from the last 30 years. I'm sure if I put my mind to it, I could probably come up with at least 10 right backs/Wing backs that are worse than Tanner from my last 40 years.

Given that all the training pitches at the HPC now have multiple arrows painted onto them showing the movements/routes that players should be running, you would hope that all the players catch on sooner rather than later. (Source LM in one of his interviews) and another independent source.

Not sure about an exodus after the goal as such. It was the 95th minute and people were leaving or walking down anyhow. The fact that it happened with only 30 seconds of the injury time to go just accelerated this process. The boos in my view were because of the late winner. I'm not sure that would have happened if the final result was 1-1 (as it should have been with a bit more application). I don't think many people left prior to 85 to 90 mins as per usual.

Very bizarre isn't it? Who types in Italics?

I welcome the support that the Lansdowns have bought to the club over the years and the new training facilities. However this whole Sports Village building project at a time when we are cutting back on playing budgets and investment does strike a bit of a raw chord unfortunately. It's a shame how the whole legacy is coming to an end, that a bad marriage where you're holding on until the kids grow up and leave home. When you think of all the money that's been invested and yet we are no further forward (on the pitch) in all of that time.

It was just the numbers for the Norwich game. In the 2nd half, it was quite noticeable at times that other players were forgoing passing to Tanner (even though he was in space0 as they knew they were getting the ball straight back. Just my impression of course, but an uber defensive rb doesn't really fit the pattern of inverted full backs and internal triangle movements that were apparent on the left hand side yesterday.

I also thing Pring has had a poor start to the season, by the standards of the second half of last season. Neither of them have been particularly good in my opinion.

I await the addition of yesterday's game some trepidation....

Still one of those grounds I've never made it to Reg and now they're non-league of course

@GrahamC I take it that with only 2 fouls per side and no City offsides the linesman on the Dolman side got a particularly easy ride from you yesterday?

Ah, apologies I've read that wrong then. I was reading as to the first half as a whole. I've no doubt your stats are as right as your FFP figures...

I know you used to love watching Swansea.... For all their possession, they never really seemed to get anywhere with it. I think Martin's reputation is somewhat of a false narrative.

Bit confused on your stats there? I have our first half yesterday as 10 shots, 5 on target, Southampton 4 shots, 1 on target, Middlesbrough 6 shots, 6 on target.

Absolutely @Sir Geoff And the complete switching off that allowed a straight ball over the top to Barnes, who looked a shadow of his former self. Vyner yesterday demonstrated the attributes that had us all with our heads in our hands 2 years ago. I was so angry after the game, @headhunter was still having to calm me down during the podcast....