Jerseybean

Wow it’s been a very long time since I’ve witnessed England scoring for fun against a quality team.

No need IMO for the tin hat or protective suit BBSB. For me that’s a decent summary of the individual and collective situation. When looking back on this season’s performances the headlines for me are.....frightening inconsistency, some woeful defending, not turning possession into goals, lack of communication/leadership all of which adds up to never knowing how we are going to perform and a lack of ‘identity/style’. Therefore, its looking like being yet another roller-coaster of a season.

He’s now on the pitch, Wood injured.

I was struck by the similarities of the goals Wigan and Villa scored against us. Both these goals came from decent deliveries, however, both would have been prevented if we had (1) won the aerial battle or at the least hampered the opponent who scored (2) in the case of the Wigan goal not given so much time/space for the cross or of course in the case of last night not given away a cheap free-kick. Suspect that last season Flint would have done enough in both cases to have dealt with the aerial threat.

Agree PB lots of poor decisions and indifferent performances, we certainly didn’t look like scoring or even threatening when going forward. Villa were poor too. So in short not a great game and a draw was probably the right outcome. It’s really weird how we can never know what kind of performance we are going to see from our team.

John Cunliffe creator of Postman Pat and Rosie and Jim RIP

First class synopsis as always Ole. Having slept on it I’m still utterly bemused by how/why we collectively performed so embarrassingly woefully. Furthermore, why this is a characteristic of us under LJ’s tenure. Of course players performance levels dip and teams aren’t always consistent, however, what we witnessed last night (and in the past) is much more than either of these. Under LJ there have been many times, and last night was the latest example, when an unrecognisable team turn up. The question I really can not answer is how do a team of competentent footballers suddenly perform so poorly. We have been impressive at times and performed reasonably consistently before last night. Then pretty much every player has a mare and is unable to even do the basics including communicating, passing and winning tackles, etc.

Also worrying when set against his pre-match comments which were along the lines of ‘the cameras are here and we are looking to put on an entertaining display’

LJ’s post-match comments include: ’We were poor, lacked quality, I’m as disappointed as I’ve ever been by one of my teams, I was actually a bit embarrassed, we played with no cohesion, it’s back to the drawing board, the boys are there to perform but tonight they didn’t, there was no communication, disappointed we didn’t perform’ Good for him for being honest.

Think Paul Cook just said ‘we came on strong’ he was obviously watching a different game to me.

Poor, poor, performance tonight. We looked like a totally different team compared with some recent games. Honestly don’t think any City player played well. Frustrating, disappointing and at times embarrassing.

Schoolboy stuff and sickening when our own players are injuring each other. Really, need to get a grip if we are going to rescue this mess tonight.

My summary, a first-half to forget! This game needs lifting either via a goal or through someone - hopefully a City player - grasping it by the throat and showing a bit of imagination. It’s very clogged up in midfield so we need to get width into things and pass/move much quicker. In short this is a game crying out for someone to step up and show the character to win it with a commanding second-half performance.

Those who enter the prediction league are pretty optimistic, three hours before kick off there are 15 predictions, only one poster is going for a home win, a few are going for a draw but the majority are suggesting an away, with 2-1 City appearing most often.

Having watched it last night and having since seen the highlights the fact that at the start of three of their goals the ball was with their keeper and that we were so quickly and effectively cut through is alarming. As well described above this should have been prevented by stronger midfield positioning/play. While I like the fact that we play football all over the pitch there are occasions, especially defensively, when doing the basic and sometimes ugly thing (like putting the ball into touch, giving away a foul, etc) is needed.