ashton_fan

The reason we're mid table is we don't win games like this that we should, we have to break the mould to move into the top half and onwards, no excuses today with the players we have available 

I don't think we changed our style but couldn't get so much possession as Southampton play the same way, we are good at counter-attacking as we have pace in the side. It will be interesting to see the game plan against QPR who although in the bottom three are undefeated in their last four games and above us in the form table.

I can see why it was done, it was getting to the stage that there were more threads on previous managers/players in the past than looking at the current/future situation, it had been done to death and was getting boring. The content is still available to those that are interested so a good decision.

6 hours ago, kiwicolin said:

Yes. We must keep James,  if only for another year. Will be invaluable to our youngsters. 

I'm sure we'll offer him a year but he could well get two or more elsewhere, at his age job security is important 

It could just be that LM remembered the reverse fixture where Boro changed their tactics after half time and we lost our two goal lead after five minutes and he was criticised for not reacting. He may well have told the team to keep things tight at the start until we saw what their approach would be, it was fairly predictable we wouldn't have it as easy. In the first half Cornick was obviously told he'd be off at half time so put maximum effort into the first 45 minutes and he was involved in most of our good moves during that period.

I remember going to Elland Road, kick off was about 1:00 as the lights couldn't be used due to power cuts, on arrival there were queues everywhere, our coach got stuck outside the ground and Leeds fans were lobbing bottles onto the roof from the terracing. We eventually got in a few minutes after kick off but the view wasn't very good due to the size of the crowd and our late arrival. Great result though!

Hard luck lads, did us proud

1 minute ago, extonsred said:

Have we ever won a penalty shout out?

Once, at QPR in the FL Trophy

28 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

Are they not different types of players? 

I must admit I don't know that much about Bird, but they are both midfielders.

15 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:

7.

- We didn’t really make massive improvements for the now, but I don’t think that was necessary in view of where the season is

- The structures of the Bird and Stokes deals are sensible and allow us to bring in players who we may have be outbid for in the summer wages wise

- The fact we have multiple midfield signings puts the club in a strong position if they want to negotiate with Williams/James - in effect we can stick to a ceiling now we have options

- Try before you buy on Medube

- The only real negative mark is Twine. Not through him as a player, but as has been noted the lack of buy option and likely minimal long term benefit from the deal considering where we are (there is an argument we replaced AWs wages but some of that was also a balance in the TGH deal)

- Didn’t lose anyone bar AW. There are some that I think do need moving on but again, I think that may be better done in the summer 

Decent overall

Regarding Twine he has allowed us the option of loaning Bird back to Derby, Bird will come in to replace him in the summer assuming Burnley want to keep Twine.

2 hours ago, TheCulturalBomb said:

Puzzled here, we've signed a player who can't even get in a Belgian team I've never even heard of. 

They're mid table in the top Belgian league, other teams Anderlecht, Standard Liege, Royal Antwerp, Bruges etc so it's probably a slightly higher level than the Championship 

Apparently Westerlo paid £1.65m for him in the summer

I think Max is still improving, he's much better catching crosses than he used to be. Thought he had a good game last night, with the second goal that shot was swerving and bounced just in front of him, he got his body behind it and it was unfortunate the rebound went to one of their players.

I don't know what it is about OTIB and our keepers but whoever we have in goal is deemed not good enough, it was the same with Bentley, Frankie etc.. I think Max is the best we've had for a while, all keepers make howlers every now and then, you only have to watch Prem teams on MOTD and you see them most weeks. We have to be realistic about the level of keeper we're going to get as a mid-Championship team, I think Max is better than most at this level. 

Looking back at his history after his first appearance for Burnley he picked up a muscle injury and ended up being out for 19 weeks, let's hope this rumour is wide of the mark.

Manning obviously thinks we need another forward but Tommy has shown recently if he's given chances he'll score a fair few, he's been involved in all our recent goals, could be Twine is the missing link, also Williams will be available for the replay, he was the star of the West Ham games. Defence was excellent tonight.

On 19/01/2024 at 20:04, fairweather said:

I really think everything is being geared to next season. 
 

Just can’t admit that to season ticket holders etc.

I think that's why we signed Twine, as a stop-gap

Apparently in their last 13 visits to AG Watford have only lost once (mostly draws)

3 minutes ago, DaveF said:

We've not scored for 3 league matches so not really, no!

Fingers crossed for a good performance.

Twine to score from 20 yds?

Was a much bigger result when we beat Leeds in '74, 50th anniversary of that one this month. It was Leeds first defeat of the season and was on all the front pages

The only player to get 20+ goals in a Championship season for us for quite a while 

24 minutes ago, Numero Uno said:

Two pronged this is. I can agree on Liam but not on Jon and Sid. They get judged more harshly for me as they were the ones chatting shit…..

What Tins and JL said was nothing to do with Liam, it's two separate issues 

6 hours ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I'm not sure I go along with that thought process tbh. 

Pearson was sacked cos it was deemed we have a decent squad and that he should have been getting more out of it. The change was made so that we would be better coached on the grass. 

Mannings and Pearsons briefs were very different. Manning has not had to contend with all the stuff Pearson had to contend with like rebuilding a squad with little money and having to rely on developing youth. 

Mannings brief was to get better results and performances out of this squad. Bar a few injury problems he had it all set for him. Decent squad with a good culture already set. His only job has been to improve us on the grass and despite a few with agendas, not many can say he has been able to improve what we have. 

I agree that Manning has a better squad than NP had at the start, however the squad was built with to suit the style of play under NP and that will still need some slight modifications to make the new style of play work properly, so it's unfair to judge Manning until he's had a chance to make these tweaks (probably by the start of next season).

15 minutes ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

I like to look at things in context rather than looking at stats alone. 

Against Cardiff we barely had 11 fit players for example. So that loss with a depleted squad brings the ppg down. 

It's undeniable that Manning has had greater availability since he's been here than Pearson had this. 

So when you look at it in that context, Mannings lower ppg looks even worse in my opinion. 

When Nige arrived he said he couldn't be judged until he'd had at least three transfer windows, these are still Nige's players so Manning has to be given more time, Nige's points per game were poor at the start and he had Scott and Semenyo during his best spell

5 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

It was Connolly so it doesn’t count.

Seriously though, I think that one last night was a bit more grey, because Connolly isn’t caring around whether he hits keeper either.

Play-on!!

I don't think Connolly could see him as he was facing the other way