Dr Balls

Agree. We would have to go on a worse run than we ever did under LJ for the owners to give Manning the push. They have dug themselves a mighty big hole, and only if we were looking at relegation would they even consider making a move. By then it would be too late anyway.

And any combination of Dickie to Vyner or vice versa about 70 times. The point is having watched the best sides play “possession football” they don’t do multiple passes between their centre backs. They do play the ball around at the back to draw the opposition forward and then either play through, round or even over them into the gaps created. We don’t - we just tap the ball between defenders while the opposition have all 11 players behind the ball. No wonder that both achieves nothing and is not exciting anyone!

As per a post on another thread last night, to have 2 upfront we need to go to 3 at the back. My preference would be a 3-4-1-2 formation with Knight behind a combination of Conway plus one other. I would put Weimann ahead of Cornick for that role while Wells is out because at least Weimann can also score goals at this level. But even Cornick in a pair with Conway would be better than the current formation.

We don’t play with much of any attacking intent or pace. We seem to have forgotten how to break quickly, which was something we did well under Nige. Our goal was the one time we did it today which kind of proves the point. Someone (our new coaching team?) needs to tell the players to get both themselves and the ball into the penalty box. Tapping it around down either wing without actually making a cross into the box or a shot on goal is another problem. Yes many teams defend deep, but as Norwich’s first goal proved, once it’s knocked into the box, the chance of a goal, even an own goal, goes up considerably.

Weimann was very close to Nige and had played under him before. Nige also got the best out of him with WSM combination up front. He ended the season with over 20 goals and a recall to the Austrian National team after many years out. Plus he scored for them at the Stade de France about 18 months ago. If you want the best out of Andi Weimann play him centrally. Which comes back to too many players playing in less than favoured positions or formations today. If you want a really radical suggestion how about playing Weimann up front with Conway, who clearly needs to play off another striker, with Knight tucked in behind. Then go 3 at the back with Dickie in the centre, Vyner on the right and Pring on the left. Have a 4 man midfield of Williams, James, TGH and Sykes. That probably shoehorns in all our of fit/best players in a formation that probably suits them better. Plus it might give a bit more attacking intent especially as it stops that playing along the back 4 all the time.

Looks like BT won’t be going back to X any time soon then! Not until a change of owners. Which will also likely mean his job goes too…

I think it’s quite telling that our best 3 players today (Knight, Gardner-Hickman, Dickie) all joined the club in the summer. That really reflects what NP had to work with before, and also that if he had been allowed to get a striker of a similar calibre with some of the Scott money in the summer, we might be a bit further up the league table now.

Queues to get in were much shorter than usual, plus there were a lot of spaces in the South Stand. 15,000 actually in the ground probably not a bad shout.

The problem for Manning is that few of the supporters are going to give him that much time. It’s not his fault but he will be the fall guy. We have been sold a fable of how the club needed a new young coach to take its “top 6 squad” to new heights. We all know that’s a load of bull, but that’s what has been said. If the delivery on the pitch fails to live up to that promise, both in terms of style and results, then the only answer will be to sack the coach, because I don’t see any of Jon Lansdown, Brian Tinnion and the other director I had never heard of before resigning because they messed it up. That not the way it works in football.

About 20,000 - so a bit down on recent home games. May just have been playing on a Sunday lunchtime, which was a bit unusual and may not have fitted the routines and commitments of some fans.

It was very quiet today. As if no one could really be bothered. And the dull as dishwater “safety first” possession for the sake of possession football was never going to excite anybody. The goal today came about from the only time we played it forward and into the box quickly. Every other time, pedestrian would be an exaggeration of our play, as that would at least suggest an element of momentum.

I think “bounce” is putting it a bit strongly. All the bounce of a punctured beach ball! And the atmosphere in the ground is terrible because for many fans their heart isn’t in it at the moment. Both the players and supporters seem to be going through the motions, which often happens after a major shock. We have a coach who has achieved nothing tangible and has never coached at this level before. Clearly he has quite fixed ways about how he wants the team to play (the “Pep way” -but hardly surprising as he had time at one of their feeder clubs) but he had a paper thin squad, the quality of which is debatable and certainly not amongst the 6 best in this division, whatever the owners might say. So this is the biggest challenge he has ever faced, and a large proportion of the fans never really wanted him anyway. It has all the echoes of a previous appointment that went sour and from which the club took a number of years to recover under our previous manager. Until of course the owners decided to rinse and repeat and here we are!

And why would that be? Could it be the very limited ambitions of our owners? They might say they want Premier League football but do they really? Are they willing to put their money on the line to achieve that or squirrel it away in some notional “nest egg”? The reality is that they are looking to sell to someone who really wants to go for it, because they aren’t willing to take the risk any more. They want it “on the cheap” as per Luton, because that’s the latest model for success apparently, I.e. a young lower league manager and a squad of limited players getting lucky.

The horseshoe being the back 4 of Pring-Dickie-Vyner-Tanner. “To-me-to-you football”. When the centre backs have 6 times more touches than your centre forward you can pretty much guess how we played.

It’s hard to get excited when the football is akin to watching paint dry. Although the first 30 mins against Middlesbrough was even more boring until TGH scored his goal…

The way to beat it is to have a player in midfield who is willing to commit players and go past them taking them out of the game and getting the ball forward quickly. Gardner-Hickman and Knight both have it in them to do this but they need to be encouraged to do so rather than coached to take the “safety first” possession pass.

It is the Pep effect. The problem is that if you don’t break all the FFP rules to get the best players available at top price, it doesn’t really work so well. And as for that goal kick routine where the central defender plays it back to the goalkeeper centrally in the front of the goal to then either play a defender into trouble or kick it long to the opposition from further back in the 6 yard box, wff?! Both sides played it and it was a complete waste of time. In terms of risk v reward, the risk is far too high for any notional reward. It just doesn’t achieve anything.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/nov/28/kids-with-downs-have-no-filter-i-love-it-allan-cockram-the-man-behind-the-mighty-penguins Really heartwarming story and if you were feeling a bit jaded at the moment with all the bad/sad news in the world at the moment, restore your faith in people. Reminds me a bit of Neil Baldwin at Stoke and that fantastic film “Marvellous” starring Toby Jones. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend you do as it will have a similar effect.

I think there is a question about a number of our forward players and the current 4-2-3-1 formation. Both Conway and Bell are struggling at the moment. Cornick plays the lone forward role far better, but his end product I.e. goals, is not good and never has been. Cornick is also a lot stronger on the ball than Conway and defenders know that they are in a game against him. Although I appreciate a complete change to the formation may initially cause problems, especially defensively, going 3-4-1-2 may be a better option. Would allow Naismith in a back 3, plus Pring and Sykes as wing backs. Knight could sit in behind a front pair (the Weimann role), and that front pairing could be any combination of Conway, Wells, Cornick, Mehmeti or Bell. I certainly think it could get us more goals.

But that’s what is really frustrating about sitting on “the nest egg”. Clearly we need an experienced striker who is going to score goals. At present that doesn’t really sound like any of Conway, Cornick, Wells, or Weimann, and generally we have been dependent on others from either midfield or defence chipping in to the relatively few goals we have scored. Player for player, Boro looked better than us both on and off the ball, which goes back to that question of do we really have a “Top 6 squad”? (Clue: the answer isn’t “yes”).. I am sure Boro will say they were unlucky to fall 2-0 behind at half time to a great strike and a penalty. Second half they looked far more capable and again undone by a great finish from Sykes from a Van Basten like angle (only a lot closer).

The first 30 mins was like 2 teams playing football chess and cancelling each other out and about as exciting as watching chess. All the play was 20 yards either side of the halfway line. Thank goodness for TGH taking the initiative and scoring one of the best goals from outside the box by a City player in quite some time. Also thought we were really lethargic at the beginning of the second half and their 2 goals were no surprise. The problem playing Conway up front on his own is that Max won’t kick it long, and we got ourselves into trouble. Tommy needs someone to play off up front. Without that we won’t see the best of him. Cornick came on and caused their centre halves more problems, plus provided a better outlet. It’s a conundrum, because Tommy is the better striker and likely to score more goals, but Cornick is better as a lone forward.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/nov/16/quiz-can-you-identify-these-former-football-grounds More difficult than it first looked, especially given the angles at which some of the pictures were taken. Was quite happy with 8/15!

Who do you suggest? Keith Stroud? Or perhaps one of the number of other useless Championship referees we have seen at AG over the last few years. It’s not like the footballers, where there is a division you can watch and say that those particular referees are so much better than others elsewhere. They all seem capable of making some real howlers, it’s just that at the very top level they have VAR to help them out.

Wind-up trolls? Whatever next? Clockwork plonkers?!

Always used to be that right back was your worst player I.e. the right footed midfielder not good enough to play in midfield, so shunted somewhere into defence. Alexander-Arnold broke the mould recently by becoming a wing back who can cross better than anyone else and now it seems wants to be a midfielder. Lewis has been given free-rein by Guardiola to come inside and back into midfield, switching the defence between a back 4 and back 3. It’s different and allows an overload more centrally through a right back rather than no a centre back but I would argue it’s more how he is played rather than how he plays himself that has stood out most, especially as Stones has been doing the same thing for Man City for some time.