The Swan and Cemetery

Hopefully there’s an Edinburgh Fringe Perrier Award lined up for this thread of the decade.

Indeed, was going deep on the sarcasm. Loved the complex chant of “we’ve got MB, we’ve got MB, we’ve got M, we’ve got M, we’ve got MB” - took a while to learn, but rewarding once you’d conquered it.

Knew his dad couldn’t strike a dead ball, so just protecting himself…

Ah, sorry, yep, you’re right, I’m think of an earlier time.

Block B wasn’t it? When they used to give (sometimes) Block A to away fans. Block B prominent against Millwall just after the Luton riot, Portsmouth, Sheff U in the play offs etc? I think… memory has gone.

Wonder if by now, if we had another healthy RCB, Zak might have been tried in a defensive mid role in a 4-3-3 or 4-1-2-3? Whilst our most consistent and most improved player, not sure he has the physicality to play in a two man central defence, but have often thought he could potentially be a decent defensive mid. Probably a bit high risk to be trying in anger right now, but a fit Kalas would at least give us options.

Totally, if that was Vyner there would be a full on melt down. He passed it directly to an opponent that was directly in his eye line, when he had plenty of opportunity to make an easy pass. Doesn’t mean Max is without blame, but anyone suggesting Rob was without fault must be a relative.

So presumably all those who thought Pearson coaches our players to defend like they did for their goal, also think Martin coaches their keeper to save like that for our goal?

And if all they did was lump it we’d be hearing all the complaints about NP coaching parks football. Professional footballers are allowed to make decisions, can’t be coached for every possible scenario.

Dragged into another relegation dogfight. Need QPR to give us 3 sides of Loftus Road for a miracle last day escape?

Loved/love Wayne Allison, but losing Mark Gavin at the time was reasonably traumatic - archetypal tricky winger.

And for some, if we start winning it will be despite NP and if we’re losing/relegated, it will be because of him.

Not close enough to the academy to know if we’ve got anyone coming through in that position? We’ve more options on the right, so obviously need cover beyond Cam, therefore as others have said, depends on the offer he’ll take vs what’s available in the market (unless academy about to reveal a jewel).

Agree with the Major, he’s had better shot stopping performances in the past, but yesterday he looked much more like a solid, all round keeper - more Mäenpää than Bentley. I’ve been sceptical he could achieve that (often a good shot stopper, although sometimes slow to move feet; decent distributor, but doesn’t dominate box) - one swallow etc, but play like yesterday consistently (albeit their set pieces were as bad as ours, just in a different way, cleared first man but looped too much) and he can be a very decent Champ keeper.

Whilst 532/5212 has caused it’s challenges/supporter teeth gnashing about square pegs in round holes, think Zak has benefited. A bit of extra cover around him, particularly when RWB has some defensive proclivity, but also allowing him to spend more time on the ball, seems to suit him. Also think watching Naismith may have helped, he’s not Naismith yet and maybe never will be, but in the last couple of games it looks as if we’ve 3 CB’s who can bring the ball out, with confidence there’ll be cover behind (James key to that as well). Just need to make sure not too much distance between back 8 and front 3, a couple of times yesterday in the second half when the gap was too wide in my view.

Good point, maybe Alex should restrict himself to (successful) shots on goal.

Thought Zak was a lot better than simply avoiding making mistakes, lots of good tackles, positioning and dealt with the ball well when he had it. Not perfect - and agree he can improve how close he gets to opponents with their back to goal - but not sure anyone, including Cam, achieved that. Thought the commentary and the match day thread went overboard on the booking, a central defender getting booked seemed to require an automatic substitution to avoid a red card, which it turned out was an unnecessary concern, as one of the best strikers in the division became ever less influential.

Let’s not word association to Rosco P. Coltrane. Too far off topic.

Saying it doesn’t matter what a footballer does off the ball is like saying it doesn’t matter what a tennis player does after they’ve hit the ball, very odd. Totally agree with your original post (and this one), thought he had a great game. Whilst James didn’t play as well as Scott, was good to see him have a word/arm round shoulder when Alex did misplace a pass.

Although only in 1 season of the last 5.

You genuinely believe NP was trying to be clever, rather than trying to improve the team, potentially for the longer term (eg showing Tanner, Atkinson the opportunity/requirement to step up) as well as shorter term? Seems an odd conclusion vs other more obvious options.

Suspect there’s less disagreement between NP stay/go contingents re on field performances than may appear - think a lot of the disagreement relates to different priorities. Think ‘go’ are more likely to be very focused very on results/first XI outcomes in the here and now, whereas ‘stay’ have more of other aspects coming into thinking (sorting finances etc). Neither approach is de facto right or wrong, but is likely to result in quite different views re NP’s tenure, even if there was 100% agreement re performances. At least that would be my non fully analytical review of OTIB in recent times.

I agree that in the end it doesn’t really matter what we do/don’t deserve, we get what we get and have to improve to move up the table. If you take one sitter in five (illustrative not from a spreadsheet) or concede goals due to individual errors, you need to create loads more chances etc etc. However think the OP has a fair point that it’s a tight league with limited signs of us/many others being either brilliant (probably Burnley notwithstanding - I’m still not prepared to acknowledge Sheff Utd objectively!) or terrible (maybe Wigan heading that way?) - so fine margins, which cut both ways, reasonably marginal improvement and we can scoot up the league, but marginally worse and we’re tussling with Hull/Rotherham etc in a dog fight. I’d still argue that if we play like last night until the end of the season, we’ll be fine and if we play like Birmingham away we can prepare for trips to Stevenage, ie performances do matter, but accept, obviously, that the league table isn’t based on performances and a season like this one (11 points play offs to relegation) feels more prone to odd outcomes, so we need to rapidly reduce risks - hopefully Antoine/Andi start to recover their mojo and combined with more solidity at the back, we can progress. Although glass half empty from last night would worry that, along with missing chances, we’ve often been overrun in midfield with only two in there, so need to work out how to avoid whack-a-moling from one problem to another.

Played some of his dodgy long balls to no one in particular, but his short passing was great and brought it out like Hansen in his pomp a couple of times.

Agree, although looked like he was blowing after about 30 mins, wonder if NP thinks he has something of the Cam Pring of a season or two ago and his being left out relates to needing to improve fitness? Looked good in the middle tonight.