The Swan and Cemetery

If you could fill in the intersections with some comedic words think we’d all be grateful.

See that we’re the only team, along with free scoring PNE, to have played 6 and not been losing at half time in any game (Rotherham same, but only 5 games played). Arguable whether it’s hanging on to leads that’s the challenge vs playing better in the second half… plus the extent to which the two are cause and effect… or maybe they’re the same thing. Continue first half performances and start to draw the second half more often and play offs as a minimum… but those pesky opponents don’t make it easy, damn them.

Think it would be a step towards likely promotion, which would be great. There’s something we’re very good at, which is to some extent the cause of what we’re less good at, ie you can’t be good or average at defending leads if you don’t take the lead, which presumably we’re above average at.

Think fine to discuss ways of improving and clearly there are lots, but sometimes can be a hint of “here are the things NP must fix”, which if achieved, would make us unbeatable. Great to aspire to, but maybe not failure if not fully achieved. Not sure holding leads is super easy and the more you take the lead, statistically likely to be earlier in the game, meaning more time for opponents to come back. Overall, improving our defending does seem like a logical area for the whole team to be working on, including maintaining attacking intent, but very difficult when your opponents know they have to score and throw on attacking subs etc. Trick is probably to build two goal leads, which think we’ve done 3 times this season and won all? Also not easy.

Do find it odd, he played yesterday without W or S which got us to 6th highest scorers last season. And maybe the reason why AS/TC could cause problems, was due to CM having given their defence a different type of problem earlier and they couldn’t adapt/were knackered. TC and NW have been great and with AS back as well, the future looks bright, but we’re yet to beat anyone of note and writing off someone with Martin’s experience and, crucially, a different style of play to cause defences different problems, seems premature to say the least.

By 3rd Sep we’ll have played 9 games in 29 days, of which this (and Coventry) is the least important. Would assume (/hope) that anyone in need of rest, gets one, given 3 more league games before we get a free mid week.

Like how they tried to batter him, but he kept coming back for more.

If we can keep them all, can see us starting WWC and reverting to WSM or vice versa, not many defences in this league would be able to deal with the contrast.

And not sure a Severnside derby atmosphere is the ideal place to start that step up.

If that was him playing very poorly I’m excited to see him play averagely. Thought he played really well and centre mid, rather than attacking mid, looks a better long term fit for him.

Heaven forbid the ref could have spotted Sykes being manhandled and given a free kick. Let’s just play on and then call everyone out for misdemeanours. FA/FL need to take a proper look at the refs/officials generally. Lots of people have difficult jobs, most are held accountable if they can’t achieve a vaguely sensible level of competence.

Yep, if we only played Saturdays all season, no one would talk about the stress and strain of playing twice a week.

Andi isn’t there yet? Just running around I guess.

Think there are some whose narcissistic need to be right is more important than City winning. Loads who I disagree with and are generally more negative than I think plausible, who’ve been all over here saying how much they enjoyed last night - they’re supporters with a different perspective to me (groovy, debate/opinion is good, but we all want the same thing) some of the absentees, not convinced.

Think he’s just making the point that it’s important, don’t think he’s got his resignation email ready in his drafts folder, for the next time there’s a dubious throw in given against us.

Great runs, both wider and between the posts. Seems to have great intuition as when to go in on goal vs when to pull back out and offer himself back to goal - looks able to both poach and do a more rounded role. Plenty of pace and decent strength. Also like the attitude, can’t remember who (think Alex, Andi or Han), but someone lost the ball second half and were out of position, Tommy immediately sprinted back to cover and got a toe in. I’m definitely carried away and excited about him doubling Mitrovic’s tally from last season.

Thought the timing of his comments pretty clearly aligned to an opportunity to make some, in my view entirely valid, points about the standards of officiating, at time where he couldn’t be accused of being a sore loser/using deflection tactics. His “thought about leaving” point seemed to aligned to trying to convince people he thinks it’s important, rather than anything more. Does last night’s ref think “I caused that” (the red) or just think he did a great job of dealing with the situation after it happened? For me it was the former, by not dealing with the initial foul on Sykes. Some of it may not the just down to the refs, eg have the FA/FL directed “chill with retaliation, it’s all good”? Appears possible after last two games. Overall glad he got his head above the parapet, even if he does get fined etc. As an aside, Hull, is the number of steps after being fouled unlimited before falling over? Could Andi W get brushed in the first minute and then fall over in the 90th and get a pen?

Can see why ref gave Sykes a red and Freeman a yellow, but don’t think obviously the right decisions, two reds or two yellows wouldn’t have been ludicrous. What the ref was at fault for in my view, was not giving Sykes a free kick just before, one of theirs was wrestling him (when Sykes had the ball not pre corner shenanigans), can’t see why that wasn’t a foul. There were a few times when I thought he played on after reasonably blatant fouls (and the fouled player lost the ball, so not playing advantage). Poor refereeing standards will result in players getting frustrated, Sykes can learn a lesson, but refs need to start learning lessons as well.

Not often you see any team when every player plays well, great to see. Looked really dangerous going forward and think the two changes from the weekend were key in supporting that - aka more pace/energy. Both Conway and Wells make great runs and their runs are a lot more complementary than most other combinations we’ve had over the years. General togetherness brilliant across the team. Has Zak turned a corner with Naismith barking at him (and everyone else) constantly? Has looked solid for a few games now. 8/10 minimums I reckon for the starting XI, could move Sykes down for being sent off, but played really well and not sure would have been sent off it wasn’t for the Freeman instigated brouhaha.

Wasn’t that in the lead up to the second goal? Or have I made that up?

Positives from Sykes, Vyner, Atkinson and Conway (even great strikers miss sitters, getting there is a good sign). Not too worried by the performance when they had the ball, but thought we were generally poor with the ball, plus not picking up 2nd balls. We generally seemed to be either too far away from each other or too clustered together. And weather notwithstanding, we moved the ball so slowly it made it easy for Wigan to press. We’re giving up leads due to not pressing our advantage home when we’re ahead/on top. But we’re not getting thrashed, which is something. If we’re not at the point of being comfortable with 4 at the back, think I’d consider moving to 3 in midfield, as even with his energy Andi can be a long way from the ball when we win it in defence. I like Martin a lot, but for the team, maybe Andi/Tommy up top with an extra midfielder would help us transition more effectively? Cam Pring must be close as well. Not all doom and gloom for me, but plenty to work on.

What does Tommy need to do to bring Backwell home @Davefevs? Everyone wants to add an ‘l’!

Probably clutching at straws, but wonder if, unconsciously at least, refs are minded to take more notice of the captain, therefore having our keeper as captain reduces our ability to influence/achieve parity with refs?

Overall a decent performance. We still have a habit of getting in each other’s way which slows the ball down when we’ve got it and sometimes looked a bit heavy legged (not as bad as Hull and their competition to outdo each other with worst cramping theatrics). Ability to use width was promising and most played pretty well. Hull were dreadful/dirty and the ref was farcical at times, penalty had a strong whiff of thinking he got the first half one wrong, so needed to correct himself. No blame on Klose for the winner in my view, he got decent distance, but both Andi and Jay stood still, then some bad luck. Poor result, good performance.

My natural instincts are towards somewhat excess optimism, SkyBet gives us a 3 in 10 chance of being top half (accepting odds include lots of things beyond an objective forecast, including the need to be over round). That feels plausible but maybe marginally harsh to me. Whilst interesting to see what other teams are doing and lots of unknowns, don’t think wildly unrealistic to think that if we’ve improved we’ll do better vs last season and vice versa! Think we’ve improved the squad, but most critical will be shape and attitude. Likely that finishing 16th or 9th will be depend on a number of (probably dull) gnarly situations where we hang on for a win, scrape a draw etc rather than Mitrovic 2.0 emerging from the Avonmouth mist. I don’t think we’ll be thrashed every week and can’t see us thrashing others, therefore fine margins here and there will be the key. Critical injuries would definitely be concerning, but sometimes they provide opportunities, eg maybe Tommy with a bit more width in the team to supply a more traditional poacher, will turn out to be Championship ready… but maybe he won’t; season on season development also as important as many things: maybe Antoine/Alex have less impactful seasons, but maybe they’re even better, maybe Andi’s 21/22 season was the outlier in his career, or maybe he builds on it, etc etc. A lot of this is stating the obvious, overall expect it to be tight and for prosaic things to be more important that high profile signings etc. I’m voting for 12th, accepting a light drizzling of confirmation bias optimism, unsurprised between 7th and 18th, surprised if top or bottom 6.