Ron W

That's true, but not if it leads to a goal. Aaronson was a good example for Leeds against West Ham on Wednesday and got rightly criticised.

If any? It was a hospital pass from MOL but an awful error. There was no-one anywhere near where he was passing it to.

A positive view on a 25-minute good spell at home to a team who have won one of their last seven away games - and even with that were controlling the whole game for more than an hour - seems very optimistic.

No it's not, that's not the point I was replying to but concentration and focus aren't totally unconnected from the manager's influence either.

Saying motivation is just about the team talk is definitely a simplification. Man management and trust are built on the training pitch and in the manager's office as much as on a match day. Then you need to build the right team too and have the right characters, but it's a definite balance.

I think there are very few players or managers who would agree.

Saying motivating a team isn't a part of football management would certainly be a new take.

You're not going to change your mind on this but the yellow incident was about a second after Scott's foul. There was so little time between them that not waving for an advantage is irrelevant.

He could've just taken his time to make the decision. Not unusual.

He did give it, he gave them a free-kick.

Scott fouled him first, it's not a penalty. Much better since the goal but there's no excuse for being this bad for 70 minutes.

He's young and hopefully sorts himself out, but as others have said he should let his football do the talking because at the moment, his comments about Pearson when he left look pretty silly. He had a poor attitude at Yeovil too, partly why Cooper got rid.

I think this nails it. He has a masterclass video on the Coach's Voice website recorded during his time at Sunderland. It's aimed at coaches, and I'm no expert on the lingo players are taught on the training ground to fully judge. It was very intricate and thought-out, and you could appreciate the planning that had gone into it. But he didn't come across as particularly charismatic and to a layman it felt technical to the point that you could see players getting bored and switching off.

Yes if it’s part of the game plan, but not if it’s because you’re scared of engaging the player. And it looked a lot more like the latter. Not trying to get at him, he had a great 45 minutes after that and like you said helped get their winger subbed.

He was that bad IMO. Got done more than once and ended up refusing to engage his man because he was scared of getting beaten. Looked a different player in the second half.

Would've hooked him at half-time against Millwall on Thursday but credit to him, he showed some real character to stick at it and was excellent second half. Sounds like he was today too.

The manner of Nigel's 'reminder' definitely didn't need to be that abrasive. That's just him at times, but most other managers wouldn't have reacted publicly in the same way he did. That said, it was nice to see him raise a wry smile after the game last night as he said Atkinson "showed what a good player he can be".

Probably not through popular demand but losing patience with King's poor performances but yes, still entirely a situation of his own making and just as contradictory.

Yeah that's fair enough, dismal going forward is a bit harsh though. Millwall haven't scored many but they've conceded even less. Only two more than Burnley. I agree though, Millwall didn't look on their top form and some of their fans have mentioned them being poor. But we played a part in that, tonight was about getting back to basics (in the team selection too). If we only do that all season we'll not do much, but we needed some solidity to build from and we got it.

They know how to grind out wins and make the most of set pieces and momentum, but how many times did they even get a chance to do that tonight? We switched off from one throw and that was it. We’re 18th and lost our last two games, we weren’t going to become world beaters over night. There’s not many worse places to come when you’re out of form and being questioned than a physical bullying at The Den but we stood up to everything thrown at us. On the balance of it I don’t know how there’s not clear positives in the context of where we are at the moment. Or even if we weren’t. Are there more than a few teams in this league who wouldn’t be satisfied with a point at Millwall?

Millwall would’ve gone fourth if they won. We largely nullified them, played the better football and had the better chances. If Weimann’s chance had gone in it would’ve been a perfect away performance. I know watching us at AG recently anyone think every away side outplays the home side but we were a decent part of the reason they got booed off tonight. We did a proper job on a team who’ve done very well this season.

Yeah agree with all of that. All the first half lacked was composure… In fact all the second half lacked was composure too, just at the other end. Hard-earned and we’ll deserved point, with the only frustration it really should’ve been three.

I appreciate what you’re saying @Davefevs and there were times Millwall pressured our back line and we took the safe option. No issue with that. But there were also plenty of occasions - and Vyner was especially guilty of this before HT - where there’d be a ball across the box, no one near us, and we’d still treat the ball like a hot potato with a poor hurried clearance. There have been plenty of City sides struggling for confidence with the ball down the years and that had plenty of the hallmarks of one for 45 minutes.

I think this is quite generous to us first half. There’s dealing with their physical element and not making needless dangerous passes, and there’s hoofing it under no pressure which we did repeatedly. I’d put it more down to nerves than team instructions, because we looked uncomfortable when we had possession and needed to calm things down, take our time, look up. When we did that after HT we were comfortably the better side.

Totally agree, good at both ends of the pitch. It was a shame we didn’t use him more, very tidy on the ball.