Spike

commentators are pissing me off when they're saying "Where does a performance like this come from" when the answer is in front of their eyes, we're being tactically outplayed and not changing anything that'll impact the game. it comes from a lack of our ability to break down a team that doesn't need to attack the game.

Qpr are compact and giving each other options, we seem to be so far spread out that we're struggling to create movements. They're also happy to hold onto the ball and we're not pressuring hard enough to actually make them panic.

Players heads look like they're down to me, Also a back 3 is going to invite the counter so much more, one good long ball causes problems for us with 3 at the back. If we're going to attack we need some players to step up and beat a man, play a cutting pass, instead we're just playing this aimless possession and waiting for an opportunity to show itself. Simply put it's not going to come unless our players force it and we're not taking those risks.

I don't blame them, they need the points and we can't break them down, they're playing to their strengths and our weaknesses, it's a smart thing to do.

I don't see the point in us discussing the striker being an issue when none of the strikers really get chances and when they do they convert at a decent rate, the issue is we don't create chances for them. We could have Haaland up front but if we can't supply him in a decent position even he's not going to score. We could spend a fortune on a striker and these kinds of games would continue because the issue is not finishing opportunities or even players making the space to get opportunities, it's that we can't supply them the ball in those situations because we can't break down a team who sit back in numbers. Agreed, we do have some creativity but we can't rely on a few players to create chances, the team as a whole need to be better in that department.

Exactly and I'm yet to see a manager who seems to be able to solve that issue. Peason struggled with it too hence we were set up to counter attack and hope to pinch the goals. Manning seems to change what he wants from us week in week out, sometimes it's counter football, sometimes it's possession but the one thing we struggle with are teams who sit back, we still have no creativity when it comes to breaking down teams with numbers behind the ball.

Frustrating and really piss poor defending. Total different game to Southampton, QPR sitting back in numbers and countering, Southampton were far more open and ultimately we've struggled to break them down. We don't deserve to be behind but that's what happens when you struggle to create against a team that will sit back and soak up the pressure well.

Williams just got crunched, that may fire him up haha

Oh shit, Bell just pulled after no contact at all

This kit looks amazing on the pitch, shame we have to go back

How bad is Atkinson injury from the under 21s? I'm starting to worry that lad is just riddled with injuries and may never fully recover at this rate.

Well earned win today and nothing but credit to the team, tactics were right, the players performed, everything went as planned. Not very often I can enjoy a match as much as that. Credit to all of those involved

I mean I see many, but like I said, I feel that he may be experimenting during some games to see what works and what doesn't that can't be replicated in training, time will tell. I agree with this, the results have been frustrating but considering the level of opposition and how early it is into LM's management of the club it's hardly a surprise that we've struggled to get points but many displays have been good. Birmingham and Millwall are also the performances that bothered me most. One thing I think we're going to see under Manning is closer games, Manning clearly likes to try and outplay the opposition and in this league the levels are very close with only a few teams having a clearly stronger squad which means in order to get results we're going to have to outplay teams who are just as capable of playing good football. I think this is why we've had the bad run of results, because it's still new, the players are still learning the style and because the opposition have been very capable of beating teams who play this way, even when they've had more time implementing it. The positive to look at is that we've been in these games, despite it being so early into a full transition of playstyle meaning we're obviously capable of playing, the team just need experience that will come with time.

I'm happy to give Manning time but to not critique him when he makes mistakes would be equally unfair the other way. My issue with him is missing some basics. He's failed to identify things that were identified by NP which in my opinion is something that someone at the club should be passing onto him, so whilst not his fault is causing him to make some mistakes that were already made in the past which creates frustration. Another thing that concerns me is how he reads the game sometimes, like in our last game how he changed the shape up at half time when we were looking so comfortable. After that change up we looked far less comfortable and had the linesman not saved us we would have been discussing dropping 2 points instead of taking 3. I can see a lot of positives that Manning has brought and I'm glad the players still seem to have that hunger/bite at times but we're still guilty of being very one dimensional. We seem to really struggle when a team identifies our weaknesses and uses them against us, the team doesn't adapt and Making doesn't make that change. It's highly frustrating to see us change our shape when it's working for us but when we're struggling we seem to stick to our guns and hope it pans out. As I said, I do see positives, I'm seeing us playing the kinds of splitting passes that we didn't make under NP but we're also making many of the same mistakes that NP identified and adjusted to fix. I'm sure in time LM will see this too and adjust but we still lack the ability to do it quickly and effectively in games, an ability that all of the top teams do so well. I've not written LM off at all, I just hope he is experimenting this season, hence making these unnecessary changes when controlling a game. I hope it's a case of testing what works and what doesn't whilst we're midtable and not looking likely to end anywhere else with the goal to implement the changes for next season. Either way, next season we may look like a very different team what with the likelihood of losing several players and the already new signed players joining up with the squad.

Ah well, just as well there is no streams

I don't see it, the board have the man they want, so much so they were willing to sack Pearson during an injury crisis and bring in a man with a crippled squad and a whole new plan, it was a wild decision to make but I feel like they'd had enough of the fans all getting behind Pearson and wanted a man who does as he's told. Manning hits me as a very methodical man, he makes a plan and keeps working towards it, no deviation at all no matter what and that's why when it goes well it looks great but when he's struggling he's not willing to change things to patch the leaks, instead he sticks firm until things fall in place. I think we have Manning for a minimum of a full season next season, the board will give him a preseason, more time to make the changes he requires and then if it's still failing their hand will be forced. I see Manning being here until the end of the 24/25 season, unless shit really hits the fan and we find ourselves battling relegation at which point the board will have no option but to find a Pearson manager, someone willing to come in, fix the mess they've created and get us back on track.

Conway, Bell, Cornick, Wells... all of these players best position is striker, Andi was far more versatile so at the expense of him playing in his best position he was moved around because he's a team player and willing to do it. I have a feeling Wells and Conway are probably more vocal about playing in that central role, Weimann always hit me as willing to do what was needed which is why I respect him as a person but as a player he should have said "I want that striker role", I mean who knows, maybe he did and was told no but whatever it was we prioritised Conway and Wells ahead of him and used his willingness to play him in other positions. What concerns me is that no-one was willing to go against that decision and say "Andi will score goals in the middle with supply".

I'm not saying he'd be prolific, but he'd score, something he's failing to do here because it's on him to create his own chances. Even with his low scoring rate his goals to games ratio was still higher at Luton than it is with us, the reason being he got chances at Luton, here he's largely had to create his own. I'm not saying the bloke is a goalscorer, for me he's best in a front 2 creating space for his partner and doing the grunt work.

I agree and think it comes down to the ego. They want to get promotion doing it their way and when Pearson came in he changed that up and even when they ham-stringed him he continued to do it his way which obviously rocked the boat. I think the board want to get promoted in a way that have the footballing world talking about what they've done, not what the manager has done for them and so they brought in Manning to coach whilst they can get back to running the club the way they want it to be run without any pushback. I see Manning as LJ mark II, he's forward thinking and has ideas but ultimately doesn't have the successful experience that makes great managers great, which is being able to get the best from the players. LJ and LM both are tactical thinkers, purists so to speak when it comes to management. They focus on the tactical side of things and try to get the players playing to the tactics whereas the best managers adjust the tactics to shield players from their weaknesses and use their strengths. A prime example is Bell and Vyner. Pearson identified what I've been saying for as long as I can remember now, that Vyners awareness is lacking in a back 3 and that he's uncomfortable there so his confidence shrinks and he makes mistakes. Pearson changed it up to a back 4 and once Vyner got his confidence back our fans were taking about him like he was the best CB in the game and the reason for that was Babbage he's more suited to that position mentally. He doesn't look around as frequently in a back 4 because he knows his positioning is correct, in a back 3 he's always second guessing himself and so he focuses less on the game and more on where he should be causing him to make mistakes that he doesn't make when he's comfortable with his positioning. Manning came in, changed us back into a back 3 and now Vyner looks like the shadow of the player he was when he was playing with confidence and it really showed in the Leeds game as him and Dickie both looked lost in where they should be as they struggled with their positioning. With Bell Pearson identified that the chances were not going to come through creativity but instead in catching the opposition off guard so he employed Bell to use his pace to force chances of which it did so well that Bell was scoring for fun, Manning has come in with his tactical vision and tried to shoehorn Bell into it but it plays to all of Bells weaknesses and nullifies his strengths so he's shrunk in the eyes of the fans. I am still happy to give Manning time as he's still using Pearsons players, but if he manages to change so many players in the squad and his tactical vision still overlooks players weaknesses whilst failing to come to fruition then his days are already numbered regardless of what he does as he's not the type of manager to build his team on players strengths and weaknesses, he builds his tactics and tries to implied the right players to execute it, something that you need money to buy the right players to pull off effectively.

I mean it was Manning who likes Mehmeti and wanted to sign him before we beat Oxford to it. I can see talent in Mehmeti but his decision making needs to mature and fast and with Cornick I see a guy giving 100% but getting abuse because he doesn't score, yet all of our strikers can't score at the moment and a lot of our fans are blaming them when they've got no service what so ever. WBA took on Andi, played him as a striker which I've seen saying is his best position that we only played him in for one season and then they have him service and instantly he scores. Our strikers are not the issue, the lack of service they get is the issue and I honestly think Conway will go in the summer and will be sorting regularly and even Cornick would get goals in a team with service. I'm really starting to worry about some of our fans, attacking Max for anything they can, the second the bloke makes a mistake it's all daggers but when he's saving us points it's "that's his job". He's another I'd like to see move on just so he can be appreciated because I think he would be. At the end of the day our problems are in our lack of creativity, we can do the basics but we have no flair or punch on the ball. When we were under Pearson he identified that issue and developed a fast counter attacking system to create chances using the pace of our players because he knew the creativity was lacking. Manning has come in and got us playing lovely passing football but it disguises the fact that we have no end product or creativity in the final third. We've also seen that when the opposition plays our own style against us we can become pinned back and fail to make our way up the pitch due to that lack of flair on the ball. When I look at other teams there is usually something about them that makes them dangerous, I don't see that with us. We can't supply our striker/s, we cross but have no threat in the air unless it's a set piece, we struggle to create space around the box, we're unable to make those small intricate passes in the opposition area that cause panic and we don't have a single later that excites the crowd when they get on the ball. If we lose to Forest I'm interested to see how the players react as that'll be the season done for them. If I were Manning I'd be very concerned about going into next season with morale down, fans interested lower and the board having to deal with the potential losses of Conway and Pring. Pring for me is a mid level Premier League player and staying here will prevent him from progressing, he's by far the best player we have and I can't see us holding onto him.

He's not past it, we just didn't use him to his strengths and he was never going to give us anything playing how we used him. I've had countless discussions about how his best season was when he was used as a proper striker in the middle, that's where he's best but we had too many fighting for that position so he was used out wide, as an AM etc Much like Wells or Conway, if you give them the supply they'll score goals, that's the difference between us and WBA, they create good chances for their forwards, we rarely do. I'd wager Conway would be scoring for fun in a team like WBA too, we may even see that next season oif he's off.

I think it's more of a case that the clubs knew they'd lose them in the summer for sure so rather than lose them midseason we've made a proposition to buy them and loan them back rather than compete with other clubs for their signature in the summer. It seems after today's dismal performance everyone is so peeved that they're just looking for any reason to attack the club/owners no matter what it's about. I agree the situation needs to be addressed but at this point people are just looking for anything to complain about. For me the main issue is in that we've changed our style of play but don't have the quality to play it against certain teams which means we're easy to beat. We can play the possession football with 3 at the back against some teams and we'll get results, but Manning should know better than to go up against a team like Leeds and put two up front leaving us lacking in the middle and exposed on the wings when they have an abundance of talent that can expose that. I'm fine with us playing possession football, I'm fine with three at the back, what I'm not fine with is having no second plan for when we go into a match knowing that we're leaving ourselves exposed. If we wanted to play two upfront against a higher quality of opponent in good form we should be looking at a flat back 4, 4 in midfield and have Tommy coming back to be the 5th man in midfield until we get in the final third where him and Nhaki could then move into that striker pairing. I don't think our issues are as bad as we feel they are after that game, we're not going to be playing Leeds every week but we will need to be able to change our shape on the fly when we are being outplayed and most importantly we need to get points on the board.

One thing I will say, I'm concerned that Pring may draw a big bid in the summer, the lad is physical, quick, skillful, I honestly can see a Prem team making a move for him.

James sleeping there and didn't read the pass.

That was the chance, great save by their keeper to be fair.