Spike

He also spent a lot of time being criticised about his injuries and then went to Swansea and seems to be fine which makes me wonder if it's our injury issues that we always seem to have that contributed to his own fight against injury?

Vyner has to be dropped at this point but I still think Pearson is doing a good job overall, it may sound crazy to many but let's be honest the team has improved in a lot of areas, the only issue seems to be a mental one from our defenders. For me Klose is a great addition and Kalas looks better with him here which is why I'm frustrated that we don't have a natural right back as a back 4 of Klose, Kalas, Pring/ Dasilva and a right back would be far better IMO. At this moment I'd even dare to say I'd go with Pring as left back, Klose and Kalas in the middle and DaSilva on the right but I have a feeling that Pearson wants the players to keep playing the current formation because his long term plans is to bring in the right players to make it work. It's frustrating as hell to watch this atm as we seem like we're improving in the final third but it's come at the cost of defending. That balance won't be easy until Pearsons had time to bring in the right players as we're not in a financial position to go straight out and buy them, especially in the January transfer window. I just want us to survive this season and potentially hold onto Semenyo and HNM. We need another season with a few more changes, maybe two in the current financial situation and whilst I'm frustrated I hope in the summer we'll see the dead weight players be released/ shipped out and Pearson make some great bargain signings to make the spine of this team stronger and the defence more confident.

Hardly a surprise is it. I'd still give Cundy a game over Vyner, his confidence and head is gone in these high pressure games, he just can't keep his wits about him.

Frustrating or disappointing will most likely be in the first sentence.

That whole Football manager comment is such a poor addition to your statement, it's just trying to add weight to your opinion which isn't needed as it's a valid opinion to begin with. No, it's not football manager, but Pearson brought Cundy on the other day which would suggest he's of the opinion he can play at this level. Has he played a lot? No, but how will he ever play if he's not put in the team? How will he ever make his place without a chance? The fact is Vyner has been responsible for yet another goal today and it's certainly not the first time he's been a factor in conceding this season. Pearson may know his players but I feel his desire to play Vyner is to raise his confidence because Vyner has the technical ability but lacks confidence, the issue is that his confidence isn't going up and he's still making mistakes. I would much rather have a young, hungry player like Cundy on the pitch than a center back lacking confidence and who is making silly mistakes on a regular occasion?

I missed this reply until now, I mean I'm replying with a bit of a "I said so" card after what we've seen but I'm not fully aware of our injuries. In all honesty though if we stay with the current formation I'd take playing Cundy or Atkinson over Vyner as CB right now, although I think Atkinson is still injured? I know this may seem out there but I'd also like to see us play 4-4-2 with this line up, although it would be controversial: [ DaSilva is our best passer and crosser of the ball, giving him an opportunity to be higher up the pitch on his favoured side would do wonders. Cundy at RB I'd like to see tried as Vyner isn't good enough and I can see desire to prove himself in Cundy. Weimann on the right could switch into a CAM role when attacking allowing us to get the most out of his attacking but also his running when defending. Then Scott and Massengo in the middle to close down and over more creative options going forward. In defence Kalas and Klose wouldn't have so much confusion on when to stay and go and with Cundy you'd be able to have 3 tall defenders for defending set pieces. I know it looks very "out there" but I think it plays to the players strengths with the only exception maybe being Cundy at right back but I think you'd need to access his ability to play there through training and seeing how he does. Was I wrong to worry? :laugh:

I had a feeling Vyner would be our weak link, totally asleep on that goal, sloppy marking, not aware at all and on that the match has flipped on it's head.

That line up worries me a little, looks very much like Vyner may be the Swans target, especially if he ends up on the right. I'm presuming DaSilva will be on the right and Pring on the left with Vyner in the middle but who knows, either way he doesn't fill me with confidence.

For a while I felt the same, I mean Bentley is definitely more experienced but for some reason I feel he's just as prone to make mistakes. The difference for me is that O'Leary is still learning and showing signs of learning from those mistakes whilst Bentley pretty much is at his peak now. I'm currently more inclined to sell Bentley and have Max step up, we certainly need money so the sale would be great if we can get what we need from it and we could end up in the long run with a better keeper.

I think at this point all we've proven is that we cannot play in this formation. Whilst we've improved going forward we don't have the quality at the back to play with 3 central defenders, we get pulled all over the place and we never look confident in our defending at all.

And yet again it's from a corner. You can see there is a good team here but something is hugely broken with our ability to defend.

All this talk of Lampard aside the purchase of Alli is the one that's shocked me, every time I've seen him play recently he's be beyond awful! Talks of potential £40 fee... boggles my mind.

I honestly wonder if it's the physical side of the game, today we deserved a win easily, by far the better team but when it comes to injury time we don't seem able to hold the ball up in the oppositions half. I can understand we have some lightweight players but Semenyo is a big lad, why isn't he able to switch to the wing position for injury time, get him the ball and have him hold it up. You see it all the time with other teams, they get the ball, they push up and they hold it, we just seem to wilt.

Flint should have been off there!!! Well played to Martain to play to the whistle and great finish!

Well done Massengo, gave them the ball and a direct goal from it! ******* sloppy!!

So we've made 2 subs in less than half an hour, the second half of this match is going to be Cardiffs if they press hard and wear us down.

Cardiff hit the post off of a long throw, they're winning every second ball, the lads need to show some determination!

Vyner on for Atkinson..... FFS! We're being outplayed massively in the middle, can't create anything and now we have Vyner on meaning less height against a team who are very dangerous on set pieces.

Towler again... ******* crap!

Towler all over the place in marking his man, easiest header they could have asked for.

This is a fair point to a degree but again, he started off at Chelsea where he was never going to be played and until he came here he's only ever been loaned out. As a professional I'd say we only know what we've seen and I'm all fairness I don't think he's ever been given a prolonged run in a team that plays to his strengths. I think his previous loans were pretty much "we'll take him and see if he works for us" loans or which he wasn't used to his strengths and with us we've never had the right tactics /play style to compliment him. I think he permanent signing showed that we could see where his strengths are and we were building a team that would compliment him until we sold a few of them to generate big money and he became surplus. At 25 I think most clubs see him as a player who has /had so much potential but he wasn't given the time in the right surroundings to develop it and at this point he's "too old" to go on to fully reach that potential. In terms of his professionalism I'm still undecided. Many say he's lazy and looks uninterested but when I was younger the same was said about Andy Cole on his arrival, only for them to realise he was actually an incredibly perseptive player who only ran when he knew he'd get to the ball. Some argued that he should chase anyway just incase players panicked on the ball and he could make the most of it but soon changed their tune when they saw how quick he was compared to other strikers in his latter part of the match because he didn't chase himself tired needlessly. Looking at Kasey I can see a real talent and I can also see a frustrated man who is always being critiqued despite the fact noone ever plays him to his strengths but they expect him to change games.

The issue with KP is purely down to style. I honestly believe if you put him in a team that played 4-4-1-1 with a solid all round striker infront of him you'd see a totally different player. I don't think it's a case of KP is a bad player, I think it's more a case of he's a very niche player who will not shine unless the tactics suit him, rather than him having to adapt to the tactics. I see him as a luxury player, he's the type of attacking midfielder /forward who would shine in the right system, the issue is we'll never be in that position to use that system and so when he's given a chance he struggles to find his place. As much as it sucks to think about it I think when he signed he would have fitted perfectly with the players we had around him had we then converted our playstyle and played him consistently, however, we didn't and we've moved away from that style with the sales of players making him surplus to requirements. What does concern me is us ending up selling him off cheap due to financial situation and the current playstyle only for a good club with the right playstyle to get an absolute steal. I do wonder if he'll end up going on a free as his contract runs out and then his the ground running elsewhere but at the same time he's a risky purchase if you pay any fee that we may ask for meaning he's stuck in a situation where we can't get the best out of him, we can't risk selling him too cheap only for him to go to a rival and start shining and his contact is ticking away.

This is spot on but what's upsetting is that looking back not so long ago that is exactly the type of players we had and LJ had us playing that style. This is why I think there is so many annoyed fans right now, we were there, there was nothing stopping us from staying there... until we sold those players and replaced them with less technical players and now we're really struggling because of it. As much as I was happy with the result yesterday watching Semenyo mess up so many simple and basic passes really summed up a key issue for me. We are awful at keeping possession, add to that the inability for our defenders to keep shape and track threats when playing with a back three and it's not hard to identify why we're struggling. We give the ball away far too easily, be it a simple pass that isn't good enough or lumping it up the pitch and being beaten to the ball off the head. Then when defending our back three can't seem to control their shape and who should be pressuring and who should be preventing gaps. Over 90 minutes these two issues combined practically guarantee that we won't have a clean sheet meaning we'll need a minimum of 2 goals to secure 3 points, all of which is a big ask when Martin is not prolific, neither is Weimann, Semenyos decision making still seems to be off and our only natural finisher either isn't sharp due to a lack of game time or isn't even provided good opportunitys to take. If we're going to continue to play lump ball then we need the big man, in this case Martin, to have a very creative player and a prolific player supporting him. As it is our prolific player is on the bench most of the time and we don't have a creative player of the quality we need to play near Martin and even if we did he's mostly isolated in this formation as we're playing it. I like Pearson, I think he can turn this club around given enough time and backing with transfers, the issue is we're lacking funds, we don't seem to attract the quality of players we need and this means Pearson is almost forced to play this awful football and hope for the best because he doesn't have the players needed to play any kind of cohesive formation. I still think we're playing 3-5-2/5-3-2 due to the end of LJs era and Holdens time here. We bought players for that formation and we lack the depth in the squad to change it up. If we were to play 4-4-2 we have no natural right sided midfielder that would suit it nor do we have a quality right back capable of covering for Weimann if he's put in that right midfield role as most of his time is spent making runs off of the ball into advanced areas. If we played 4-4-2 our right side would be massively exposed. Scott could be a right sided midfielder with actual ability to drive at teams but again, we'd need a good right back behind him to offer cover. Even the left side is questionable, O'Dowda is a winger naturally, he's able to play in a left midfield role, but again, he's far better pushing up meaning we'd need an experienced, more defensive left back behind him but instead we have lacking experience or DaSilva who is more of a wing back than a full back as his strength is going forward. Simply put we lack quality in wide positions which means we're better off bulking the middle of the park to make up for that and using wing backs as the middle three can chip in when we need a winger or advanced wide player to push forward. This squad lacks the quality and depth to change how we play right now, Pearson has identified that and in my view is doing the best he can until he can improve the quality, hence that quote about not bringing players in unless they're the right quality to improve us. I know some people will say he's made signings since joining that don't seem to make sense but I think those transfers are more about having temporary depth for the current formation. I personally hope that somehow there will be a situation in the transfer windows where Pearson will be able to get the players he needs to actually change our current formation and style of play, whether that be January or the more likely summer break where he can start making those changes, until then I can't see much changing no matter who is our manager/coach as our squad is hugely unadaptable in its current state.

Telling stat is we've not hit the target.

At least our performance will never be as bad as the adverts on Robins TV...