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[ScottishRed]

2 minutes ago, Moor2Sea said:

Bordering on wreckless that team selection. 

Neither Walsh or Kent should be near the first team squad, let alone first team. To include both against against a decent side in a ‘must win’ game was just totally bizarre. To add Wright in a unfamiliar position and continue with Bryan as a left back was ludicrous. Like playing 7/8 against 11.

We had options, far, far better options. We are no longer threadbare. We had  GON handing out Easter eggs FFS!!!!

Fed up of the ‘still learning’ argument. That side was destined to lose from the time he selected it. Sometimes I just can’t believe how he can get things so wrong when he had things so right a few months back. Beginning to think there is a deep and ingrained flaw somewhere in his approach to the game which just keeps reappearing. One thing is for certain. He is not learning. That is a great worry. 

I agree it is deep worry.

I can't help but think that when Fam got injured LJ almost stumbled upon a formation that worked due to a lack of any other options.

Now Fam is back he always gets picked as he is our record signing and it doesn't work.

It wasn't working today so he takes him off and replaces him with Duric - who is only ever going to be of any value when we keep the ball in the attacking third and have players on the pitch that can cross a ball - and we didn't.

Kent, I actually feel sorry for, you could see in the first half his confidence is shot away - why play him and then keep him on after HT only to take him off after 11 mins.

Elliason didn't even make the squad - £2m player who cannot get on the bench.

It is a shambles - and one of our own making.

Money has been made available and a lot of it has been spent very badly.

[Davefevs]

@ScottishRed in our good run, he didn’t have much choice about who to play, and for once I confidently picked the team LJ picked.  Not one person would’ve picked today’s line-up, not even Macca or Deano I suspect.  I think he over-thunk it today and recently.  

It’s why I’d rather he went to a more compact first team squad next season, backed up by youngsters chomping at the bit (with us, not at Cheltenham, Newport, Solihull Moors, Torquay).  They’ve had their men’s football, now the harsh reality of fighting to get game-time in the Championship.  Sink or swim.

Spend pre-season Re-drilling the players that stay - some will fall off the radar if City fall away anyway.

[Mr Popodopolous]

51 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Spend pre-season Re-drilling the players that stay - some will fall off the radar if City fall away anyway.

Very important this point- but what I think is particularly important about this point is we must drill consistently in pre-season, 2 plans IMO minimum.

Plan A or bust was the mindset- I remember some quote very early or on the verge of the season about how they had spent all summer on it, or similar.

2nd half v Barnsley on the opening day and then this pattern repeated itself but with worse results v Birmingham and that set alarm bells ringing for me. Brilliant first half- v Barnsley game was won. Vs Birmingham- great first half, winning at half time if I recall. Redknapp said: 

Quote

"First half I thought they were better than us. We had to hang in there - I just wanted to get to half time.

Plan A- brilliant, great football- goal up and really playing well. We were too.

Quote

"They [the Robins] were playing through us and around us in the first half... We couldn't get near them. We thought we'd thicken up the midfield with another midfield player, and I thought it worked," he said, referring to bringing on former Robin David Cotterill late in the game.

Now, I know he is a very experienced manager, but LJ should have seen that, seen the pattern of play change- and reacted accordingly IMO. That quote sticks in the mind for me as it was very revealing, about our Plan A and it's various strengths...and its obvious weaknesses. In a sense it was like a repetition of the tailoff of 2nd half v Barnsley at home- but the difference was we had that one won, out of sight by HT.

 

Best football came with Paterson behind Reid IMO- 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2-0 as you called it in another thread. I'd class that as Plan A+ in some respects,  personally.

[RumRed]

I simply made a diary entry that said 'bugger'.

[havanatopia]

I was hoping it was a cunning plan. How the blind follow....

Did LJ criticise the fans for booing some of our more inept players such as Wright and Kent? Always on dodgy ground when a manager says that sort of thing. Fans have every right to boo, firstly, and the manager has a lot of nerve to lambast them when perhaps 22,000 fans thought his team selection a tad suicidal. Arhhhhh..yes.. And that of course brings us back to his, or should I say Mark Ashtons, cunning plan.

[Loco Rojo]

Nope. I didn't think defeat, but I also didn't think I'd be watching a performance as poor as that either.

(A good night's sleep hasn't made things any better)

[RedM]

I did immediately think shite. Then I wondered if LJ had stumbled on a side that Brentford or indeed nobody else would ever think of, it could be pure genius!

In my head I was writing a thread on here, another one entitled ‘Kent, THAT pass’ for all the right reasons this time. Sadly like most things in my head it was just sheer fantasy. But maybe Kent did read my thread after Barnsley as he showed no sign of getting the ball and running with tricks and trying to beat 3 players, which I criticised him for, instead yesterday he got the ball and got rid of it asap, hot potato stylee. Sorry folks, his lack of tricks was all down to me. 

[Offside]

I was perplexed about why Walsh was starting (when he'd barely featured for a while), why Wright had been selected ahead of Baker and why Kent was given a starting position. However, I didn't foresee that absolute shambles of a performance. Even at half time I was clinging to the hope that something would happen to make us even marginally better.

The main concern for me is that in recent weeks poor performances are becoming a norm.