Plaster on a bullet wound.

[Dullmoan Tone]

1 hour ago, Fordy62 said:

Some definitely truth in here. I feel like we’ve perhaps compromised some of our strength in defence that we had under LJ to improve our attacking. 

Strength in defence - we haven't had this since the 18/19 season?

Have you seen how many goals we conceded last year, 15 teams conceded less or the same as us.

[sludge]

Really don’t understand why some people seem to think that you only deserve to win a game if you’ve been the better team for 60 minutes or more.

The reality is that lots of games will be very tight/evenly matched and the team that wins will be the team that took their chances. 

Football (and sport in general) is about key moments - not who was the ‘best’ team for the longest period of the contest. 

[1960maaan]

2 hours ago, Tipps69 said:

I do have my fears about some players, are we being played by Walsh & Diedhiou? Walsh knows DH wants to build a team around him but we’ve seen nothing of him, is he hoping to get to January & then agree a deal elsewhere? Similar with Diedhiou, making all the right noises but no actual action has been seen yet. I’m hoping to be proved wrong.

Fam I can see running his contract down, specially if his agent has been chatting to European teams, would b a shame but I have that feeling.
Walsh is a funny one, I would imagine we have offered him a decent deal, but maybe he thinks he can do better as L1 player of the year last year , his stock is high. No fee as such? I saw/heard theories about the club waiting to see where we stand towards the end of the season, very risky strategy. IMO.

I guess we need to try get through games first, get to the break and hope Williams, Walsh & Baker are available (that could be massive), even Mawson . Then hope we get a decent run of form going, those 3/4 players could make a difference between hoping and challenging for the Playoffs. Then people's minds can be focused on contracts.  Like I said, I think it's risky, but I guess other side of the coin, we don't know how good Walsh will be in this division and what he's worth (to us). 

Big decisions ahead.

[CiderCraig]

14 hours ago, ohhhshauntaylor said:

Make no mistake, that was a great win, and 17 points from 10 games is very satisfactory, 18 or 20 from 11 would be positive. 

 

However- tonight was pot luck from Deano- and hopefully he learns quickly that he cannot continue to make such obvious selection issues. 

 

3-5-2 was HIS formation, we recruited for that, we also sold to suit that, given the last 15 minutes tonight, that won’t be a formation we see again, he surely will refer to 4 at the back, and then probably a 3 in the middle, or a diamond 4 with 2 up top. 

 

Brunt was again very poor, he can’t start games and his signing is quickly looking the opposite of what we needed.  

 

When look back at our league games, yes it’s a result business, but we’ve papered over the cracks. 

Cov- awful from minute 1-80. 

Stoke- very good all round display. 

Forest- MOM Bentley, somehow nicked 3 points. 

Sheff W- awful first 50 mins, better the last 40 mins. 

Barnsley- awful first half, good 15 minute spell, costly error to drop 2 points. 

Middlesboro- awful. 

Swansea- poor. 

Bournemouth- solid display until negative changes.

Norwich- abysmal performance. 

Huddersfield- awful for 75 mins, great last 15 minutes. 

 

Maybe we (finally) have a lucky manager... but I for one hope I’m wrong in thinking our wheels will well and truly come off soon. 

 

Still, only 11 wins or 33 points from safety. 

 

COYR. 

You made so much sense, right up until you typed the first letter of your post. 

After 4 games, people were saying "it means nothing until 10 games in", well we're 10 games in, in 6th place, 2 points off of 2nd. By any measure, that's a pretty good start, yet it isn't enough for some. Had this stat been with your choice of manager (Hughton, perchance?), I'm pretty sure you'd have been delighted. 

Performances have been up and down, but we are holding our own, so ethi g that bigger clubs than us are failing to do (Derby, Forest) to name but two. 

Buckle up, going to be an up and down season, but how exciting it is to be in the mix whilst not playing ultimate Football. 

Enjoy it, chill out, have a cider and be a little more positive.

 

It's Bristol City, we never make it easy, but this season just got interesting

[Tipps69]

26 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:

Fam I can see running his contract down, specially if his agent has been chatting to European teams, would b a shame but I have that feeling.
Walsh is a funny one, I would imagine we have offered him a decent deal, but maybe he thinks he can do better as L1 player of the year last year , his stock is high. No fee as such? I saw/heard theories about the club waiting to see where we stand towards the end of the season, very risky strategy. IMO.

I guess we need to try get through games first, get to the break and hope Williams, Walsh & Baker are available (that could be massive), even Mawson . Then hope we get a decent run of form going, those 3/4 players could make a difference between hoping and challenging for the Playoffs. Then people's minds can be focused on contracts.  Like I said, I think it's risky, but I guess other side of the coin, we don't know how good Walsh will be in this division and what he's worth (to us). 

Big decisions ahead.

Totally agree regarding the contracts, while the club could have a firm idea on who they want to keep, offering contracts could be dependent on what division we could be in, as you say if we get to January & we are in contention, decisions would need to be made. I think the club probably already have lists drawn up on who could play for us IF we got promoted or if we didn’t.

For instance, could you see any benefit of offering Nagy a new contract (ignoring last night) and seeing how much he had played under DH if we got promoted? In fact it could be questioned who would be classed as adequate enough if we were to get promoted but I guess that’s a question for another topic. But are the club weighing up offering players contracts that they wouldn’t be of use to us (if we got promoted) to the cost of replacing of these players ended up walking away for nothing? And as you said, would these players expect pay rises on their current deals if they signed a new deal while in the current climate?

This is something every club will need to weigh up especially if the wage cap happens so we could see a lot of players changing clubs on free transfers in the near future.

Off the top of my head, I know we could be in a position to lose Paterson, Weimann, Diedhiou, Baker & Walsh (I’ve not looked into it properly yet) so that would leave us needing to replace a lot of experienced players but could save us a lot of wages! It’s simply not as easy as just agreeing to give all these players what they probably want, especially if they want to stay here.

Like you say, big decisions ahead.

[SouthS22]

4 hours ago, Tipps69 said:

You have proof on those figures? Williams was signed for nearly half the price you have quoted according to reports & he’s the only player that we have spent a transfer fee on. From the squad DH inherited at the end of last season he has lost Maenpaa, Ashley Williams, Smith, Pereira, Benkovic, Afobe, Henriksen & Eliasson (off the top of my head) as first team players, he has managed to brink in Mawson (injured), Sessegnon (injured), Brunt, Martin & Williams (injured).

Eliasson went for more than Williams incoming so we have spent less & then I’d suggest the wages of the 8 outgoing players far outweighs the wages of the 5 incoming players? So we have cut the wage bill considerably?

DH has dealt with the things that have come his way, he hasn’t moaned or used them excuses, he’s accepted them & moved on because moaning & using them as excuses gets no one anywhere & he’s still managed to get us into the top half with a decent points return after 10 games.

All hail DH the saint and turner of water unto wine.  Verily, we must bow down before him for he be-eth the messiah... 

Or back in the real world, removing the rose tinted specks, we can probably see that Deano has inherited a very decent squad with some great young players coming through.  Shame about some of the injuries, but there’s plenty of talent in there to be getting a decent performance and being competitive each week.  Other injuries have done him a favour and forced him to look at alternative options so it is true to say that sometimes he is stumbling on right formations and on putting round pegs in round holes in some positions rather than the square ones he’s been hammering away with. 
 

Last night showed real development and was one of the more solid performances we put in so far.  Very well organised, great shape, good defensively, until that mistake gave away the goal, and we created some decent half chances - solid away performance where the team worked well together as a unit.  Tactically excellent substitutions in terms of players and of change of formation -  definitely an improvement on the chucking loads of forwards on and hoping for the best.  Not the most exciting but from a management perspective very promising.  Hopefully onwards and upwards from here.  

[Prinny]

I don't like the assertion that we're papering over the cracks when we have actually had a look at the foundations yet. We don't know if there are cracks. There's cracks when you hit the squad with an injury hammer.

Williams was bought to play. Walsh is a "major part of how we WANT to play" Mawson's kinda unlucky although not because of his history. Same with Baker. So when they're back, and we actually see the foundations, I think we can start making comments like this.

Also not after transfer window one. It takes time to change the squad around especially after the mess it was left in. We have a lot of players out of contract who I wouldn't bring back, and a lot of players under contract who the manager doesn't see as part of the first team. Takes time to fix.

[WarksRobin]

15 hours ago, Port Said Red said:

So 6th and 17 points from 10 games and we haven't played well yet? 

Well my glass is definitely half full......

 

From another perspective, we are currently 6th in the table and have played (though not beaten) the four sides immediately above us during the past four games.

[big dosser]

8 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

Fine margins in this division. We have not been played off the park by any team, even v Norwich we went toe to toe and could easily have got the draw we deserved.

With all our injuries disrupting the master plan I think the staff and players have been magnificent.

 I am happy with where we are as a club.

Last night , however was a massive, massive three points and will do everyone the power of good.

 

spot on for me and with the players to come back like Williams and walsh and a few others who are carrying knocks the future is bright under dean and his team.we finally got a coach that when the chips are down he is not afraid of going for it like last night.some call it luck I call it good brave coaching

[ExiledAjax]

4 hours ago, sludge said:

Really don’t understand why some people seem to think that you only deserve to win a game if you’ve been the better team for 60 minutes or more.

The reality is that lots of games will be very tight/evenly matched and the team that wins will be the team that took their chances. 

Football (and sport in general) is about key moments - not who was the ‘best’ team for the longest period of the contest. 

A really good point here that needs to be said more. We follow a game which is so low scoring that any small moment or variance can lead to a complete turnaround in the result. Quite often that can be enough to overturn whatever dominance has occurred across the 90 minutes. It's great and it's why people travel hundreds of miles to places like Huddersfield. The away end would have been electric at 90 minutes last night.

[Top Robin]

This might sound bizarre but I think we are very close to being a really good team but also very close to being a really poor team. Basically it could go either way and it will need Dean and his coaches to make small tweaks to ensure it is the former. 

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

A really good point here that needs to be said more. We follow a game which is so low scoring that any small moment or variance can lead to a complete turnaround in the result. Quite often that can be enough to overturn whatever dominance has occurred across the 90 minutes. It's great and it's why people travel hundreds of miles to places like Huddersfield. The away end would have been electric at 90 minutes last night.

Made that point the other day that high scoring games (basketball) tend to have less shocks.