Naismith

[Harry]

Ok. Before I start, I just want to make it clear that I do like Naismith very much and he’s arguably the best passer, best organiser & talker and most composed player we have in the squad. 
 

But…… 

For Stoke’s winning goal today, Naismith committed what I view as a cardinal sin. 

My biggest pet hate is players not putting in the effort to get back. Whether that’s just simple tracking of a runner or busting a gut to make up for an error or loss of possession. 
 

Their winning goal today started about 30 seconds before where Naismith had the ball just inside our half, wide to the left. He had time and he looked up and saw he had a nice easy pass inside. He chose not to make the pass, travelled forwards, ended up down an alley and lost the ball. Not long after, they hit a long ball forward - Naismith was favourite for the header but misjudged it completely and ended up underneath it. 
The key point to note here is that the Stoke player who he challenged aerially was the guy who ended up scoring. 
 

After misjudging the header, Naismith stands still. He now watches the play unfold. And 7 seconds later, the chap he’s just jumped with slotted in the winner. 
Naismith was now approximately 25 yards away from him. 
 

Now, as said, I do like Naismith. But this, for me, is the biggest sin you can commit on a football pitch. 
I can forgive errors, misjudgments, mistakes, slips of concentration etc, but the one thing I cannot tolerate is lack of effort. 
Naismith simply gave up on this play. He missed the header and immediately went into “oh bugger” mode. If he’d stayed focussed instead of being frustrated with himself he’d have tracked back with the eventual goalscorer. 
 

Now, I’m not saying he’d have ended up preventing the goal, but he’d have had a darn well better chance of doing so had he not just given up altogether. 
 

I like him, but actions like this are unforgivable in my book. 
It’s not something I’ve seen from him before, so I’ll allow him some slack on this, but his actions (or lack of) have lost us this game and if I see anything like that from him again he’ll be going into my naughty book - and once you’re in there you gotta turn it around something special to get out of it

Don’t give up. Track back. Effort and commitment must be at max. This one is on Naismith. Let’s hope we don’t see it again. 

Edited September 30, 2023 by Harry

[Shuffle]

Spot on & said the same on another thread as was embarrassing.  

[The Fat Controller]

He's two different players. 

I like the midfielder. 

The defender is a liability.

[Bristol Oil Services]

I trust, Harry, that Joe Bryan is no longer in your "naughty book" now he's not tracking back for Millwall, and they're doing sh*te? 

[GreedyHarry]

Got to agree. Vyner gets a lot of grief but he covers a lot of Naismith’s mistakes. Today we saw what happens when Vyner isn’t playing. Don’t get me wrong though, Naismith is a good player, just has a few mistakes in him.

[GrahamC]

1 minute ago, GreedyHarry said:

Got to agree. Vyner gets a lot of grief but he covers a lot of Naismith’s mistakes. Today we saw what happens when Vyner isn’t playing. Don’t get me wrong though, Naismith is a good player, just has a few mistakes in him.

I thought Rob Dickie played well today but what is obvious is that without Zak we lack the pace he has at CB to get recovery tackles in.

Thought Wesley (their 18) got away with absolute murder with the number of times he jumped at the man but we just didn’t look as secure as a unit & watching the winner again we get into a right pickle at the back.

[Bristol_Badger]

9 minutes ago, sinenomine said:

He's two different players. 

I like the midfielder. 

The defender is a liability.

Same one that got in to the championship team of the season the year before last? 

[BCFCGav]

He’s a change I’d make for Rotherham. We’re all about ‘keeping the shirt’ and squad players are told to stay on their toes as their opportunity will come. Naismith, a great player, has made two expensive mistakes in our last two games.
 

After a 2-0 up, to 3-2 loss, against a pretty poor Stoke team, I think we have to give some other players opportunities on Wednesday. I’d bring Roberts in at LCB and Weimann into the midfield, with Knight playing just a little deeper. Naismith and Williams out. Rotherham are poor, we don’t need two sitting midfielders.
 

Ideally we could bring an actual centre-half in for Kal, but barring the kids we don’t have any more. I understand Roberts has experience in that role.

[spudski]

58 minutes ago, Harry said:

Ok. Before I start, I just want to make it clear that I do like Naismith very much and he’s arguably the best passer, best organiser & talker and most composed player we have in the squad. 
 

But…… 

For Stoke’s winning goal today, Naismith committed what I view as a cardinal sin. 

My biggest pet hate is players not putting in the effort to get back. Whether that’s just simple tracking of a runner or busting a gut to make up for an error or loss of possession. 
 

Their winning goal today started about 30 seconds before where Naismith had the ball just inside our half, wide to the left. He had time and he looked up and saw he had a nice easy pass inside. He chose not to make the pass, travelled forwards, ended up down an alley and lost the ball. Not long after, they hit a long ball forward - Naismith was favourite for the header but misjudged it completely and ended up underneath it. 
The key point to note here is that the Stoke player who he challenged aerially was the guy who ended up scoring. 
 

After misjudging the header, Naismith stands still. He now watches the play unfold. And 7 seconds later, the chap he’s just jumped with slotted in the winner. 
Naismith was now approximately 25 yards away from him. 
 

Now, as said, I do like Naismith. But this, for me, is the biggest sin you can commit on a football pitch. 
I can forgive errors, misjudgments, mistakes, slips of concentration etc, but the one thing I cannot tolerate is lack of effort. 
Naismith simply gave up on this play. He missed the header and immediately went into “oh bugger” mode. If he’d stayed focussed instead of being frustrated with himself he’d have tracked back with the eventual goalscorer. 
 

Now, I’m not saying he’d have ended up preventing the goal, but he’d have had a darn well better chance of doing so had he not just given up altogether. 
 

I like him, but actions like this are unforgivable in my book. 
It’s not something I’ve seen from him before, so I’ll allow him some slack on this, but his actions (or lack of) have lost us this game and if I see anything like that from him again he’ll be going into my naughty book - and once you’re in there you gotta turn it around something special to get out of it

Don’t give up. Track back. Effort and commitment must be at max. This one is on Naismith. Let’s hope we don’t see it again. 

Harry...the fact you keep repeating ' I like Naismith '...underlines there is a sense of ' I'm not sure about him'. 

He has quality but he isn't a CB. He's a DM that has quality distribution. 

He needs someone behind him when he makes mistakes. 

Arguably our last two defeats have been down to his mistakes. 

Both in defence. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

21 minutes ago, spudski said:

Harry...the fact you keep repeating ' I like Naismith '...underlines there is a sense of ' I'm not sure about him'. 

He has quality but he isn't a CB. He's a DM that has quality distribution. 

He needs someone behind him when he makes mistakes. 

Arguably our last two defeats have been down to his mistakes. 

Both in defence. 

If we would have only Vyner, Dickie , Atkinson as natural CBs this is inevitable. You need two right footed and two left footed genuine CBs I believe.

Should we read anything into the fact that these errors came about in Vyner's absence? Vyner-Naismith as a pair worked okay IMO. Not that I don't rate Dickie but different pairs have different characteristics etc.

Always thought the squad 3 light.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[Rossi the Robin]

I said before the game, I would prefer a Dickie / Vyner partnership and not Naismith as CB.

Going to be interesting when Atkinson is back as to what Nige does, but generally there are always injuries 

Moving forward I’d imagine, it will probably be Naismith and Williams fighting for a CM spot 

[OneTeamInBristol]

30 minutes ago, BCFCGav said:

I’d bring Roberts in at LCB and Weimann into the midfield, with Knight playing just a little deeper. Naismith and Williams out. Rotherham are poor, we don’t need two sitting midfielders.

Playing Haydon Roberts at CB against a side like Rotherham would be an awful move, bloody hope he doesn’t do that. 

[Mr Popodopolous]

8 minutes ago, Rossi the Robin said:

I said before the game, I would prefer a Dickie / Vyner partnership and not Naismith as CB.

Going to be interesting when Atkinson is back as to what Nige does, but generally there are always injuries 

Moving forward I’d imagine, it will probably be Naismith and Williams fighting for a CM spot 

I suppose an issue is, Vyner and Dickie..we seemed to be lacking some creativity from deep ie behind the midfield plus Vyner-Naismith is a nice and bona fide right left, Vyner-Dickie not so much.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Mr Popodopolous

[Malago]

32 minutes ago, OneTeamInBristol said:

Playing Haydon Roberts at CB against a side like Rotherham would be an awful move, bloody hope he doesn’t do that. 

Agreed.  Though Pring at LCB and Roberts at LB is a possibility.

[BITW]

3 hours ago, Bristol Oil Services said:

I trust, Harry, that Joe Bryan is no longer in your "naughty book" now he's not tracking back for Millwall, and they're doing sh*te? 

To be fair JB never had the positional sense to play LB in a four (any MOTD he played there for Fulham proves my point ) Naismith is a strange one, very good footballer but has a mistake in him per game. Today and Leicester last week is a prime example. Not convinced he’s a CB! 

[W-S-M Seagull]

In my opinion Naismith needs to get past the thinking that he is a CB. He is a deep laying play maker for me. 

[REDOXO]

3 hours ago, Bristol_Badger said:

Same one that got in to the championship team of the season the year before last? 

The season/year before last. That’s handy!

[old_eastender]

He was largely at fault for Stoke's first goal too with a very weak header out.

Much better suited to defensive midfield role.

We could put Pring LCB and Roberts LB until Vyner fit.

Edited October 1, 2023 by old_eastender

[Super]

Simply has to be stronger and win the header like most CB's would. Weak.

[redapple]

If I wasn’t such a lazy bar steward I could have written that myself. 
And I thought Sam Bell put a very half hearted effort into tracking back and preventing a cross on Stoke’s first goal. 
But I was a lot like Bell and Naismith in my playing days . So can’t criticise too much . But I hope NP does ! 

Edited October 1, 2023 by redapple

[Littlesh*t]

For me the things Naismith does well at, he looks a real star of a player and could play higher.

 

Then the flip side is he makes some stupid mistakes and switches off.

 

Personally I don't like him at CB because of the mistakes and I don't think he is good enough to get in our midfield, that being said we does miss his ball playing skill when he isn't in the team

[Shuffle]

Naismith in general defends well but come the last 15 mins seems to lose his discipline and becomes loose in his passing. Ultimately, we all knew we were light at CB with Atkinson injured & compounded now by Vyner injury. We have such limited options & Lansdowns budget strategy needed us to remain injury free which we aren’t.  Naismith does need to be better as a senior pro but let’s not lose sight of the tightened budget as that’s the only reason he’s at CB as no options. 

[Lack of Action Man]

10 hours ago, sinenomine said:

He's two different players. 

I like the midfielder. 

The defender is a liability.

I agree with this 100%.

[tin]

40 minutes ago, redapple said:

If I wasn’t such a lazy bar steward I could have written that myself. 
And I thought Sam Bell put a very half hearted effort into tracking back and preventing a cross on Stoke’s first goal. 
But I was a lot like Bell and Naismith in my playing days . So can’t criticise too much . But I hope NP does ! 

I suspect we would be stronger down that left side with Roberts at LB and Pring further forward. 

As for Naismith, I think he’s better in midfield but until Atkinson’s fit, Roberts is the only CB alternative. Other than that, it’s the academy boys. If only we had some cash to address that lack of strength in depth!

I like Naismith; his vision and ability to pick a pass is essential. But he’s a costly mistake waiting to happen at CB and it’s pretty clear Vyner was mopping up behind him as well.

[cidered abroad]

He is a decent player for making defence splitting passes from midfield. Problem if he plays there is that we do not attack through the middle - everything goes via the wings  for crosses.

In the back four, he is too slow to react quickly and is prone to making passes that are defence splitting but through our defence!

I acknowledge that he has a lot of experience and he's a decent player but if he is as good as some are saying, why did Luton do nothing to keep him for their successful push to the Prem?

[red colin]

3 hours ago, old_eastender said:

He was largely at fault for Stoke's first goal too with a very weak header out.

Much better suited to defensive midfield role.

We could put Pring LCB and Roberts LB until Vyner fit.

Spot on.simple 

[Davefevs]

11 hours ago, GrahamC said:

I thought Rob Dickie played well today but what is obvious is that without Zak we lack the pace he has at CB to get recovery tackles in.

Thought Wesley (their 18) got away with absolute murder with the number of times he jumped at the man but we just didn’t look as secure as a unit & watching the winner again we get into a right pickle at the back.

And Lowe did exactly the same when he replaced him.  Ref gave us a couple of free-kicks first half, but none second half.  I’ve never seen so many long punts forward end up as bouncing balls, and that’s because their two forwards pretty much fouled every time.  It really annoyed me, no attempt to win the ball.

Tracking back / recovery runs…or lack of…is almost as a big a pet hate for me as it is Harry.  Just do the run, think afterwards.

Bell got caught ball watching for their equaliser.  Sykes didn’t track Tchamedeu just after.  Maybe Sykes was struggling with a small injury, but I bet he’d have put more effort in had he been running the other way.  Bell switches off most games, it’s something he really needs to work on.

Just isolated incidents…

 

…but boy did they cost us.

[Davefevs]

As for Naismith - not being a defender - when this comes up, everyone seems to forget that he’s played perfectly fine as CB in many games….and forget mistakes made by other defenders, just to lump on him.

It wasn’t like he effed up trying to do a Cruyff turn in his own box was it?

[old_eastender]

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

As for Naismith - not being a defender - when this comes up, everyone seems to forget that he’s played perfectly fine as CB in many games….and forget mistakes made by other defenders, just to lump on him.

It wasn’t like he effed up trying to do a Cruyff turn in his own box was it?

No, but he effectively had 2 assists, for Stoke's 1st and 3rd goal and gave away the pen against Leicester too. He makes more goal ending mistakes than any other defender we have. He might make similar mistakes playing midfield, but they are not so costly.

[Davefevs]

11 minutes ago, old_eastender said:

No, but he effectively had 2 assists, for Stoke's 1st and 3rd goal and gave away the pen against Leicester too. He makes more goal ending mistakes than any other defender we have. He might make similar mistakes playing midfield, but they are not so costly.

Effectively?  What by being on the pitch when a goal goes in.  The lengths people will go to scapegoat / blame a particular player is bizarre.

By your evaluation of assists - what you you give Pring for those?  2 goals?  Golden Boot? 

By all means criticise for a dangling leg pen last week, but don’t look for reasons.