The Elephant in the Room

well is he the messiah or just misguided and out of his depth , 10 games in with little to see in the way of improvement imo.

 

Well it’s still better to watch than when Cooper was here though isn’t it ?

 

My gut feeling is that the results will improve as the season progresses and we will end up mid-table. We won't be challenging for a play-off spot but neither will we be in a relegation scrap.

To play a possession game the build up may be a bit laborious giving the opposition time to get behind the ball. Then you have to patiently break them down on the edge of their box and without top-class players to unlock a defence things fizzle out, eventually lose possession without having a shot and on it goes.

What's the answer? Swifter counter-attacking play? It's a conundrum. And the defensive set-up needs re-addressing probably.

 

Two wins in a row puts us way over half way so I think we have to put up with the managers ideas for now...

 

I'm happy with how we're moving the ball forward but my concern is the tweaking of the defence and the set up , keeping possession all well and good but there has to be an end product, 1 shot on target against Fulham to me is not the best way to utilise the amount of ball we have .I'm not calling for his head but it is a bit concerning that we're weaker at the back than last year, yes Guéhi is massive loss for us but we're not functioning as a defensive unit and I always believed you base your team on the strength of its defence

 

Yes it is and I'm thankful for that .

 

Obviously the results haven’t been what we all wanted, but for me, what has changed is the belief. Even at 3-1 down on Wednesday, I still felt we were capable of getting back into it, whereas under Cooper I never felt we could score goal.

 

Defence-wise it's either keep a clean sheet or concede three at the moment.

 

For me, Martin is still ‘learning’ but needs to learn quickly.

I’ve no problem with that as long as he uses the experiences to learn from his (and the team’s) mistakes - eg playing Cabango on the right of 3 CBs with no support from his full back.

We said time after time with Cooper that we lacked pace and width. Russell is playing with width - but wing backs not wingers. That leaves us open to quick counter attacks as we saw at Craven Cottage.

We still need pace - as Aswan said, we are so slow and laborious going forward that teams have plenty of time to get back and set up to defend - Millwall were a case in point. In the previous 4 matches against us, they played a high press, but didn’t bother as they knew we were so slow in getting forward that we couldn’t / wouldn’t hurt them.

The next half-dozen games are crucial - that will be just over a third of the season over, and if we are still where we are, twitchy bum time will be the order of the day.

Lose to Derby and Cardiff and we will be in the relegation zone. It would be ironic if we took Forest’s place in the bottom three….

 

Flynn to Legoland?

https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/19617882.manager-michael-flynn-leave-newport-county/

 

Got be a good bet, if Mick loses badly against Reading