The Championship Thread 2023/2024

[Chrysalis]

2 hours ago, -sodapop said:

Just seen this - obviously us often leading by 75' means that there are more points to lose, but still a pretty damning condemnation of our ability to see out games when we're tied first place for most points dropped near the end of a game.

Yeah I think the 11 gained a big part of it was from earlier in the season and we have kind of reversed on it to where we are now.  It is also kind of a double whammy, as often in games the opposition might give up towards the end, and just play out the defeat, but if a team gains a rep for late collapses it instead encourages teams to up the tempo at end of games.

[Pub breath]

32 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

Yeah I think the 11 gained a big part of it was from earlier in the season and we have kind of reversed on it to where we are now.  It is also kind of a double whammy, as often in games the opposition might give up towards the end, and just play out the defeat, but if a team gains a rep for late collapses it instead encourages teams to up the tempo at end of games.

I don't know whether your game against Leeds was typical because I didn't previously have you down as a big pressing team but what worked for 75 minutes, was a fierce press that did a superb job of disrupting our passing game.  You especially targeted our most dangerous players - Gnonto, Summerville and Rutter and they were all ineffective compared to normal.

Problem with that often is, tiredness.  It's hard to race around for 95/100 minutes sticking to your man like glue.  I felt like you press started to drop at the same time we brought our subs on and that was killer.  Rutter took control of the game when he suddenly didn't have a man on his back and the whole momentum shifted.

As I say, that may well not be typical but that was certainly what happened Friday.

[zeurelious]

On 25/02/2024 at 14:10, The Doctor said:

I mean given in the game at Portman road the ref missed a stonewall pen on KDH and gave one yellow for Harness committing three yellow worthy fouls in 5 minutes, then Ipswich scored with a deflection from their only shot vaguely on target, I'd not be talking about luck 

You can certainly argue our conversion rate could do with significant improvement across the 2 games between us town scored only 2 goals in ~36 attempts whereas Leicester scored 2 in only ~24 attempts again against the mighty Maidstone and Preston we converted only 2 of ~65 shots you will still win the league by far the best team in the league you really didn't deserve to lose to dirty Leeds 

[ealingfox]

4 hours ago, FrankieADZ said:

some of them games you really dont know what you are going to get, like Hull, they look decent away from home but at home they can be a little iffy, same with Sunderland

 

be the leicester thing to go and win all of them now tbf

 

Its not though, that's the point - we don't win games against the odds or from adverse positions any more, we only do the losing from advantageous positions bit now.

Edited 26 February by ealingfox

[KFS]

You think we’re bad, check the EFL TOTW post on social media. Leeds meltdown  

[Blarmy]

58 minutes ago, Pub breath said:

I don't know whether your game against Leeds was typical because I didn't previously have you down as a big pressing team but what worked for 75 minutes, was a fierce press that did a superb job of disrupting our passing game.  You especially targeted our most dangerous players - Gnonto, Summerville and Rutter and they were all ineffective compared to normal.

Problem with that often is, tiredness.  It's hard to race around for 95/100 minutes sticking to your man like glue.  I felt like you press started to drop at the same time we brought our subs on and that was killer.  Rutter took control of the game when he suddenly didn't have a man on his back and the whole momentum shifted.

As I say, that may well not be typical but that was certainly what happened Friday.

I thought you admitted you were lucky on Friday? Now you’re talking about tactical issues and shifting momentum. 

I’ll tell you what shifts momentum - having a perfectly good goal to go two up disallowed.

 

Bloody hope Leeds lose soon. Could do with another one of your quiet spells. 

[Foxin_Mad]

4 minutes ago, Blarmy said:

I thought you admitted you were lucky on Friday? Now you’re talking about tactical issues and shifting momentum. 

I’ll tell you what shifts momentum - having a perfectly good goal to go two up disallowed.

 

Bloody hope Leeds lose soon. Could do with another one of your quiet spells. 

Its fair to say their subsititutions worked, ours were... well a bit shit. That seemed to be where the game changed. 

[Chrysalis]

2 hours ago, KFS said:

You think we’re bad, check the EFL TOTW post on social media. Leeds meltdown  

Link?

[Pub breath]

1 hour ago, Blarmy said:

I thought you admitted you were lucky on Friday? Now you’re talking about tactical issues and shifting momentum. 

I’ll tell you what shifts momentum - having a perfectly good goal to go two up disallowed.

 

Bloody hope Leeds lose soon. Could do with another one of your quiet spells. 

Whatever I say, you're going to find issue with.  It was a perfectly reasonable observation that has nothing to do with whether we were fortunate to win or not.

[Blarmy]

11 minutes ago, Pub breath said:

Whatever I say, you're going to find issue with.  It was a perfectly reasonable observation that has nothing to do with whether we were fortunate to win or not.

Where were your observations when you were miles behind us?

[KFS]

28 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

Link?

https://www.instagram.com/p/C30J9tZtoZM/?igsh=MWQxazVkMmxuNmt5MA==
 

Enjoy 

[Pub breath]

44 minutes ago, Blarmy said:

Where were your observations when you were miles behind us?

I've discussed our matches pretty much every time we've played.  Someone told me I'd been here 17 years the other day.  I think you're the only person to ever seen genuinely pissed off by my presence.

 

You're rather sensitive to say the least.

[iancognito]

21 hours ago, Lillehamring said:

You said they worked us out, which is bollocks. 

It's not bollocks at all. We had 21 shots and only two were on target (which is being generous counting Fatawu's post rattler). They went toe to toe with us, had a few chances themselves and were the first side who didn't just sit back and defend all game. "Figuring out" attacking was a better option than parking the bus. And again, saying that could be our only defeat hardly warrants your over-reaction to how we apparently played in one game 5 months ago

[FrankieADZ]

4 hours ago, ealingfox said:

 

Its not though, that's the point - we don't win games against the odds or from adverse positions any more, we only do the losing from advantageous positions bit now.

well its hard to win games against the odds if you are the favourite in most games, 

what does adverse position really mean? do we count drawing? because in all the games we've lost we could have easily got at least a point if we could put the ball in the net; 

and people forget the fact we wasnt crap in the games we've lost either

 

i seriously dont know how some of our fans are going to cope with us in the premier league, 3 defeats in a row and theyll be calling for enzo to go

[Sunbury Fox]

4 hours ago, Pub breath said:

I don't know whether your game against Leeds was typical because I didn't previously have you down as a big pressing team but what worked for 75 minutes, was a fierce press that did a superb job of disrupting our passing game.  You especially targeted our most dangerous players - Gnonto, Summerville and Rutter and they were all ineffective compared to normal.

Problem with that often is, tiredness.  It's hard to race around for 95/100 minutes sticking to your man like glue.  I felt like you press started to drop at the same time we brought our subs on and that was killer.  Rutter took control of the game when he suddenly didn't have a man on his back and the whole momentum shifted.

As I say, that may well not be typical but that was certainly what happened Friday.

Not sure momentum shifted that much after your subs came on. You weren't putting us under any kind of real pressure before the first goal which basically came from a lucky ricochet. Then the other goals were deflections. You just lucked out tbh.

[ealingfox]

48 minutes ago, FrankieADZ said:

well its hard to win games against the odds if you are the favourite in most games, 

what does adverse position really mean? do we count drawing? because in all the games we've lost we could have easily got at least a point if we could put the ball in the net; 

and people forget the fact we wasnt crap in the games we've lost either

 

i seriously dont know how some of our fans are going to cope with us in the premier league, 3 defeats in a row and theyll be calling for enzo to go

 

But we didn't, that's the point.

 

I mean getting something from the Coventry game, coming back against Boro, seeing off Ipswich in at least one of those games, getting something from Friday night - I think you know that as well.

Edited 26 February by ealingfox

[Ric Flair]

43 minutes ago, Sunbury Fox said:

Not sure momentum shifted that much after your subs came on. You weren't putting us under any kind of real pressure before the first goal which basically came from a lucky ricochet. Then the other goals were deflections. You just lucked out tbh.

It was a combination of James and Roberts coming on and Mavididi going off. Suddenly they went from Gray having a torrid time vs Stephy and Gnonto not being in it all half down pur left side to McAteer not being strong enough in supporting Justin at all and the momentum shifted.

 

Summerville was the quietest I've ever seen him until the final 10 minutes, I know it counts for absolutely nothing but to a man we had Leeds pinned and yet we leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of throwing away leads in such games.

[FrankieADZ]

1 hour ago, ealingfox said:

 

But we didn't, that's the point.

 

I mean getting something from the Coventry game, coming back against Boro, seeing off Ipswich in at least one of those games, getting something from Friday night - I think you know that as well.

tbf though we would have done if we could have finished, firmly believe we could have won the boro home game had Vardy put away his earlier missed chance, 

dont get me wrong, it annoys the hell out of me we dont go for the neck and kill teams off sooner, 

If im honest tho, id be more concerned if we didnt create chances

[Bert]

On 24/02/2024 at 20:20, Lillehamring said:

Oh yeah, the way they figured us out by knowing that if they let us have 21 shots, one would hit the woodwork one would be a save and the other 19 would be missed or blocked.  Yes, and the tactical master class of kicking the ball at the defender from outside the box and knowing it would deflect in.  Yes, by god, they had us figured out.

I think we were still finding our feet with a brand new style of play, new personnel, with them already familiar with they way they played and their personnel. 
 

You look at those first few games, most of them we won by the odd goal and some of the teams we beat we thought we’d be in for a tough game in the reverse fixture yet many of said games, bar Coventry we’ve wiped the floor with scoring plenty. 

[Pub breath]

11 hours ago, Sunbury Fox said:

Not sure momentum shifted that much after your subs came on. You weren't putting us under any kind of real pressure before the first goal which basically came from a lucky ricochet. Then the other goals were deflections. You just lucked out tbh.

Appreciate that you wouldn't want to watch that game back but if you did, you'd see a visible drop off of your press from about 15 minutes before the goal.  The first goal was a great example (with not a lot of luck about it, Vestergaard didn't deal with a fizzed ball in and then a good strike went in), Ampadu was able to freely stride out of defence into midfield to start the attack and then we had a fair few unpressured passes before Rutter ran at you.  Watch any phase from the first half and we never had that time.  That 15 minute spell before the goal was played mostly in your half as we dominated the ball.

We got lucky on the last two goals but they don't happen in isolation.  We worked the ball to Gray to shoot and he wasn't being tightly pressed.  Rutter danced through a few players before being hacked down for the third and may well have scored if he wasn't.  The pressure mounted in that last 25 minutes which is why we scored a few, despite the good fortune.

There's no dispute that it was a fortunate win for Leeds but there was a clear momentum shift that swung that game.

[Ricey]

I'm sure I read somewhere that Ipswich picked up a couple of injuries on Saturday but I can't find anything online about it. Any news?

[K789]

2 hours ago, Ricey said:

I'm sure I read somewhere that Ipswich picked up a couple of injuries on Saturday but I can't find anything online about it. Any news?

Guess it won't come out until press conference before their game at Plymouth. Remember Chaplin was one of them 

[Lillehamring]

On 25/02/2024 at 23:56, 5waller5 said:

No. They didn’t plan for Casadei to be recalled, which would rather lead you to the conclusion that whatever we had committed to pay him until the end of the season was now available to spend elsewhere. 
 

January was another mess and is at the door of our DOF. Ultimately we could really have done with that extra body in midfield, my point isn’t to re-debate how shit Rudkin is though …. It’s to make the point that we look tired and the boost of a signing (like every other club in the league managed to do) would have been a useful fillip 

Thus why we were trying to get Sensei in on a loan.

 

It really isn't just about the funds - bringing in a loan player in January is notoriously difficult, even if you can find someone available that fit's your system, not every club is going to agree to sending out a player in january.  I'm sure there are dozens of other factors.

 

And even if you get someone, they're not necessarily going to be match fit, and to play that #8 role in this system is not something a player can instantly adjust too.

[Lillehamring]

On 26/02/2024 at 02:13, HankMarvin said:

 

 

How nice of you to point at the clue is in the word potential, sadly for you it was missing from your post above, hence why I said it.

I think you'll find 'long term plan' and 'potential' are synonymous, or certainly carry the same implication.

 

Beyond this, given that this is maresca's first real job, any kind of appraisal of his ability is intrinsically tied into what he is capable of when he develops, again, the implication is clearly about his 'potential'.

 

Sorry if that was ambiguous.

[Lillehamring]

On 26/02/2024 at 13:25, -sodapop said:

Just seen this - obviously us often leading by 75' means that there are more points to lose, but still a pretty damning condemnation of our ability to see out games when we're tied first place for most points dropped near the end of a game.

I think the realistic argument to this 'feast or famine' scenario is that we're often in games with very tight scorlines  - which seems to be a gamble that maresca fancies and, too be fair, was going pretty well.

 

Factor in that 8 of those points are from the leeds game (deflected goals), the ipswich game (deflected goal) and the coventry game (10 men) - Maresca is playing the percentages and they've generally paid off, but you're always at risk of something unplanned or uncontrollable beating the odds.