Reply With QuoteI think next season will be worse unless we get a much needed change of ownership.
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City stay up despite losing exactly half of their league games.
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I think next season will be worse unless we get a much needed change of ownership.
It was ,on just about every level ,a terrible season.
The only redeeming feature was that relegation was avoided.
Even that can be considered fortunate as had Reading not had that points reduction then things may have been even worse.
I would like to think that things can only improve but decades of watching the City make me somewhat nervous of even thinking that.
I think it was about time we have had a bit of luck with the points decision against Reading , when you think of the amount of bad luck the club has endured since the Sala affair.Originally Posted by Majorblue
We need to get our arse into gear and decide as a football club what do we want.
It seemed that the buys of higher energy players was a nod to using the full 5 subs each game and outwork the opponent. Didn't work so a knee jerk change to the point where we've brought in a load of physicality and direct play.
From developing youth to staying in the division and not risk the younger players.
This flip-flopping of styles, managers and club ethos is going to cost us if we don't have a plan and stick to it.
If Lamouchi is going to be the manager (which I'm not as keen on as I was originally), sort it out ASAP and try and piece out some kind of stragegy as were back to where we were last year.
If not, pull the trigger now, especially if Nathan Jones would come here.
Great article. Spot on as usual. I really hope Lamouchi reads it (although probably not today)
I don't have the same depth of feeling about the luck element of this season - Reading broke the rules and got punished for it in the same way we have been under an embargo for not doing what we should have done.
My bigger concern is the standard of refereeing that has cost us points this season and if I remember correctly we have had up to five letters of apologies for refereeing decisions this season?
History never narrates this but for me the standard of refereeing is declining year on year
Don't forgot the pens too, if we had a bit more luck putting those away we would be a fair bit better off in terms of points.
Well said.
ThanksGreat article. Spot on as usual. I really hope Lamouchi reads it (although probably not today
I can think of QPR and Coventry (both shocking decisions) off the top of my head, but, although I’m pretty sure there are more, can’t think of any others.
Agree that the standard of officials is poor, but my question to you, which I don’t know the answer to, is would five be that much worse than any other team? If the officials are so bad, wouldn’t all teams have a few instances of poor decisions against them every season?
While I'm not convinced that we would have beaten Huddersfield had we needed to, you can't ignore the fact that the game was a dead rubber for us. I was absolutely fuming at the performance in that game but that doesn't alter the fact that they needed to win and we didn't. So, had it been necessary, our margin of escape might have been greater.
Blaming referees is a mark of desperation surely. No doubt fans of most of the teams in the division feel that they were robbed of points by poor officials.
Sabri Lamouchi didn't keep us up- a points deduction did, so there is some doubt as to whether he has actually fulfilled his remit. As TOBW says, we've improved some aspects of our game but regressed in others whilst he's been in charge.
All I do know is that we need some stability and for that reason alone we have to stick with what we've got.
There is a point of view that had we gone down other clubs may have been citing our embargo being lucky for them. Every club has a tale of woe or happiness I s’pose.
Legitimate question I know but I suppose the point I was getting was the difference it might have made to our points total -
E. G simpson sent off and a penalty against qpr both decided afterwards being wrong decisions
The other game was Blackpool where madine should have been sent off Robinson was booked for diving for a penalty which later was agreed to be a pen and then madine scoring a late equaliser - so a number of incidences in the same games all leading to seperate points of apology from whoever issues them - the league refs association etc
But you are right other sides will probably have similar claims and maybe the ref association should declare how many letters of apologies they have issued as some form of league table of apologies
All of this leads to a rich tapestry of opinion that makes football such a great game but also an argument maybe for wider use of var although even this isn't flawless 😭😭
That Madine one was definitely a red card and I think there’s another one quite recently.
A league table of apologies from officials - I’d love to see that, but, somehow, I don’t see it happening
Think VAR is coming in the EFL, but, hopefully, not until it’s been speeded up so that we’re not kept waiting as long for decisions on goals as they are currently in the Premier League.
We have gone back to being physical and direct as a result of the complete shambles that was last summer. It was all built on a naive plan where we'd just have runners in midfield with nobody able to pick a pass and goals would magically appear. Who signs Rinomhota in a supposed possession side? He's a more energetic Vaulks, who runs around, gets stuck in, can't pass and doesn't score screamers. I have not seen Adams but he had 1 assist and 0 goals in League 2 with a 65% pass completion. He's not a creator. Sawyers cannot move, we saw that at WBA and Stoke. So that leaves Ralls and Wintle, and they're never going to open you up.
Club also made a catestrophic mistake in having such a large squad. Coventry and Luton have smaller budgets than us, finished in the playoffs and their squads are small. If you have a small squad of 20 or so players, you can have good players on decent money, rather than 20+ also rans with 7/8 good players. We've wasted so much money on dross. At one stage this season we had more than 30 pros on the books. It was lunacy. Whyte, Harris, Nelson, Simpson, Ojo, VDC, Tanner, Sang and Watters all chewed up wages while doing absolutely naff all. We had 3 right backs, 5 centre backs, 11 attackers and 0 centre forwards until Jan 31st. The whole thing makes me angry.
Our only objective should be to stay up. We can do that by being hard to beat and getting players who can put the ball in the back of their net, and some who are good at keeping it out of ours. Then, after that you sign some good midfielders who can actually pass the ball forwards and move, and the style progresses over time. The club (predictably) dropped a bollock not appointing Rob Edwards when they got rid of Morison but we are where we are.
Sign 2 strikers (at least), an attacking winger/10, a creative deep lying midfielder, 2 centre backs and we'll be OK. The issue is, all of those 6 have to come off. Our squad is undoubtedly best suited to play 352 and we can't rip it up and start again, as almost all of the side are signed on for next season. Last summer was a fantastic opportunity and the club is such a shambles, they wasted it. Let's hope we can survive this coming season, having put some real building blocks in place so that when we can wave goodbye to Simpson, Ojo, Sawyers etc; we'll have a core of good Champ players to build around.
I'm not holding my breath.
Lamouchi said after yesterday’s game that our biggest need was more creativity. That’s what someone like me instinctively wants to hear, but, realistically, we need at least one good centreback and an accomplished striker more. I can remember you and I not being overly impressed by Kaba in his early days with us and I’m still don’t think he’s that good a footballer, but if I had to nominate one player who kept us up, it would be him - to score goals at a rate of better than one every other game in a team like ours is amazing. However, it also shows that getting in a striker who can score on a regular basis is not as hard as we’ve made it look for the last ten years and more.
Kaba is hilarious. He shouldn't be good and yet, he's scored so many goals. His movement is good, though and he's committed. I'd now love for us to keep him. We need to find people to get the ball into the strikers but unless we sign some good ones, we're going to be struggling again. We need to replace Philogene, Kaba and Kipre with players of similar quality before we can think about addressing anywhere else. I'd like us to sign another centre back and striker, too, and a centre mid.
I am slightly concerned he played 4231 yesterday. I think we'll be in trouble again if we build towards that, we don't have the strikers, centre mids or wingers to play it.
Another fantastic account Bob. Thanks for continuing to do these, I read them every week and agree with the vast majority of your analysis. That said, for those of us who have an aversion to Monday mornings, you haven't helped much this season. 😉
I think Lamouchi wants to play 4-2-3-2 and yesterday was another short lived attempt at that.
he's played a similar system at most of his other clubs.
Don’t think you mean that.
It’s a good system to play, but some ref is bound to spoil it
I remember last summer just watching on completely baffled as we signed workhorse after workhorse to play possession football, it was incredible really. The only thing more surprising was people lapping it up that we'd be playing some kind of swashbuckling "Morison ball" with a side consisting of grafters who (at their very peak) were little more than average Championship players, pinning all our creative hopes no an over the hill Sawyers
I reckon go for that, very innovative.
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