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Don't think tactics and systems of playing are the issue - we've got this strange away record where we're competitive and have taken points against highly fancied teams pre season when we play under floodlights in midweek and cautious, soft and lethargic when we play on a weekend afternoon against less fancied teams. At the moment, our season is being defined by the shocking losses at Reading, Bristol City, Millwall and Huddersfield where we got exactly what we deserved. Is it something to do with how we prepare for weekend away games that is different from how we do for midweek ones?
To me, the performance level when we play well is too high for a relegation side, but the fact that I think we played well against Birmingham and Preston and ended up scoring one goal points to the weakness which could drag us into the relegation dogfight - we've played twenty two halves of football in all competitions this season and in only one of them have we looked like a team that will create and take a decent number of chances.
For me, we've got a familiar problem - underperforming wingers with the exception of O'Dowda (who wasn't great yesterday or at Bristol).
We've got a much better balanced midfield than we had, but it lacks dynamism - apparently Adams has that quality in spades, so maybe he'll make a difference when fit, but we're going to be playing a lot of weekend away games this season and our performance in them has got to improve greatly if we are to see this new team playing to the potential I feel it has.
Where does the cost of our squad and wage bill rank in the league this season?
Hold on. Anyone could recruit 9 new players who effectively have been disregarded by their previous clubs. That is basic recruitment that goes on in every business and isn’t difficult (it is laborious and time consuming but not hard to do at all)
Now will they be any good or not, time will tell.
Brilliant recruitment it most definitely isn’t. Yet.
It is just recruitment at the moment.
"It was a difficult one today, because we didn't know what they were going to do. They made a lot of changes, changed their formation, changed their style of play. Took all risk out of the game.
"We had to freshen it up. Sparky [Mark Harris] had a dead leg from the game on Tuesday, so he hadn't trained up until we came up today.
"So we thought we'd change it up, freshen it up and try and hurt them regardless of what shape on the turnover, which we did at times in the first half after the first 10-15 minutes. Obviously having Sparky on the bench we had the ability to then change and we did. We went for it with a couple more up top and got Callum [O'Dowda] back to wingback.
"So we couldn't really figure out what they were going to do until we saw their team-sheet."
Should we be worrying so much about what the opposition is going to do when they're 2nd bottom with just 1 win all season? What we did at Boro was good enough to win the game - just stick with that as far as injuries allow.
Where's the leadership on the field?
Ever since I've followed the City, we've had recognised leaders.... Joe Dwyer, Paul Ramsey, Darren Purse, Graham Kavanagh, Mark Hudson, Sol Bamba, Sean Morrison.....
There are no leaders out there in this squad.
Joe Ralls, through a combination of fitness and form issues, means he's only going to play a cameo role for us this season anyway. Besides, he's just not captain material, far too quiet.
Perhaps Allsop is the nearest we have, but I'm not in favour of 'keepers being made captain, they aren't in the thick of it.
I listened to that part of the interview and thought that he was overthinking it. Morison clearly prepares methodically which is definitely a strong characteristic. But you can go too far.
Knowing where that limit is, is probably down to experience? (that said, Pep gets accused of over thinking things! 🤦*♂️)
Good teams don't worry too much about the opposition shape - they play to their strengths and defy the other team to best them......