Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
Is this the NG who played a slow pass across a crowded penalty area against Derby? If Derby had ANYONE with an eye for goal, they would have scored then. I know NG played the pass that led to the goal (all down to the strength of City's sub, btw) but even as a kid it was drummed into me NEVER, EVER pass ACROSS THE BOX. Sorry, but that was just rank defending.

Is this really what we are arguing about: 'Lightweight'? Davies was lightweight against Curtis Davies. Wintle is lightweight, imo. Overall, to do well in the Championship, players of strength are needed. Warnock for all his faults knew this. It's the blend of strength and skill which succedes. We are nowhere near the strength of team we had when Warnock was manager. We won all those games late into the match because we wore teams down. The present City team would be over-run by that Warnock side. Go on, tell me I'm wrong.
It probably would, but we're not where we are in the table because we're too lightweight in my opinion. Cast your mind back to the summer of 2019 when Warnock put together a squad which Nathan Blake aptly describes as Warnockball on steroids, we were supposed to bludgeon the rest of the division into submission. Despite many supporters recognising the problem this would cause even before that side had kicked a ball in competitive action, Warnock went ahead with his squad that had strength to burn, but could not play football. Ever since then, we've been trying to recover from the damage that caused and, with parachute payments having out and an owner who has taken a financial hit because of Covid, we're not that well placed for an effective rebuilding job.

Do you think that it is always the strongest, most physical teams that win this division? From what I remember we were seen as something of an exception in 17/18 for succeeding in the way we did - in a way, Warnock deserves more credit for succeeding in 17/18 using methods which haven't tended to be successful in recent times.

One other thing, this table shows us to be the worst first half team in the Championship, while only Fulham have scored more second half goals than us. In the period seventy six minutes to ninety, only Fulham and Coventry have scored more than us and we've scored four more than we've conceded - indeed the sixth and final of the game's fifteen minute periods is the only one where we have a positive goal difference - this team has got plenty of faults, but not lasting the ninety minutes is not one of them.

https://www.soccerstats.com/timing.asp?league=england2