A few things hit home for me today

[70sPimlico]

I'm a fairly upbeat chap, try not to get too knee jerk after games, like to think I'm reasonably level headed about our prospects.

I thought we would go up this season automatically.

About ten games in, I thought we would knit a team that would start gelling about now and players would know where each other was and we'd be incredibly hard to beat.

Today was a bit of a blow actually.

I think as it stands, today is about as good as this team will get from what I saw. The transition from defence to midfield is shocking. I have to lay the blame on that to our coaching and tactics. Theres so little flexibility and it just slows everything up and the effect of this is further up. The bottom line is we just dont cause the opposition the attacking threat that our players absolutely have the ability too.

We should be an absolute nightmare to play against but our tactics make it quite easy to combat.

I now know that this team will not be promoted automatically (No ShI@ Sherlock many of you say). Thats quite a big issue for us as a club with the budget and aspirations etc.

More telling is my belief that this team will probably make the play offs but we absolutely will not win them. Theres 5 team (inc leeds and west brom) that we would not beat over two legs. I'd actually make it 6 and include reading on todays performance.

So, if this penny has now dropped for me, has it for the powers that be. If were spending big money on Hector, I just think we need to then get ourselves a premiership ready right back.

We also need something else. I cant put my finger on it but the balance is all wrong. I'm not qualified enough to be sure but I just think these tactics dont work with Mitrovic. I dont think we get the best out of everyone else. Not for one second am I saying drop Mitro but I am saying maybe play differently that suits a team with Mitro in.

Interesting times

[The Swan]

We need a defensive midfield player.

We need a ballplaying midfield player.

For starters.

[Rambler]

What I found odd was that we pretty much had no midfield for the entire 1st half.
We ended up playing a 4-1-5 formation with reed and then o'reilly as the only proper midfielder shielding the back 4. This changed in the second half when Johansen played a deeper role but it meant we were so so vulnerable to a quick counter which is how they scored their first.
I also thought it meant we looked quite disjointed when trying to attack with a few players tripping over each other and leaving the through balls, and long balls to come from the back 4, mostly ream or bryan

[Andy S]

However we play it is down to the manager. He's inexperienced and we won't be going anywhere this season unless we can crawl into the play offs. Parker is probably with us until the end of the season. So let's not kid ourselves any longer