Feyenoord (H) | CL | Post Match Thread

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

You remember that game? Were you by any chance the bloke that brought those tablets down from the mountain after talking to God in the form of a burning bush?

Haha, nooooooo! I was ten years old, or possibly nine, still in primary school, went to Maine Road on my own (those were the days!), two buses across Manchester, 'n I stood on the Kippax front row. And the only thing I could see after we had established a 3-1 lead was to see some ghostly figures taking three centre kicks inside the last ten minutes. City 3-4 Wolves! I've got previous that inures to the the kind of stuff most of the folk at the game last night witnessed for the first time!

 

[LangleyBlue1970]

You never change.

Here’s how you were towards Pep the season we won the treble.

View attachment 139114

That’s fucking mental, that. Some serious medical attention needed for a few on here of late.

 

[indianablue]

Well you know fair well what losing is all about then or have you forgotten when we lost regularly?

Only too well mate, perhaps i've been spoilt by our successes but my demands on this team are greater given our successes and investment. I can handle defeats, i can handle fuck ups but to continue to make the same fuck ups time after time is either incompetence or sheer arrogance . Pep needs to find a plan B and mix things up a bit. Our defence needs to be drilled and trained and not fucked about with. If Pep can't do it then he needs to get in a defensive coach to do it for him.

 

[Jazzyblue]

Yeah, this is why I'm not hitting the panic button. We're always a bit this way around November in almost every season, the injury situation is just so, so much worse and it's exacerbating all the little problems Pep would usually solve. If we weren't creating chances/goals at all then I'd be more concerned, but quite often it's been the case recently where we're having loads of the ball and good chances, the ball's just not ending up in the net. The defence is fragile and fatigued for obvious reasons (we had two bloody kids in defence at the end last night) but Dias coming back will sort a lot of those problems out. A proper DM comes in at some point in January and we'll be reet.

I also think at the moment we're just getting really unlucky. We dominated the second half at Spurs in the cup and had at least two chances cleared off the line. We were unlucky not to nick a point at Bournemouth. We should have been out of sight against Brighton. We should have been ahead against Spurs by the time they scored to make it 1-0 and then just when we needed a bit of luck to start a comeback Haaland hit the bar. Last night against Feyenoord doesn't happen if Dias and Walker are on the pitch but they're currently coming back from injury and we're having to manage their fitness by persisting with a lad who's just turned 20 and needs a break (Lewis) and a bag of nerves who ordinarily we still wouldn't have heard of (Pusey).

Roll on January.

Sensible analysis. In Pep we trust no doubt, but the major problem Pep has to solve is that other teams have worked us out. Controlball is not working at the moment. Opposition sit deep, watch us pass it about without any of our players taking a gamble (instead always playing the extra pass), they wait for one of those passes to fail, then do us on the break. Even if their attack fails, we don't counter, we go back to trying to slow the game down again. It sounds daft to say it considering we put 3 past them last night, but until that pen we were actually quite wasteful in possession. With a less fatigued team, we would not be losing possession as often, so can afford to be less economical. But at the moment we're ragged out - by injury, fixture congestion, off-field pressures and long hard, victorious campaigns, so the precision needed for our possession based game isn't there, instead our style is just creating more and more room for mistakes and risk aversion. And the more mistakes we make, the more risk averse we appear, the more the fear factor around us fades.

 

[Ajm1985]

Pep has rarely made 3 subs and when he has the team has been on form which they plainly are not
The subs affecting the balance of the team resulted in more pressure from the opponents leading to the mistakes

You're right but what was that game a few years ago - Leicester at home? Pep made the garbage time subs (Philips, Gomez, Palmer) in the second half and ut felt like we were just hanging on.

 

[Keeper!]

I seriously couldn't tell wtf was going on as each of those 3 goals unfolded. Clanger, after clanger for all three.

Sunday league defending, fatigue, injury , lack of motivation, those players in our shirt should be shamed for that level of defending.

 

[WesthoughtonJohn]

Only too well mate, perhaps i've been spoilt by our successes but my demands on this team are greater given our successes and investment. I can handle defeats, i can handle fuck ups but to continue to make the same fuck ups time after time is either incompetence or sheer arrogance . Pep needs to find a plan B and mix things up a bit. Our defence needs to be drilled and trained and not fucked about with. If Pep can't do it then he needs to get in a defensive coach to do it for him.

Unfortunately this season we can't get enough of them 100% fit together at the same time.
It's not an excuse - as I think Pep needed to let the team sit deeper until we get bodies back - but coupled with losing Rodri (and now Kova). Playing the way we do is hanging the defence out to dry

 

[Father Paul]

They shouldn’t be training today. They should be made to watch the second half on a loop for a few hours and see how painful it was.

Agree. Very little point running around to keep warm. A very large part of the problem now is a psychological deficit. This needs to be worked on. Also the manager must tweak the system even if he stays within the realm of his football philosophy. Back in the day when a team was in a rut it was believed that the first thing to do is to stop the goals leaking in. That builds a degree of confidence which allows the right results to return. If we repeat what we have been doing for the last few weeks things will get an awful lot worse before they improve.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

No that was Oakie Cokie

Not kind…

;-)

 

[hilts]

You’re genuinely the worst poster on this forum.

Probably harsh from my side since you’re clearly of a low intelligence level.

Currently looking at your post history from previous instances of poor form and boy is it something….relentless attacks on Pep whenever we don’t win even in seasons where we won the league…

His hire an inspirational speaker business's did not do well