blueandwhitematt

I’ve said on other posts I’ve a lot of admiration for how they have carried themselves this season. I fully appreciate the circumstances they’ve been working under. Yesterday was different though in that we didn’t give the game the respect it demands. What does every underdog team do in a cup tie or big game where the odds are massively out of your favour? They try and level the playing field. Go and wind them up, leave a marker early doors, play the percentages, work their socks off, and so on. We did absolutely zero of these yesterday and wilted under their press and trying to pass it round our own third in bad conditions. We didn’t have a lot of cards to play, but we got the approach all wrong. It wasn’t just about us fans yesterday, the players had a chance of a bit of a small victory for themselves too by putting it right onto them.

The first thing Wilder does in these games is take away the space in and around Bannan. I’ve always been a little surprised more teams don’t do it. Now that does leave gaps elsewhere, but we have to tactically target them. Which we never have done, we just act a bit shell shocked we can’t get Bannan into the game and lose the plot trying to play in tighter and tighter spaces.

It might sound harsh, and probably is, but he is going to have to start showing something else or I suspect you’ll be right. Granted his options are very, very limited, but we still try and play nice football when we don’t have the players to support it. What our plan is to even try and score a goal, I don’t know (beyond just giving it Bannan).

It’s a painful watch all round. I’m being deadly serious when I say I’d rather us invest the time in Cadz Brown and even Grainger to the end of the season now. On one hand you can say it’s not his game he’s being asked to do, and I do agree. On the other though, you’re a professional and you need to find a way in. He is petrified at the moment of engaging defenders, and that is the bare minimum he could do. I do feel for him though. He looks bereft of any confidence and it’s not nice to see. I know we’re low on numbers, but I’m not sure it’s doing him or us any favours throwing him out there every week.

I’m as much an ‘extenuating circumstances’ person as anyone. And generally they can be commended for this season. But that today really was not good enough. Even when things weren’t going for us, none of them wanted to make it a scrap, bring them down to us. Hardly saw anyone getting into the ref. Do something to try and wrestle a bit of something, the little things can add up and spark a moment. And that last ten minutes they even stopped chasing back. I’m not bothered how tired you are, in a derby game that is inexcusable. We just rolled over today.

Yup. And this is what made me laugh back end of last season when all the briefing was about ‘the players don’t like Röhl’ / they want Pederson etc. Perhaps I’m too old school but I remember that actually being a good thing, you’re not there to be best mates with the players. Anyway, that’s gone… I’ve cut him a lot of slack this season, I know he’s working with nothing etc, and rightly so he’s carried himself well. But he’s still got to find a way to influence the game. The tactics today were bewildering, against that side in those conditions. However he can rightly feel let down by them today though, he gave them time off for breaks over the last 2 weeks and this tepid effort is how he got rewarded.

As a couple of others have said, what a damning indictment of how the club has been run. The amount of low hanging fruit available for a new owner with even a tiny bit of business acumen is astounding.

Agree on the CM. With the next points deduction taking away any faint hope of an escape, then one of this seasons priorities now, as daft as it sounds, has to be making sure we don’t break Bannan and run him into the ground.

It’s amazing how much proper interest you can easily get when your master negotiating tactic isn’t “show me how much money you have and I’ll tell you a price”.

Can’t deal with all this. Can’t they put a video out telling me sell my house or to know my place or something.

He would be a significant step up from DC too.

We were always told he was a personal advisor and not a club employee, so presume one of their first tasks is to tell him return your pass in the post and that’s that.

If they need any extra hands just shout up please.

That’s the spirit

While possible, the regulator is a variable that didn’t exist in the example you quote that now makes any of this much, much more difficult to get away with.