this season...
I just cannot help but think the club/Pearson have been very nieve about the riggors of the prem and the quality required to compete. Thinking that perhaps all of our midfield have premiership qualities, that Nugent still has what it takes in the prem, and that our defence was solid enough to keep say 6-8 clean sheets in the season.
It is quite clear to me that our start was a lot down do momentum from the end of last season. We could never keep that kind of pace up week in week out, but we played without fear and ran at teams. No teams like this, Swansea did it brilliantly against Arsenal on Sunday and look very uncomfortable.
Now we play without any kind of width, we don't create anything for the strikers but they seamingly get the blame. We cannot keep clean sheets as teams run at us, especially down the flanks leaving the full backs often up against 2 of the opposition. Pearson states today we cannot let teams dominate us in the middle, and I agree when it comes to the big boys, but this is just a handful of sides. The others we need to play to our strengths, and play at least person who can create something from very little.
We have probably the biggest take up of season tickets in many many years, selling out week in week out and if we want to keep these fans on board we need to keep them interested. Of course we will lose games this season but the nature of how we losing them is of bigger concern. You'll always get glory hunters but if we can incrase our fan base then revenues also increase.
I just think the club missed a trick in thinking the players were better than they actually are, yet. It may be that some of them turn into good prem players but to expect them all, at once was a massive gamble for me. Should the worse happen and we go down all that great work done by Pearson over the last few seasons has been wasted.
The biggest challenge for our owners could be around the corner - how long do they give it and if so who do they bring in. I hope it doesn't come to this but I am certainly wondering is Pearson is another in a long line of good championship managers....
Can't help thinking we have missed a trick
posted on 11/11/14
I certainly feel despite protestations otherwise that many fans are already picking the next manager.
How quickly players are dismissed, six matches and they're not good enough.
Oh well, I guess that's why fans are fans and the owners and Managers earn the big bucks!
posted on 11/11/14
TB no you are wrong we are not picking the next manager we are nervous about our team and our club.
I don't care who our manager is they come and go we don't.
Its not six games we are 11 games in the player we have in our team are championship players and for what ever reason at the moment htey are not good enough. Two wins in the next two ganes and they are heros again two defeats and the owners will be considering their options.
posted on 12/11/14
Nev
True Blue sticking his head in the sand again
posted on 12/11/14
True Blue, many of them haven't been good enough for 11 matches, is just that the first 5 or so were played with a cup match attitude and tons of spirit. That spirit has diminished as the players have tired and realised just how bad their football has been and hence why confidence is through the floor right now.
Nev's right when he says that, for whatever reason, many of the players aren't good enough at present. I wish we'd been taking the same attitude that Wigan used to take, and that we'd done it all the way back from the Crystal Palace match: That you should play football the right way, even if you're struggling right now; that you may well make mistakes in the short term but long term the team will come good and pick up results. Instead we just seem to have drifted over recent matches, concentrating on consolidating the defence (which didn't work with much the same squad a couple of years back, resulting in a plummet down the table which only ended when Pearson got them playing attacking football and expressing themselves again). Instead we've found ourselves no further forward after 6 matches and the only way we look like claiming a vital three points against Sunderland is if they get complacent and hand them to us.
But I'm far from convinced that this comes down to personnel. I believe that most of the squad are not giving a good account of themselves so far and are better than they're showing. But this in itself demonstrates my criticism of Pearson so far this term: Since the first five games, there has been no obvious plan in place of how we're actually going to settle into this league, like the management thought it was going to happen naturally. Instead he now finds himself with a squad with low confidence and no real ideas about how to fix it. He's also lost those four or five games of good will that could have been happily passed off with poor results as many of the players are encouraged to find their feet for the sake of a longer term season plan. They haven't, and now we have a problem.