[St Charles Owl]

Taking your Point 3 Maddix, how many times do we bemoan the fact that other teams are more "professional" than us?? I can remember a few games this season where we have either said exactly that or at least intimated it. Maybe its time we got into the real world and became a bit more ruthless ourselves, just like the rest of the football world is!! Nuhiu is a classic case, he seems to be the recipient of a ton of "fouls" that refs are not giving him, such as shirt pulling and players all over him in tonights game, for me he needs to be much wiser than he is and start playing the same way as the defenders are. Sure it won't always work, and Maguire falling in the box in the past is a case in point, but we have to be a bit less naive as a team!!

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yep, all across the divisions as well. It's about time they were all employed full time by the FA and trained by the best ex-refs and were held accountable for their actions rather than this current situation where the referee is right and that's that. dont like it? don't play

Easiest way to make them accountable is to make them meet with the press to explain their decisions, how they saw an incident and why they did what they did.  I think most refs are honest and I think fans would be more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt over things but in the absence of any feedback we just see these decisions as bad refereeing.  Over here the refs/umpires are obligated to meet the press or at the very least issue statements as regards their decisions, so you get very few complaints about them from fans or clubs.

Spot on with the full time employment, but I thought that was the case with a lot of them anyway or is that just in the prem??  Refs should be professional across the 4 top leagues at the very least.  The practice of forcing them to retire at I believe 40 or 45 should also be stopped, if they are fit enough and can still do the job, then the experienced guys are the ones we are forcing to retire!

[Thurnscoe_OWL]

Nuhiu could have been hacked down with a machete tonight and would have been booked for diving

[St Charles Owl]

I notice that Blackburn manager Gary Bowyer has become the latest opposition manager to mention the state of the pitch after the game. The pitch is an embarrassment to us as a club and whatever the cost it needs to be sorted in the summer!!! Just as an aside from what I have seen SG didn't mention the pitch at all.

[Thurnscoe_OWL]

It wasn't ridiculously bad, few bobbles here and there but didn't influence play.
Chansiri has apparently noted that we need a new pitch. Few rumours that we've just jumped ahead of them at s2 for a new desso pitch, which they have been waiting for for about 2 years

[St Charles Owl]

It wasn't ridiculously bad, few bobbles here and there but didn't influence play.
Chansiri has apparently noted that we need a new pitch. Few rumours that we've just jumped ahead of them at s2 for a new desso pitch, which they have been waiting for for about 2 years

I saw those rumors as well!!  Can't for one minute see it as being true, not really a good way to run a business if they were to do that, but it would be funny!!!!

[Thurnscoe_OWL]

whoever pays most and all that.
Chansiri apparently said for the pitch to be fixed "at all costs"

also looking for a site for a new training ground for the first team

[Southeyowl]

I don't think the Lino was poor!

I think he is on the take! He gave 3 corners, two to them that never crossed the line and one to us when it was clearly a goal kick.

Think he bet his match fee on the number of corners given in the game!

Either that or his eyes were FECKING painted on!!!!!!!!!!!!

[madsteve]

Same Old Story

It seems that every match report starts with saying that we started sluggishly. Even our two recent victories were won in the second half after poor first halves. More of this later.

Wednesday played their usual 442 but although Blackburn also played 442, Spurr & Henley effectively played as wing backs which meant they outnumbered us in midfield and picked up most of the second balls.

Keane had an early half chance but hit it straight at the keeper.

We seemed unprepared for the fact that Spurr hurls in a decent long throw so effectively every throw in within 30 yards of our goal was as good as a corner. In fact it was better than a corner because of the angle of trajectory. Inevitably they scored from a long throw. Brown flicked it on and Rhodes timed his run perfectly to bundle the ball past Westwood.

This was sloppy in the extreme. After this, Nuhui came back for throw ins to prevent this happening but why did we not do this from the start? It was as though we didn't know that Spurr did long throws. By the time we reacted, we were already chasing the game. Even in the second half, Dielna bust a gut to prevent a corner to give them a throw in.

We were soon 2-0 down with a well worked move down their right with Henley getting in a shot which Westwood probably should have saved.

Blackburn had a number of efforts blocked & Marshall hit the bar as we floundered in midfield & defence.

Semedo went off with a foot injury & was replaced by Maguire. Helan replaced Zayatte at half time.

None of our midfield four had any influence in the first half but in the second half we started to pick up with Hutchinson taking up intelligent positions, McGugan probing & Maghoma making runs at their defence. A goal began to look likely and the pressure was cranked up with three shots on target in 30 seconds, the third of which was forced home by Maguire.

It looked like we could get something out of the game. Then Maghoma was replaced by May. A strange substitution because Maghoma had just started looking dangerous and with both full backs on yellow cards, his trickery could have been useful.

After that the game faded away from us.

Some may use the officials as an excuse. There were some strange decisions but in truth the key decisions didn't hurt us. May appeared to have been pushed late on but Blackburn had a clear penalty turned down early in the second half. I also think that Maguire's blatant dives count against us in other decisions.

We lost because we were ill prepared, disorganised, unprofessional & sloppy.

Again, an opposition manager out thought us by taking advantage of our rigid 442. A team that hadn't won in ten away matches and had only scored once in their last four pinched two easy goals & three easy points.

Westwood - 5 - stopped two one on ones but sloppy for both goals
Palmer - 6 - best of poor back four
Lees - 5 - good on the ball but couldn't handle Brown
Zayatte - 5 - stopped for opening goal
Dielna - 4 - the new Llera? terrible distribution
Hutchinson - 6 - anonymous first half but intelligent second half
Semedo - 5 - chasing shadows
McGugan - 6 - good second half, brilliant skill to set up goal
Maghoma - 5 - poor first half, grew into game but substituted just as he was getting going
Keane - 5 - hardly in game
Nuhui - 5 - poor touches
...................................................
Maguire - 5 - worked hard, scored but seemed to play for himself rather than team
Helan - 5 - defensively poor, little spark going forward
May - 5 - spell on bench seems to have knocked his confidence

I remember reading in Alex Ferguson's autobiography that he said, they most important hour of the week for him was the hour before kick off. He had 30 minutes to prepared his final message before the teams went out and had to deliver it in a way that sent out his players firing from minute one.

Throughout the entire season, we haven't fired from minute one. We have regularly sleepwalked through the first half so I wonder if SG is struggling to fire up his troops with his pre match battle cry. Maybe the fact that he runs the pre match warm up means that he doesn't have that thinking time to prepare properly for his battle cry. Maybe he is just not motivational enough?

Regularly, we play better second half after an insipid first half so clearly he can motivate. I suspect that he is more comfortable coaching (that is why he does the pre match warm up himself) than managing. I can only recall once in the last couple of seasons seeing an opposition manager being involved in the warm up.

We have nothing to play for now this season. Pride, maybe but I would rather use the remaining games to test our ability in different formations.

DC made all the supportive noises in his press conference but he will have seen that we are struggling against mediocre sides & if we are to achieve his ambition of PL football by 2017 then we have to make changes to our management structure & employ a better coaching team.

[Towinjustonce]

Cheers for all the reports fellas. Good to hear to some different views on the game and about different players.

I couldn't believe the 4 players SG had picked in midfield, essentially 4 CM too. Did he go out to try contain Blackburn as Hutch and Semedo don't work together which either pushed McGugan out wide or Hutch out wide. SG has fooked up our little run and the boost we had in confidence by playing the players in that formation for me.

I also agree with Werehams post about choking. We have a lot of players out of contract in the summer, they all know now we are aiming for the PL in 2-3 years so why they fook can't they put in a shift. They obviously don't want to play in the PL with us. It is not all the players fault, SG is to blame for this as much as the players with his gameplan. Hopefully this culture of choking will be bred out of us with the new owner who seems to be a winner and wants to be a winner. They won't be happy to plod along.

I can't wait for the season to end because it has just become so frutrating to hear the same mistakes been made over and over and over and over and over again.

[madsteve]

Cheers for all the reports fellas. Good to hear to some different views on the game and about different players.

I couldn't believe the 4 players SG had picked in midfield, essentially 4 CM too. Did he go out to try contain Blackburn as Hutch and Semedo don't work together which either pushed McGugan out wide or Hutch out wide. SG has fooked up our little run and the boost we had in confidence by playing the players in that formation for me.

I also agree with Werehams post about choking. We have a lot of players out of contract in the summer, they all know now we are aiming for the PL in 2-3 years so why they fook can't they put in a shift. They obviously don't want to play in the PL with us. It is not all the players fault, SG is to blame for this as much as the players with his gameplan. Hopefully this culture of choking will be bred out of us with the new owner who seems to be a winner and wants to be a winner. They won't be happy to plod along.

I can't wait for the season to end because it has just become so frutrating to hear the same mistakes been made over and over and over and over and over again.

Don't think the players choke. We just don't seem prepared at the start of a match. Several players seem unsure what they are supposed to be doing & it takes us until half time to get fired up.

We have no players that would treat winger as their natural position. Maghoma, Maguire, Helan, Lee and now Hutchinson have been shoved out there. If we want to play with wingers then we shouldn't have sold Antonio and pissed off Drenthe.