12-04-2015, 13:06
All too familiar. At 2-2 I turned to a mate and said “We are going to lose this”. He nodded and said it feels strangely similar to the Cardiff game almost exactly a year ago when we threw away a lead at home to the bottom club with some ridiculously **** goals.
I wasn’t in favour of Pulis’s appointment but needs must. I thought he would remove this soft underbelly that has plagued us for years. After the goals we have conceded in the last 3 games I have genuine concerns whether he will. The QPR game was horribly reminiscent of the powderpuff displays under Irvine, and yesterday felt a lot like games under Clarke/Mel, but with worse football. Watching some of our players treat the ball like a hot potato and just hacking the ball anywhere, without any thought was painful.
More than that, tactically Pulis was lost. Everyone could see Dawson was being roasted by Schlupp. So what do we do? Go to 5 at the back and expose our full back without any protection. We’re playing at home against the bottom team in the league, do we really need 5 defenders? Wouldn't Sess have been a better option to take pressure off the defence rather than inviting pressure on to them?
Football is such a simple game and I can’t stand it when managers try and turn it into some sort of tactical chess match. Just return to the 4-5-1 that has served us well for the past few years and that gets the best out of our most productive players (Berahino, Sess, Morrison) and get players back into the positions where they belong.
Its Pulis’s stubbornness that concerns me. He hasn’t seemed to learn from his problems at Stoke and he certainly hasn’t learnt anything from his defeats here. I’m not sure whether he will, but I genuinely think JP has a decision to make in the summer, if he is still around.
I wasn’t in favour of Pulis’s appointment but needs must. I thought he would remove this soft underbelly that has plagued us for years. After the goals we have conceded in the last 3 games I have genuine concerns whether he will. The QPR game was horribly reminiscent of the powderpuff displays under Irvine, and yesterday felt a lot like games under Clarke/Mel, but with worse football. Watching some of our players treat the ball like a hot potato and just hacking the ball anywhere, without any thought was painful.
More than that, tactically Pulis was lost. Everyone could see Dawson was being roasted by Schlupp. So what do we do? Go to 5 at the back and expose our full back without any protection. We’re playing at home against the bottom team in the league, do we really need 5 defenders? Wouldn't Sess have been a better option to take pressure off the defence rather than inviting pressure on to them?
Football is such a simple game and I can’t stand it when managers try and turn it into some sort of tactical chess match. Just return to the 4-5-1 that has served us well for the past few years and that gets the best out of our most productive players (Berahino, Sess, Morrison) and get players back into the positions where they belong.
Its Pulis’s stubbornness that concerns me. He hasn’t seemed to learn from his problems at Stoke and he certainly hasn’t learnt anything from his defeats here. I’m not sure whether he will, but I genuinely think JP has a decision to make in the summer, if he is still around.