[madsteve]

We need better than Hunt and someone better to push Pudil. Yes, we almost recruited Bennett. But that seems like knee jerk signing late on, where's the real improvements? Hunt & Wallace have yet to show up this season and they should be dropped for the next game, but who are we going to play in Hunts position?
Hutchinson shouldn't play CB ever again now. It isn't his natural position and over the course of the season he'll get reds and give away penalties.

I said after the Burton game we've been sussed out, teams are happy to let up tap that ball about all day then as soon as they had the ball, they scored. The fact we set up to do the very same thing against L**ds, as if they didn't watch the Burton video was very ignorant.

I never saw us winning this game, I had us for a draw at best. For whatever reason people are refusing to acknowledge we've only scored one goal from open play in four games, and that came from a Villa mistake.
We can't just expect to beat teams because we 'should' b beating them. We aren't good enough nor consistent enough.
That possession game that worked so well last season isn't going to work so easily this season.

Brentford, I expect CC will try the same thing over again so we can expect them to sit back and counter us. I can see a draw in that game too.

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We're not 'Boro. They had a much improved squad compared to ours.

So far, Hutchinson has only had one yellow & no reds in 16 matches at CB so I don't see that as an issue. He is in that respect better disciplined as a CB. He is still a risk from a perspective of giving away penalties but so far he hasn't given away any. His positional play as a CB is excellent and while we have been poor in the last two matches, Hutchinson has been the only player to emerge with any credit and certainly saved us from a heavy beating at Burton.

As you know, I follow the statistics closely. Five years ago if you got 55+% possession, your chances of losing were only 6%. This figure has reduced each season to a point where good possession statistics barely give any advantage at all. At half time yesterday, I still fancied us to win but knew that if we conceded first, we would be in trouble because we hadn't stretched Leeds enough to give us that advantage in the final ten minutes that we used so well last season.

I don't think that Boro improved their team much last summer although they did improve their squad. They made the big improvements the previous season & fell at the final hurdle. Last season (after a slow start), they got it together & made automatic promotion with 80% the same starting team as the previous season. Whether we can go the same way depends on how CC & the players react to the current situation. It could go either way.

Appreciate the insight, MS.

I can only hope, as you say we can follow 'Boros example. Our start has been poor though. Two consecutive results like that have some of us dismayed. I'm hoping the club as an entity can pull itself up by the bootstraps. Brentford is a big game IMO.

Aside from that it's good to know you're attending the games. How have you been feeling?

A lot depends on whether it is a two game blip (because we were poor against Leeds & awful at Burton) or something deeper. We still should have beaten Leeds if we had taken half our decent chances then we might be viewing things differently. CC said more than once last season that we always reacted well to set backs. This time we didn't.

Still attending games but I have good days & bad days. Yesterday was good apart from the football. Today has been a struggle. I will keep going as long as I can.

Think Brentford is a good match for us next up although if we lose it will be a long uphill haul.