[4evaabaggie]

Finished,

Hull 3 Ipswich 3

We need a draw unless Hull win 11-0.

---

Ska’d beat me to it.

[baggietrousers]

The way we’re playing I’m not at all confident we’ll even get a draw next week.

[Slick_Footwork]

Despite Hull salvaging the draw with Ipswich, the result still puts us in a pretty good position.

After all, if you told me at the start of the season that we would just need a draw at home against Preston to get in the playoffs, I'd have bitten your hand off.

The worry for me, at present, is does Carlos know his best team for this vitally important game?

Now doing get me wrong, I think Carlos has done a great job with a fairly limited squad...

But lately, he seems to have done a lot of chopping and changing. A lot of which has felt quite unnecessary.

In the midfield, for example, Okay and Mowatt were nailed on as a duo for months. But lately, that keeps changing. Against Leicester, Okay played in a back 3 and M'Vila played next to Mowatt. Today it was Okay and M'Vila. If we go back a few weeks against Sunderland at home, it was Chalobah and Mowatt who started.

Surely this can't be a case of players being rested when we have must win games, so I can only assume he's not really sure what the best combination is.

Then there's other weird decisions too...

Today Matty Phillips started on the right wing after being out injured for months. I appreciate Matty has been a good servant and Carlos obviously likes him, but I just don't understand how he can be selected in front of Tom Fellows. I mean, it's been years since I've seen Matt Phillips beat a full back with a trick, where as Fellows, on his day, can have his full back on toast. I appreciate Fellows is a young player who can below hot and cold, but I'm not sure what he's done wrong to fall behind Matty in the pecking order when he was a regular during our best spell of the season.

Then you've got Adam Reach. Against Rotherham at home, he started at left back and was man of the match. But it's the only game we've seen him there.

For me, this constant changing of the XI make it very difficult for a manager to know what his best team is. Especially on the back of a real spanking like we had today. Carlos must be wondering if it was a one off or if we need wholesale changes.

And for that reason, the team next week could be anything. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not expecting a coherent performance.

Does John Swift return? He was the best player when he came on today and looked good off the bench against Leicester too.
Does Reach start in place of Townsend? Townsend has been poor for some time, Reach was good against Rotherham, but it was only one game.
Who plays up top? Does BTA return despite what he did against Sunderland? Does Maja suddenly start? Does he persist with Wallace who played well against Leicester but was useless today?
Do we return to the Mowatt and Okay combination in the middle?

Luckily we tend to do well against Preston and Hull have a tough game at Plymouth, who are fighting for their lives.

The irony is, I don't expect we will get past the semi finals even if we are able to make the playoffs.

[valpayne]

We aren’t going to be in the playoffs and even if we do get there it won’t be down to our ability! We are losing momentum we are losing games at the worst time possible we are chocking and anyone who thinks we will go up this year needs counselling! I knew we would lose this game today all the posturing and bravado about how we’ve not lost the them for years and years! Blah blah blah! Albion til I die or is that Albion you make me wanna die the wheels are off I’m afraid

[BaggieSteve]

Despite Hull salvaging the draw with Ipswich, the result still puts us in a pretty good position.

After all, if you told me at the start of the season that we would just need a draw at home against Preston to get in the playoffs, I'd have bitten your hand off.

The worry for me, at present, is does Carlos know his best team for this vitally important game?

Now doing get me wrong, I think Carlos has done a great job with a fairly limited squad...

But lately, he seems to have done a lot of chopping and changing. A lot of which has felt quite unnecessary.

In the midfield, for example, Okay and Mowatt were nailed on as a duo for months. But lately, that keeps changing. Against Leicester, Okay played in a back 3 and M'Vila played next to Mowatt. Today it was Okay and M'Vila. If we go back a few weeks against Sunderland at home, it was Chalobah and Mowatt who started.

Surely this can't be a case of players being rested when we have must win games, so I can only assume he's not really sure what the best combination is.

Then there's other weird decisions too...

Today Matty Phillips started on the right wing after being out injured for months. I appreciate Matty has been a good servant and Carlos obviously likes him, but I just don't understand how he can be selected in front of Tom Fellows. I mean, it's been years since I've seen Matt Phillips beat a full back with a trick, where as Fellows, on his day, can have his full back on toast. I appreciate Fellows is a young player who can below hot and cold, but I'm not sure what he's done wrong to fall behind Matty in the pecking order when he was a regular during our best spell of the season.

Then you've got Adam Reach. Against Rotherham at home, he started at left back and was man of the match. But it's the only game we've seen him there.

For me, this constant changing of the XI make it very difficult for a manager to know what his best team is. Especially on the back of a real spanking like we had today. Carlos must be wondering if it was a one off or if we need wholesale changes.

And for that reason, the team next week could be anything. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not expecting a coherent performance.

Does John Swift return? He was the best player when he came on today and looked good off the bench against Leicester too.
Does Reach start in place of Townsend? Townsend has been poor for some time, Reach was good against Rotherham, but it was only one game.
Who plays up top? Does BTA return despite what he did against Sunderland? Does Maja suddenly start? Does he persist with Wallace who played well against Leicester but was useless today?
Do we return to the Mowatt and Okay combination in the middle?

Luckily we tend to do well against Preston and Hull have a tough game at Plymouth, who are fighting for their lives.

The irony is, I don't expect we will get past the semi finals even if we are able to make the playoffs.

Completely agree with your comments Slick. I think we have definitely suffered from continual changes, particularly in the Yokuslu/Mowatt partnership which worked so well but now seems to be “pick one from two”. Likewise, I don’t understand the non selection of Fellows who, along with Johnston, has been the one wide player who consistently beats his full back - had we possessed a reliable goal scorer in the middle to take advantage, I suspect we may have been vying for automatic promotion rather than worrying over making the playoffs (a situation for which CC cannot be blamed).
Like you I think CC has done an outstanding job and I can’t, for the life of me, understand the continual criticism I see of him on other media ( not on here I should add quickly); at the outset our fear was relegation and he’s taken us to a likely play off. I suspect we won’t make it past the first round but who knows, play offs can be a lottery.
I just hope for next week he goes back to those players who have got us into this promising situation