[SHEP_HTAFC]

After watching the whole game for only the third time this season, I have to make a few comments on this.
The two other games I watched, Newcastle away and Liverpool in a friendly, I have been anything but impressed with Town.
From those 3 games, I have to say Town are quite frankly boring to watch. Now I'm hoping the posts that I've seen this season saying how fantastic we are to watch is the real Town. Cos the Town I've seen have been woeful.
Just how many bloody passes do we have to keep seeing between Hudson, Schindler, Lowe, Mooy and Smith in our own half. There must have been over a hundred.
And when we lose patience and hoof it forward we never seem to retain possession. The only redeeming feature is we hunt down the opposition to get the ball back.
Not a lot of positives going forward. RVLP our most dangerous attacking threat, however he just doesn't like to cross the ball. Far too many touches.
Mooy looks a class act, but the 3 times I've seen him play he slows play down. Sometimes we need to speed it up. There was one point in the game when Mooy received the ball in the opposition half, and he could have turned and drove towards goal. But all he did was pass it straight back to Hudson. Boring.
And Herr Wagner does not have a plan B other than put central defenders in attack.
I'm a lot less confident in the team after seeing that performance...although to be fair Wednesday did look a decent team. They'll be in the play offs at least come the end of the season.

I'm not sure if this is an ironic post? That sounds like what you said Shep. That you haven't been to many games this season.

That's what I'm getting at ELT. I'm hoping those 3 games I've seen weren't the norm. If you've watched the same 3 games I've seen, and only those, you would not be impressed with Town.
No attacking flair, too much ball playing in our own half, and still liable to be hit on the break. Only Newcastle where we hit them on the break showed anything like a bit of flair going forward.
I'm genuinely not impressed after seeing those 3 games. Anyone else that has seen just those games would not be impressed either.
We were second best to Wednesday all game....they really should have had more than one.

[Lord Snooty]

To be fair Shep, you have probably chosen the three most difficult opponents to watch. I've seen all the home games and Villa away and been nowt but impressed.
We've rode our luck on a few occasions and that ran out on Sunday with the penalty. Maybe now we'll get more teams coming here looking to frustrate like Wendy did.

[SHEP_HTAFC]

I'm not having a go at others who have seen them more, I'm sure we've been excellent in some of these other games. Just not in the ones I've seen.
Snoots, you mentioned Wendies frustrated us. I didn't see that. They just let us play in our half.....and we took full advantage of that by doing it most of the game.
Why would any team want to defend the opposition half...they just defended their own half.
We were at fault by not getting the ball in their half quick enough and more often.

What was glaringly obvious though was a lack of a good and well thought out plan B. Putting two central defenders up top is not a plan at all really. It's desperation to nick a goal. It worked really luckily at Villa.....but 19 times out of 20 it won't.

[theo_luddite]

Wendies frustrated us when we went into their half, not ours. They ran back en-masse when they lost the ball to ensure 8 or 9 outfield players were behind the ball and stop us playing it between them or round them. They did that very effectively and were not drawn out by us playing it along the back four for us to use our speed up front. It's a tactic that is very difficult to play against. Passes that Town have played before and split lesser sides wide open were stopped by Wednesday defenders who did their job well and were well drilled. Their out ball was more or less always a long one for Forestieri to chase and try beat us at the back for speed. It worked once in the first half when he then played a ball back across the pitch that should have been buried by the Wednesday player (Jones?) and again in the second when he hit the post. Shortly after the ref gave the penalty that settled the game that otherwise had 0-0 written all over it. With Town chasing the game with 3 at the back it worked one more time with the 1 on 1 for their Palmer that Ward stopped brilliantly, when it really should have been 0-2 and good night Vienna. Their keeper made 2 good saves from Kachunga off a deflection that others might not have got to and Palmer and we had another goal bound effort from Kachunga cleared off the line in the second half.

All-in-all there wasn't much between the teams in my opinion and nobody would have complained at a point-a-piece. It was a decent tactical game but not a TV spectacular by any means. I'd sooner watch Town trying to attack a parked bus than watch a parked bus trying to snatch a goal on the break but sometimes you've got to give the parked bus credit for doing the job it was put on the pitch to do. If the bus won't move even the best managers and players can't always beat them - see Chelski v Barcelona from a couple of years back if you want more evidence.

[Lord Snooty]

It says a lot for how far we've come that people are using the JSS as a coach park.

[Jeebers]

Wendies did their homework and did a number on us, Van le partridge family pissed me off, looking to take too many touches all the time but compared to last season he's improved, looking like The Arsenal at the moment trying to walk the ball in to the net but by hell, comparing us to the Arse