You are definitely correct about getting hung up on results, this was apparent last season post lockdown. We had some great results which often masked the abysmal 45 mins first/second half in most of those games.
They were saves you would expect a keeper to make. Nothing that spectacular, if you shoot directly or close to the keeper I would expect him to save it. The Woodrow effort looked good but still not in the top corner.
I think we can all agree that both Thomas and Ritzmaier are not good enough to hold down a regular starting spot for a championship club. The main difference in the two players is that one is and one isn't. There also seems to be the standard reply of YES BUT THEIR SQUAD COST 500000 BILLION whenever anyone criticises a defensive mistake. Yes it's true, their players are better than ours. On all known form and ability they should have won. However, it's the manner of the goals. They were embarrassing from our point of view, extremely naive and poor. They weren't brilliant team goals or individual excellence. They were pathetic. Can anyone defend last night's defending? Going forward I love watching us play (apart from the lack of end product currently). We're dynamic, our passing and creativity is superb. But what we saw at the other end of the field was very worrying - whether it was against Chelsea or Chester. When people criticise the tactics or the set up, it doesn't mean they want Struber gone. What good does that do? But it doesn't mean they aren't correct in saying he was tactically poor last night - and that this needs discussing without people jumping in with GET BEHIND THEM ITS NOT HIS FAULT YOU AREN'T A PROPER FAN ITS CHELSEA argument.
His comments last night not encouraging and starting to echo Stendel from last season. Also a dig at us selling Brown and not replacing him so he clearly he doesn’t look at Frieser as his replacement.
I haven’t defended the players at all for that performance. Last night was bad. We should have been better. This thread is specifically regarding the Armageddon posts that appeared last night, as they do after every defeat. We played a team far above our level and the gulf between the leagues is bigger than it’s ever been. There’s just no need for ‘world is ending’ posts, saying that players have been ‘found out’, calling for the manager to be sacked, calling for all the players to be replaced. I also believe certain players get scapegoated no matter how well they play. Ritzmaier wasn’t our worse player at all last night, I’d put him above Sollbauer, Lidewig, Mowatt and Williams, yet Ritzmaier is the one that gets all the abuse on here. To be clear, those other players don’t deserve abuse either. It’s all well and good criticising performances, but I don’t see the point giving out abuse like what Ritzmaier gets. He’s by far our best option from dead-balls and he does a lot of work off the ball. That’s why he keeps getting picked. Suggesting it’s anything else is frankly just stupid. I’m not saying he’s the best player in the squad, but I don’t know that we have anyone on the bench that fulfils those attributes. You have to play a team, not individual players. That’s why Woodrow has to play where he does. He doesn’t do enough off the ball to be a striker in Struber’s system and he drops far too deep to play that role. The strikers need to be constantly pushing forward and pressing. He can’t do that role. That’s not who he is. He’s the best finisher at the club, but you don’t change your entire tactics around a single player. He’s brilliant in that number 10 role, he makes us tick and I’d have him there every game, personally.
I basically can't disagree more with what you've written - apart from people who call for the manager to be sacked, which I don't think there has been. There's been criticism of him sure, but I don't think anyone has called for his head. That's daft. Correct me if I'm wrong though. And the thing with Ritzmaier is that it's not knee jerk based on last night - it's based on 6 months of evidence. We're poles apart though and I can't see either of us changing our minds. I'm depressed and pish wet through at work, so hopefully your day is better than mine.
Let's not forget that we were missing two of our three first choice centre halves (and rotated goalkeepers), I wonder how many more games we'll play this season with Jordan Williams and Aapo Halme in the same back 3. Barring injuries and suspensions, I'd say not many. We essentially had 3 days to prepare for that enforced change. Its incredible, prior to kick off, we all thought we'd get dicked, so I don't know why everyone's so upset that we did get dicked, against quite a strong Chelsea line up. Even their 2nd 11 is made up entirely of internationals.
Been onboarding a new team member based in New Zealand, so a few interesting shift times... Fair enough though on the rest of it.
I think some of the stuff on here is unbelievable - leaving out the game last night - with 2 first choice defenders missing and playing our 2nd choice keeper in competative games our defence has been pretty decent since lockdown - one game at Stoke aside. None of the goals in any other game this season were due to schoolboy defensive errors and I am not going to put too much emphasis on the fact that the pressure of playing Chelsea caused some of the errors last night. There is not too much wrong with our defence. Its our inability to score thats more worrying - not so much last night but in the Luton and Reading games. Also the barrage of comments about us playing it from the back are somewhat annoying. What is the alternative Hit a long ball to our ball holding centre forward - the one that we dont have. In fact we sold the only player who realistically we could do that to in Brown. We really dont have a choice with our current players, and in any case against the teams we play every week its not been much of a problem My only worry after last night is whether the players will lose some form and confidence
The ball from Ritzmaier is the sort of ball we want to see him playing at the other end of the pitch not ours.
The one I have doubts about is Woodrow, I said it those last half a dozen games last season. I think he has had his head turned
Wigan spending was within FFP limits. They went into administration because the new owners weeks after completing the acquisition refused to subsidise the club. If the season had finished on time, its quite possible administration would have fallen outside of the 2019-20 season and we may have been relegated. I don't agree with EFL rules allowing such huge subsidies to a team or allowing such massive losses. But they weren't cheats, purely because losses were within EFL rules.
Alright, let’s call it a moral victory. Let’s not start signing with Wigan and the EFL because it suits our agendas.
They might not be cheats - but they operated a business model that was unsustainable - it also allowed them to take Moore off us a player that we missed and they couldnt afford but definitely helped them. I could argue that Sheffield Wednesday should have gone down though as they really were cheats
Oh i don't disagree at all. But the inconvenient and demoralising truth is that they still didn't break EFL rules. You'd hope more clubs would realise that they shouldn't even need those rules and solvency should be a minimum criteria. As for Derby, Birmingham and Sheff Wed.... I'm more than happy for the cheat label to be firmly pinned to their foreheads! ;-)