Players I reckon will be off...

But it's not complete ******** is it? We managed to get a huge haul of points, particularly in that period mid to late season without playing to the strengths of our players. That's as impressive in one regard as it is dispiriting in another.

To my mind, we shifted to eliminate as much risk from our defence as we could by keeping the ball as far away from our goal as possible. Even when we had time and opportunity to do otherwise. I'd be very keen to see how often we found touch, or the opposition keeper from direct kicks and passes compared to other teams.

The last 20 minutes, Collins starts rolling the ball out to Andersen and Kitching. Why? We hadn't done that once that I can recall for the previous 70. We looked more pleasing on the eye, but we were also more dangerous. We scored in 20 minutes of playing attacking football.

Who knows where we could have finished if we'd offered more attacking prowess and trying to utilise skill and technique. It may have been 2nd, it may have been 12th. Its impossible to say.

respect to the players for the insane brutal effort they've had to put in. But I do hope next season brings something where the performance can be enjoyed, not just the result. Just a personal whim of course.

 

We never looked like scoring when we had collins rolling the ball to Kitching and Andersen. It looked nice until we hit the brick wall that was their defence. We scored from a counter attack, when a player ran into space, and managed to beat their midfielder to the loose ball. You can argue that we should've altered our style against Swansea, but it wasn't the direct play that was the issue, it was the press and the high line that was the issue. It played into their hands, while the one counter attack we made resulted in a goal.

I think we do play to the players' strengths, by making things simple. Mowatt regularly picks the ball up, facing the opponents' goal and moving forward. He's had a very good goal return this season. It creates space for Styles and Brittain, and gives Morris the chance to run at players in the channels. The only possible exception is Woodrow, but he's still got 15 goals.

 

We'll agree to disagree. Though I do think you're right about simplicity. I wonder if some of the thinking has been taken away from players so their natural habit is now just hoof it rather than find a red shirt. I think we looked better at the end. In the first 70 minutes, I doubt we'd have had such a long run from the right back berth, a hopeful punt/ clearance would have been much more the norm. We won that ball back much closer to our goal than theirs. And the finish was sublime. The ball behind Woodrow, to adjust, get the power, the curl, the accuracy. Unbelievable finish.

 

That 20 minute spell was like the spell at the beginning of the second half of the first leg. After the Morris missed header the heads went down and we started to panic just lumping it again.

 

Well have to agree to disagree i think we have massively overachived and val has done a terrific job to finish above the likes of Stoke,Bournemouth, Reading,Cardiff who on paper have better players and paid alot more money for there squads. Taking over us 4th from bottom.0 wins under struber 1 under Murray and got us finishing 5th. Without playing to the players strengths imagine if he had...

 

Precisely!

 

Yeah Woodrow might have those 20 goals people go on about if the midfield had looked up more and picked a pass more often. (Rotherham away Mowatt's assist)

 

I think the biggest problem woodrow has is his lack of pace.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see any of these dozen moved on. Thomas, Oduor, Halme, Miller, Adeboyejo, Ritzmaier, Christie Davies, Schmidt, Simoes, Wolfe, Chaplin and Aitchison. We need to strengthen the squad to push on with better competition in places. Those I have listed have been here a while and not doing much. No time for sentiment.

 

I agree with what you say there at times we have lacked composure especially in the final 3rd thats more dow to the players. To be fair the only extreme I mentioned was the anderson and paulo Maldini link the rest were quite reasonable. I hope we improve on 5th next season but I cant help thinking we have massively over achieved credit to the players and val. I can only see the squad getting cherry picked id be suprised if val doesn't get poached too hope I'm wrong though

 

I've long suspected that Andersen has shown something in training which suggests that he's got the ability to put in accurate long cross-field passes, although we haven't seen it so much on the pitch. I think the same about Kitching. Particularly in the case of the latter, in the dying stages of the match the tactic appeared to be that we should give it to him and allow him to put it in the mixer.

It didn't come off in the ~5 minutes we saw, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it a lot more next season (presuming that we keep Ismael, of course).

Worth bearing in mind that Val hasn't even had a pre-season with these guys. Loads of times I've seen the likes of Dike making runs which weren't all picked up, but what's interesting is that the player who made the pass (or didn't make it) tended to apologise afterwards. Romal Palmer has quite often done the opposite - made a really good pass into space which nobody was there to receive. I'm definitely no football strategist, but I suspect that those incisive passes are planned and worked on the training ground, but the players just haven't had quite enough time together to adjust to them, what with no pre-season and two games a week. I could well be wrong, but I think if we go into the next season with the same manager and most of the same team then we'll see some of these moves start to come off.

 

Team to start next season

Collins
Sibbick Anderson Kitchin
Brittain Kane Palmer Oduor
Chaplin Morris Frieser

Walton
Williams
Halme
Odebyejo
Thomas
Moon
Wolfe
Marsh
Thompson.

Coach Murray.

Gone

Mowatt
Solbaure
Woodrow
Styles
Helik
Val
Dike

 

Not sure if this is a windup post? You really expect us to sell all those players and not make a single signing?

Unless someone offers us silly money for all of them, I can’t see us selling all those, maybe a couple. And we will of course sign players I would hope!

 

Stop trying to lift people's spirits. It's just not on old boy.

 

A lot of interesting banter on this thread, although I have to say I am surprised how much of it is negative, after the awesome season we've just had.

If I could put my finger on one thing which would have improved our season (not feasible, I know), it would be what Big Val referred to in his last post-match interview: "We need far too many opportunities to score a goal".

Finding someone to convert those chances next season, should be easier than finding a group of players who can create chances.

 

Oduour is a strange one, as he looked a cut above on the ball at times and with his movement going forward. Like you say, it must be his tracking back and positional stuff at the back, but that can definitey be coached. Really hope he's still part of Big Val's plans.

 

I think my post showed even in the worst case scenario that if we lost those players which seems to be the consensus on here that because of the club stabilitty and good recruitment we would still be left with a decent squad, keep some of the ones that i said may leave and add a few new ones then we can look forward to another good season.

 

Imagine we’d have finished 7th. You’d have been calling for lynchings for crimes against football. Despite you absolute boning over Swansea for basically playing the same football.