Colliers vs Bluenoses matchday thread

Unfortunately I can’t see us getting one. Conway was saying in the week 1 maybe 2 signings if we’re lucky and that most loans don’t work.

 

Poor mentality. When should we win then?

 

its only a joke pal, just remind me of when my lad played in the under 5s and the coach went "how can we win they are just running about everywhere", the panic in 2nd half reminded me of it

 

All the defence stopped assuming offside. Just play to the whistle!

 

I don't have a poor mentality. And for what it's worth I would never question anyone's mentality on this board especially after the last 18 months. Enjoy your evening.

 

So we should except a team turning up not putting in too much effort and not winning.

 

Over the moon to come away with a point. We looked 2nd best in long spells and rode our luck. Played to their game plan and couldn't hold the ball in attack or midfield which seems to run out of steam now as a normal thing after 60 mins. I was hoping Sibbick would push on this season but i have to question his defending at times. We looked like men vs boys and for me cover for midfield is a must and experience with it.

 

Give over with the positive stuff.
I'm happy with the return so far.
Guess I'm easy pleased

 

Hope they have second thoughts.

 

I don’t know when folk are being seriously miserable, or sarcastically parodying the seriously miserable.?
At least I try to telegraph my wee taking..

 

The day didn't start off too well. My season ticket which has worked perfectly for the first two matches, suddenly didn't work today! I was given a token and told my ticket will be returned to me before the Blackburn game (all of which was stated on the official site). I blame Whitey for all that!
The game itself started quite brightly and we scored a smashing goal through Styles. After that, we seemed to control the game and Birmingham's possession seemed to create nothing. Then, an aberration from Sibbick allowed Jutkiewicz their opportunity to score and it was 1-1.
In the second half, our energy levels appeared to fade and we could've easily fallen behind. However, an inconsistent referee didn't help, either. How he missed those fouls on Woodrow & Oduor in the second half, goodness only knows.
I felt today, if we'd had Andersen & Morris available, we'd have made a better showing in the second half. However, as some fans had confidently predicted hammerings by both QPR & Birmingham in these last two matches, perhaps two draws isn't as bad as it could've been.
My MOTM was Helik.
It was good to see and chat with Metatarsal after the match. What a truly, lovely bloke.
One relaxed Happy Clapper here, who is quite content to give Markus Schopp the time he needs.

 

Came out of the ground well satisfied with a good and hard earned point. All about opinions, I thought it was a decent game, a bit of an old fashioned game of football, a lot of physical stuff ignored by the officials, I don't think that's a bad thing overall as long as they're consistent with it. Didn't think we played brilliantly but by the same measure we weren't poor. Felt for Sibbick, his head went down after their equaliser and he'd admitted himself to an error last week that cost us QPR's first goal. That said, we did a lot of defending in that second half and did most of it well.
International break has come at a good time. It's been a steady start, I remain fairly positive that with players to come into the side we should (and nothing is guaranteed in football) get better, obviously there are limitations with the current squad, but arguably we are ahead of where I thought we would be given the challenges of the early weeks of the season (Losing Morris, Andersen, the VISA issues etc). A steady start reflecting a head coach with a steady approach.

 

One general observation I have from today, and the other hone games, is that from a starting 11 that is largely the same as last season's we're currently getting less out of each individual player, with possibly the exception of Frieser and Palmer, than we were last season.

That may well be the learning curve from Schopp's new system, but at the moment its far less effective than last year.

Collins is still performing well in goal, but his sweeper keeper role, at which he excelled is hugely diminished now.

The back 3 (albeit we're missing Andersen, but Kitching has done well so far) - they're switching positions far too much for my liking and its making them less effective as an overall unit. Sibbick, the right sided of the 3, gave the goal away in the left hand sided position and, more in the first two games than today, Helik was often seen outside of Sibbick in the right hand position. I'm not sure what the interchanging is delivering at the moment, other than more opportunities for confusion.

More fundamentally, we've moved away from the high defensive line, and we're getting caught out more often as a consequence. Birmingham were wasteful with several clear cut chances today that we simply wouldn't have allowed last season.

Midfield - I really like Benson, and its a big ask to ask him to be a replacement for Mowett at this stage, but both Styles and Brittain have been less effective so far. Palmer has arguably been as good as last season, but needs to cut out the cheap bookings.

Up front, we've lost Dike and Morris, and replaced them with Oduor and 3 no-shows so far. Cauley is getting manhandled in the role of default target man and Frieser has looked the most effective of the 3. Personally, I like Oduor, but think he could deliver the same attacking threat as currently from the LWB role, to which he's better suited, IMO.

Cole (and Kane) were omitted for "technical reasons" today, per the Yorkshire Post report, but surely Cole and a half-fit Oulare on the bench are better late attacking options than only being prepared to make 1 sub in a tiring team due to what's available (I'm classing Sibbick as an enforced change, so only Victor was a tactical sub today).

It's bad enough dropping from 5 subs available to 3, but not having viable alternatives on the bench has visibly dropped our intensity in the press, which is only seen sporadically at present.

It's early days, and Schopp is in the unenviable position of being the first Head Coach recruited in ages who has the weight of expectation on him. He deserves patience, and our performances have been better away from home than at Oakwell so far, which perhaps indicates that the team play with less pressure on the road.

My main concern is that I'm still struggling to identify what his ultimate 'vision' is for how we play. I'm not sure its a pressing style any longer and we seem to be getting bullied by our opponents more often than not. If anything, we managed to be the bullies last season and the majority of those players are still playing, albeit less effectively overall.

The international break is a welcome opportunity to work with the squad and at least we're not going into this one waiting for a new manager to arrive this time.

 

Nice. Especially ‘aberration’. Refreshingly correct.

 

I think the difficulty is that there wasn’t any expectation on schopp to produce results before he joined us. I think he’s in that kinda of honeymoon at the moment