I don't think we did that yesterday mate, I can think of several scoring chances in the first half after we scored, a half that we dominated from start to finish. We also made chances in the second half. Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and admit that the opposition upped their game, which Huddersfield did right from the kick off in the second half. I saw no evidence yesterday of the team setting out to defend the one goal lead.
I thought we were the better team for perhaps 25 minutes but imo Town were taking control as h-t approached and a goal was coming. Kane was dominating midfield and running it for them. Ironic that we were singing about him doing f*** all. I said to my son at h-t that we'd lose it if we didn't get a grip on midfield. The manner of their goals was so poor but Mr Clarke should've changed it earlier imo.
The best thing about that season under Val was the opposition managers. Gone were the condescending, belittling comments after their team had rolled us 3 or 4 nil of "they made hard for us" or "they really gave it a good go". Opposition mangers were genuinely upset at the end of the games and very rarely gave us any credit, and that was brilliant. Val had rattled them and out thought them. The team out battled and out fought much better players on paper.
This is why I defended Collins so much last season. Management is about identifying the players you have & identifying what style of football & what system you can play. Val identified that we could play a high press & that the majority of the squad could play it. Collins identified that we were lacking in pace & physicality & played a system that didn’t expose our weaknesses. People moan about a lack of a plan b but a plan b is only useful if you have the players to play it. You don’t just change the system for the sake of it. We’ve looked a shambles with a back 4 for the most part because we don’t have the players to play it.
Neill Collins’ results had fell off a cliff - we’d won two games of the previous eleven with one win from the start of April in a run of six games leading into the playoffs when he was sacked after Blackpool away. We were surrendering with a whimper. The writing was on the wall. Plenty of fans wanted him out earlier, some think it was wrong to get rid at all, but the decision was not taken by the club when he was playing ‘winning football’. We weren’t. Whether or not it was the right decision is conjecture. I don’t think that away playoff performance second half at Bolton would have happened under him, I think we’d have been absolutely mullered as opposed to it being only by a single goal in the end - but we will never know. What we do know is that it would be re-writing history to say Collins was sacked whilst getting results. He’d stopped getting results. The only games he won in the run in were against the team that finished plum last and the team that avoided relegation by the skin of their teeth.
You pretty much agree with the tongue in cheek point by stating "plenty of fans wanted him out earlier" in the season when we were winning. Therefore, "winning football" - at the time - was not accepted by large and vocal percentage of our fanbase. The rest, as you say, is conjecture.
I don’t think that Bolton second half is much to do with who our manager is. How many times do we see two legged games in the play offs or European knockout football where the team with the advantage feel the nerves & make a mess of the second leg. Bolton nearly did it & in the same week Doncaster completely blew it after winning comfortably away from home in the first leg. We’ve seen even top sides like Barcelona & PSG do it in Europe.
the same people probably raving about Man City yesterday just knocking the ball from keeper to Haaland to bypass the entire Newcastle team
I think the biggest issue in the Val season was that we got Swansea in the play offs. Steve Cooper knew how to play against us. I still think we could well have gone up if we had played two footballing sides in Brentford & then Bournemouth but I guess we’ll never know.
I just remembered this write up from when QPR played us thst season, a great report with some wonderful lines: https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football//amp/news/54419/rangers-run-ragged-by-rampant-tykes-—-report
" Reading sold their only good striker late in January but still are winning games"... They've only scored 2 goals in open play since the transfer window shut...the rest have been penalties.
Does it matter? My point still stands, they've won games without their top striker and haven't all of a sudden turned rubbish. Also lost their manager to hull not long since and still not fallen to bits. I haven't watched their games, nor have you so we can't comment on the nature of the pens but they must have been on the attack in decent areas to be winning those. Still winning, still getting results, still several points ahead of us.
No.matter how good you are there's nearly always one team that has your number, in 97 it was QPR , in 2000 it was Ipswich and under Struber/Val it was Swansea..........sithi.
I absolutely loved the football under Val. My type of team and style. Can't stand the modern, tippy tappy, slow passing build up. Bores me rigid. Give me the 100mph, get it forward, chase everything, mentalness that Val brought.
Brilliant. This makes a mockery of the pathetic AI match reports we’re starting to see on some sports sites.
