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Reply | Possession Based football.
at 20:27 20 Dec 2024
Nobody says it’s the only way to success or possession alone wins games though.
You’ve also seen us have the lions share of possession and win games. We have it most weeks. I’d guess we’ve lost every game we’ve had less possession.
We also have more shots (in my opinion that roughly translates to creating most chances) than our opposition most weeks. There are some obvious exceptions to that. In my view, the fact we’re blunt up front is costing us more than the fact we have the ball more than opponents |
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Reply | January (sick and tired it is hanging on me).
at 15:41 20 Dec 2024
I agree with all that, we’ve just got bigger priorities. They rarely get injured. I accept it’s a gamble, but I’d rather cover CB than keeper.
I’d certainly rather us bring a striker in |
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Reply | January (sick and tired it is hanging on me).
at 15:07 20 Dec 2024
We haven’t got a quality backup for our two out of contract centre backs yet, nor a quality centre forward.
I’d hope they don’t waste whatever January resources we have on a reserve keeper who will probably never play. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 11:58 20 Dec 2024
I’ve only watched a handful of U21 games online, but they look like training games. Good to watch and plenty of skill on display, but they aren’t as quick or aggressive as league games.
I think he’s struggling with that more than the fact he’s playing out wide. The fact he only gets 10 minutes or so probably doesn’t help him either. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 11:47 20 Dec 2024
He’d be better off disappearing off on loan somewhere he can play 90 minutes in midfield regularly. He’s not coping with the pace and intensity at the moment and that would be worse in central midfield.
Needs must at the moment, he has to be here. I’m not sure why Williams prefers him to the likes of Govea or even Naughton and push either fullback forward. |
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Reply | Possession Based football.
at 11:43 20 Dec 2024
There was a little spell between Cardiff and Leicester where he tried a more possession based approach. Either side of that was attritional dross. Not massively unlike Steve Cooper, but without the Ayew it needed to scrape results.
I agree Williams needs to find a balance. He’s proven he can set us up to defend and to attack, he hasn’t managed to do both together yet. Needs to sort that out ASAP. This Christmas period is going to be tough, he’s going to have to manage a squad without much to it outside the starting eleven and a handful of others. |
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Reply | When they are not knocking out women
at 09:29 20 Dec 2024
It’s pretty obvious isn’t it. He went in their end, with a Swans top under his jacket. You don’t do that if you’re genuinely trying to watch the game incognito.
If that happened in reverse most of us wouldn’t attack anyone but woukd be fuming. Plenty of our meatheads would have piled in. |
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Reply | Possession Based football.
at 09:26 20 Dec 2024
We aren’t a Russell Martin team anymore. Recycling along the back line to create space to carry it forward in the opposite side isn’t possession without purpose. We often do this, some see it as aimless passing around the back.
We aren’t good enough to play Martinez/Rodgers/Laudrup type possession football where every pass seems to be a probing one.
We tried Michael Duff football and apart from the few weeks where he abandoned his principles and we actually knocked the ball around a bit, it was worse than anything we’ve seen for years. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 19:24 19 Dec 2024
Five games in two weeks coming up. This is where our squad could get really exposed. |
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Reply | When they are not knocking out women
at 16:56 19 Dec 2024
Really can’t argue with that. Not condoning it, but the same would have happened if one of their fans celebrated an injury time winner in the east stand.
They should still do time, but what a stupid thing to do from the Swans fan. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 12:39 19 Dec 2024
We dominated that game until 60/70 minutes when the substitutions started happening. We brought in the likes of Naughton, Abdullai and Vipotnik, while they brought on physical, aggressive players who pretty much just bullied us and we were lucky to get away with a draw.
Whether that’s down to fitness or squad depth is up for debate, I’d say it’s a bit of both.
I remember commenting that if we were going to play like that, we needed to put the game out of sight before our starting eleven started to tire. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 20:10 18 Dec 2024
On what I’ve seen of him, albeit on the wing, I wouldn’t put him in our midfield either.
Lack of pace and trickery is one thing, but he looks clumsy and uncomfortable in possession. Invariably goes down dead ends and ends up having to pass backwards. Not sure how he’d get on with less time and space if he played in the middle. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 19:03 18 Dec 2024
That’s exactly my point. Most clubs in this division have bigger budgets and better squads than us. Not just the Leeds and Sheffield Uniteds, most of them.
I don’t disagree with your other point. Some of the substitutions don’t seem to make any sense. Most seem pre-determined. Can’t defend the manager if he gets that wrong.
Appreciate Abdullai is being played out of his position, but he also looks completely out of his depth. My guess is Grimes, Allen, Franco, Fulton - certainly Ollie Cooper and Cullen would do a better job shoehorned onto the wing. Possibly Williams just doesn’t trust him in such an influential position. We’ve discussed the gulf between U21 and first team football recently. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 10:26 18 Dec 2024
It’s definitely squad depth. Grimes is one of those players that suits playing as much as possible. Maybe Cullen is the same. Centre backs rarely get substituted which is ideal as we’ve only really got two of them without a huge drop in standards.
Everybody else would benefit from rotation IMO, but we can’t do it without really weakening the team. Ronald and Key both look very jaded early on in games sometimes.
It doesn’t surprise me we always seem to struggle at the end of three game weeks.
Doesn’t mean Williams is perfect or doesn’t make mistakes, but he is at a disadvantage to most other managers. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 09:10 18 Dec 2024
They went off a cliff at half time. Sunderland changed tactics and we couldn’t counter it. That’s 100% on Williams.
I don’t think anyone is saying he’s perfect, he’s clearly not. People are saying he’s punching above his weight with the squad and budget he’s got.
As for fitness, which does seem to be an issue most games, the likes of Franco and Allen regularly get replaced by worse players and our performance dips. Abdullai usually comes on our wide for 10 minutes and doesn’t really impact the game. It happens to other teams as well, but most of them have strong enough squads that there’s not a massive difference between the player coming on and the player he replaces, that’s a squad depth issue. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 15:00 17 Dec 2024
I agree. It certainly pays for itself fairly quickly. I just wasn’t sure about the FFP |
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Reply | Williams out
at 13:59 17 Dec 2024
Medium to long term, I don’t think anything could benefit us more.
Am I right in thinking it doesn’t count towards FFP? May well be wrong there. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 13:05 17 Dec 2024
I genuinely think that could be down to the standard of competition as much as, if not more than, the players themselves.
Whether a Category A academy is financially viable for us at the moment I don’t know. |
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Reply | Williams out
at 12:55 17 Dec 2024
I think there’s a chasm in quality between the U21 games and the Championship. One thing when we had a category A academy and were exposed to top PL academy sides.
Players that have come up recently have struggled, both here and at lower division sides. Parker looked good for a couple of games before injury, Govea had some bright cameos but everyone else has found it tough.
Agree with the gist of what you’re saying, but I think the difference in quality (or quite possibly pace, physicality and intensity) is just too big without a loan spell somewhere first. |
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