LANG was a breath of fresh air when he came on last evening. He ran at their defence and displayed something different - a very positive and fearless attitude, and proof of all that in his well-worked goal.
Otherwise a VERY frustrating and disappointing ting evening. WE did not look at it from kick-off ... at all, in the first half. Oxford certainly wanted it more and, as per many teams, wanted to prove a point.
I won't name them but individual errors were the cause of their goals - and when their fans started singing " 2-1 and you xzxzxaarxzxxz it up" - that summed up the evening !
However, we have an almighty number of points to play for but JM has to get into them before Saturday.
We can't keep on repeating similar errors, and casual play ; do PFC want promotion ?
Do ALL the players want promotion ? - YES then prove it in every game ...... all of you .
We cannot get promotion with Raggett and/or Towler playing. I've said this for a long time, it will not happen. We haven't replaced Poole unfortunately and there is a massive gap in defence. Last night they were at fault for the second goal. What on earth were they doing? Close him down, or bring him down. Don't let him shoot.
We haven't replaced Poole still, that injury killed us and we haven't replaced him. We are going nowhere this season and that's the painful truth some can't handle.
Mousinho deserves another full season at least to get us promotion to the championship, with hopefully his best side available next season. He's a good young manager.
So let's have three home wins starting Saturday.
Unfortunately, you seem to be assuming that JM is not the problem. In fact he is. The sideways, backwards, tippy-tappy defensive game plan that he insists on every week is part of the problem. Stupid substitutions late on opening up defensive gaps is part of the problem.
(31-01-2024, 03:10 PM)TBP Wrote: [ -> ]Unfortunately, you seem to be assuming that JM is not the problem. In fact he is. The sideways, backwards, tippy-tappy defensive game plan that he insists on every week is part of the problem. Stupid substitutions late on opening up defensive gaps is part of the problem.
The problem last night wasn't the tippy tappy football it was the over-use of the long ball to Bishop, usually in desperation when being closed down by Oxford players. Bishop was winning most of them but flicking on to no-one so possession was lost. And when we did build with possession it was painfully slow. Better in the second half when we played the ball and moved with some pace whilst keeping possession.
The box midfield (as Whittingham called it) looked a very useful formation - good to have another plan B available.
We were far too pedestrian in our build up , we take twice as many passes than needs be and we couldn’t play down the middle because P-H was on the left wing with Lane.
(31-01-2024, 04:01 PM)bluetagagain Wrote: [ -> ]We were far too pedestrian in our build up , we take twice as many passes than needs be and we couldn’t play down the middle because P-H was on the left wing with Lane.
I'd agree with that assssment of the first half, but Mousinho was angry about it too and deserves some credit for turning it around with an innovative formation that we have never seen him play before.
TBH it wasn’t until the introduction of Lang that we actually started to play.