Have we turned into what pundits were saying at the start?

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JL94x4 said:
On what basis is it a No.?
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N first. O second

I'll take the evidence of a nearly full season over the 3 weirdest league games we've ever been involved in.

I've seen more than enough to know we have the basis of a team who can create chances. But we have limitations that become more obvious if players levels drop (Fleck, Stevens) or we pick the wrong forward pairing (Sharp/McBurnie. Didzy has to play every game, to not start him against Villa was criminal)
 
blade too long said:
Take any team strip out the keeper and 2 centre backs and see how they get on.

Hopefully the return of these 3 on Sunday will see a different outcome
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First up, almost every team in the PL have suitable cover for their positions, ours can’t adapt to our system and are mid Championship at best. Jags is past it, Robinson is lower Championship at best and Moore is probably verging on League 1. Bringing Hendo, JOC and Egan back won’t change anything the way we’re performing as a squad at the minute. Every player that usually performs to a high standard are absolute shadows of themselves at the moment and I don’t know why, every other team have had a game and the rustiness seems to have worn off. 3 down for us and we’re heading in the wrong direction.
 
Birley Blade said:
First up, almost every team in the PL have suitable cover for their positions, ours can’t adapt to our system and are mid Championship at best. Jags is past it, Robinson is lower Championship at best and Moore is probably verging on League 1. Bringing Hendo, JOC and Egan back won’t change anything the way we’re performing as a squad at the minute. Every player that usually performs to a high standard are absolute shadows of themselves at the moment and I don’t know why, every other team have had a game and the rustiness seems to have worn off. 3 down for us and we’re heading in the wrong direction.
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We all knew this in August
We couldn't spend 200m to fill the void we have to established clubs who's had several seasons up here. Weve returned with 3 tough away games. Be nice to be at bramall lane again
 
🎵 We’re going to win the cup,
We’re going to win the cup.
Now you’re gonna believe us,
and now you’re gonna believe us.
We’re going to 🎶...............Bugger
 
Well with our focus on "effort" and statistically shocking attacking output (least shots on goals in the league and bottom 6 for goals scored) compared to most of the teams in the division (across the entire season). Yes. Its a damn good job we got the points when we did and when fully fit an incredible defence.
 
Birley Blade said:
First up, almost every team in the PL have suitable cover for their positions, ours can’t adapt to our system and are mid Championship at best. Jags is past it, Robinson is lower Championship at best and Moore is probably verging on League 1. Bringing Hendo, JOC and Egan back won’t change anything the way we’re performing as a squad at the minute. Every player that usually performs to a high standard are absolute shadows of themselves at the moment and I don’t know why, every other team have had a game and the rustiness seems to have worn off. 3 down for us and we’re heading in the wrong direction.
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I'm putting it down to the fact that we rely on teamwork more than the quality of our players. We've known all along that our players are by and large not as good, man for man as pretty much all our opposition - yet going into lockdown we were in touching distance of Europe. Twelve weeks later and we don't seem able to practice our own system. We don't attack with the same crispness of passing and our movement isn't as threatening - and our defensive high press just isn't working. Six goals in two games past the second best defence in the league ffs!!!

I don't for a minute believe the system doesn't work anymore (ie we've been worked out) but I do believe we can't work our own system. Our teamwork has disappeared and too many players seem to have had a major dip in their technical ability from twelve weeks ago. Perhaps they just kept fit during lockdown and the coaching staff haven't had time to get the technical and teamwork aspects back up to speed.

Although we need time to find our equilibrium again, we desperately need our quality players back to at least give a bit of what we were - and we need a bit of CWAK magic to hold morale up - or perhaps even find Plan B that compensates for our crapness..

That's my take on it anyway - but what do I know??
 



SheepdipBlade said:
I'm putting it down to the fact that we rely on teamwork more than the quality of our players. We've known all along that our players are by and large not as good, man for man as pretty much all our opposition - yet going into lockdown we were in touching distance of Europe. Twelve weeks later and we don't seem able to practice our own system. We don't attack with the same crispness of passing and our movement isn't as threatening - and our defensive high press just isn't working. Six goals in two games past the second best defence in the league ffs!!!

I don't for a minute believe the system doesn't work anymore (ie we've been worked out) but I do believe we can't work our own system. Our teamwork has disappeared and too many players seem to have had a major dip in their technical ability from twelve weeks ago. Perhaps they just kept fit during lockdown and the coaching staff haven't had time to get the technical and teamwork aspects back up to speed.

Although we need time to find our equilibrium again, we desperately need our quality players back to at least give a bit of what we were - and we need a bit of CWAK magic to hold morale up - or perhaps even find Plan B that compensates for our crapness..

That's my take on it anyway - but what do I know??
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Hot weather, our small squad playing so many games in 6 weeks makes it too energy-sapping in playing the high press, attacking and movement we saw before the lockdown.
 
Time to play some of the other fringe players for a few matches, both to rest the usual players and to see if Freeman, Osborn and Zivkovic are up to it
 
The answer for me is No

Firstly none of the pundits really had a clue who or what we were about from whatever brief amount of time they spent on us to write up their season prediction columns. Some have rightly jumped on and praised us for our approach and now maybe think hang on a minute

And that’s because we are a squad of championship players playing above ourselves and are now hitting our first real blip

We haven’t suddenly turned into the workmanlike tough to beat little team, we showed yesterday we still are moving it about and trying to create
 
No.

The positives from yesterday were few and far between but we showed glimpses of possession, good movement, better link up play. Sadly once Didsy and Moose went off a lot of the positives started to disappear.

The way we played in the first 5 minutes showed the players still "have it" they just need JOC and Egan back. Although fitness is everything right now and I am really fucked off on the eve of the restart we comeback to 2 key players crippled after all the hype during lockdown.

Having JOC back might not fix anything short term yet since Fleck and JOC are not fully match fit. So I expect some more laboured performances for the next couple of matches.
 
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Silent Blade said:
Hot weather, our small squad playing so many games in 6 weeks makes it too energy-sapping in playing the high press, attacking and movement we saw before the lockdown.
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I wouldn't dispute that - but if you're right in suggesting this as our main problem, then we're in trouble. The squad isn't about to get bigger and we're still only at the beginning of the hottest part of the summer.

I liked it better when the answers to our problems seemed more in our own hands!
 
Based on purely the last 3 games we have turned into a side who look as bad as Norwich have all season.

But the season isnt only over 3 games thank God.

The other games before lockdown we were excellent.
 



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