Just back

I posted a couple of weeks ago saying that I had confidence in Slade. At that time I fully expected him to sign another quality partner for Rose in centre midfield and ship Berrett and Summerfield out on loan to balance the books.

We need an addition because we've only got Clements in there otherwise. I know McAllister's coming back from injury but going on recent history, can we rely on him to stay fit or even be the player he was after such a long lay off at his age?

We may have numbers in centre mid, but does it match the quality we've got in other areas? Hopefully a game like today will push RS to wheel and deal a little more in the transfer market. I'm sure he's doing his best with a "competitive" budget..

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Love how they're poor tactics by Slade as they were pretty much the same as last week. Had we held on for 0-0 would they still have been poor? And regarding Berrett, he's not the best or the worst player ever to play for Town but why do we always have to have a scapegoat? He gets vilified when he doesn't tackle and the same when he does. We're missing 5 midfielders at present so we've got to make do with what we've got.

They are rubbish tactics at home if the other side dont come at you and attack which Cov didn't do, so very rubbish tactics on the day, especially when you only have 2 players in the team with any real pace.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Love how they're poor tactics by Slade as they were pretty much the same as last week. Had we held on for 0-0 would they still have been poor? And regarding Berrett, he's not the best or the worst player ever to play for Town but why do we always have to have a scapegoat? He gets vilified when he doesn't tackle and the same when he does. We're missing 5 midfielders at present so we've got to make do with what we've got.

Don't know if you realize but most teams have different home and away tactics. Berrett may not be the worse player ever seen at B.P. but he is certainly one of the most anonymous

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Love how they're poor tactics by Slade as they were pretty much the same as last week. Had we held on for 0-0 would they still have been poor? And regarding Berrett, he's not the best or the worst player ever to play for Town but why do we always have to have a scapegoat? He gets vilified when he doesn't tackle and the same when he does. We're missing 5 midfielders at present so we've got to make do with what we've got.

Not sure if you are new to watching football but it is generally given that teams set up differently away from home but hey if you are happy watching us hoof the ball up to a young player new to this league with no support then great.

And I'm not making Berrett a scapegoat, I've always said I'm not impressed with him and he was a clown to make that challenge after already getting stupidly booked.

Quoted from golfer

Don't know if you realize but most teams have different home and away tactics. Berrett may not be the worse player ever seen at B.P. but he is certainly one of the most anonymous

I totally realise that and what you say proves beyond doubt that you don't understand football. From the kick off, Berrett followed Doyle and perhaps what you missed was that the only time you saw Doyle all game was when he was on the floor squealing like a girl after Luke Summerfield's challenge.

That said, I really don't want us to be negative at home and we possibly didn't push on far enough but, with the age of our back 4, we could have been easily exposed today. And, by the way, I thought Ben Davies was excellent today.

I thought Coventry were a decent team with a powerful and well-organised defence, a bit of skill here and there but I think we made them look a lot better than they actually are. I don't think they were a patch on, say Pompey or Donny last season for example. The number of times we just presented the ball back to them when under no real pressure was very poor today and it was no surprise that they were attacking time and again in the second half as we tired.

As for us, I'm in agreement with most that the peculiar formation we're using isn't the best, especially at home. Cardwell had a thankless task up front on his own (especially against their No. 4, a very good and athletic defender) and we had very little link up between midfield and the attackers.

My big worry is that, for a team playing with two holding midfielders, we were wide open at the back too often in the second half and in attack we just never really looked as though we would get a goal.

I didn't really see what happened with their first goal, just their forward rounding McKeown to score. Considering the way the referee was performing, we shouldn't have given him the opportunity to make an error in this situation.

Will be interesting to see what line-up/formation we end up with longer term as the team we started with today isn't going to be doing too much, even if we play a good deal better than that.

Not sure that I can add anything new to what has been posted so far but we did not play well in fact in the final 3rd we appeared totally clueless, we will never do anything with so little quality and so few decent shots on goal, 3 in total was it?

Thought RS was trying to be too clever with his selection & shape and why he did not start with 2 natural wide players or Jones up front when Vernon pulled up I will never know never know. Nobody ever told Bignot Sam Jones is not a wide player and clearly that message is not getting through to RS either..

After the break we clearly needed another outlet and also someone to get the ball to Dembelle who we will only see the best of when (if?) better players such as Clements, Osborne and McAllister come back as Berrett (garbage today) and Summerfield (o.k. today) did not have the class to bring him into the game. Robins changed their shape a bit and out thought Slade I feel and that gave them the ascendancy.

The first goal was a bit unprofessional by Town and arguably the ref and from their perspective a "low punch" of a goal, but a goal all the same..Really unhappy with the reaction after the first goal when our "leaders" possibly should have been focused on us and getting a good re-start than playing the blame game up until the 2nd. It says a lot when Dembelle was the one who grabbed the ball and wanted to get on with the game.

The 2nd was very similar to the Derby goal on Tuesday so clearly some work to be done on the training ground, after that both sides where going through the motions to be fair, us trying to look interested and them time wasting and being petulant at every opportunity.

Thought the ref was poor and did us a favor by sending Berrett off which will force change next week but like I say we where not good enough in too many departments to take anything from a game against a side who will probably be up there come the end of term.

I think the first 2 weeks will probably be like the rest of the season good one week poor the next with a mid table finish.

UTM!!!

No way around it we were just all wrong today.

Jones out wide ? When we have bolly and DJ , summerfield and Berrett were partnered together because we went with 3 central midfielders which again at home is just overly negative especially in a 451.

I like the idea of rose and maybe McAllister as a two with dembele DJ and Jones infront with then the lone striker if Slade insists with one striker , but like I say today we were just overly negative and although I still think Slade knows enough I just don't know why he set up like that at home.

I forgot to mention, I thought our players really failed to keep it simple at times today. Players such as Dembele and Jones have good skill but were too often trying to turn and take a man on when surrounded by defenders. It would generally have been more sensible to let the ball do more of the work and make a simple pass. The midfielders were just as guilty of trying to overplay as the previously mentioned pair and DJ was much the same when he came on.

In comparison, their lanky No. 7 rarely did anything too flashy but just kep the ball moving on, often with accurate first-time passes, something which we were mostly incapable of managing today.

Quoted from jonnyboy82

Jones out wide ? When we have bolly and DJ , summerfield and Berrett were partnered together because we went with 3 central midfielders which again at home is just overly negative especially in a 451.

I like the idea of rose and maybe McAllister as a two with dembele DJ and Jones infront with then the lone striker if Slade insists with one striker , but like I say today we were just overly negative and although I still think Slade knows enough I just don't know why he set up like that at home.

I certainly agree that Jones shouldn't be starting in wide positions. I don't think he's done much at all in pre-season playing wide in the games I've seen and he needs to be more central to be most effective.

However, it was certainly supposed to be Slade's 4-2-3-1 today, not 4-5-1. If it had been 4-5-1 we might have been a bit tighter at the back though it obviously wouldn't have helped us in attack!

If McAllister can get fit and perform as he did in the Plymouth game last season, we'll be a lot better off, regardless of the formation. I'm yet to be fully convinced by Rose as well. More physical than our other midfielders, but I'm not sure yet whether he's good enough on the ball. As it stands, if we're playing a holding pair, my first choices would be McAllister and Clements.

Hopefully, we can become a bit more attack-minded at home in future and we won't see more than one holding midfielder starting. 4-1-3-2, perhaps?