Match Thread Coventry City - Preston North End FC Match Thread - Friday 23rd Feb (2 Viewers)

Nick

Administrator
Honestly don’t think it’s the crossing. Our forwards have all the anticipation and positioning of a new born baby. Never attack the ball, never attack the front post, rarely challenge for headers. Even when Torp is taking them the balls are great but come to nothing. For a team led by a striker out final third play is shocking at times.

MVE did about 6 awful crosses last night.
Then add in Eccles corners and free kicks.

Nothing to do with strikers.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
MVE did about 6 awful crosses last night.
Then add in Eccles corners and free kicks.

Nothing to do with strikers.

Even at corners tho, Eccles steps up and no one goes front post when half his corners don’t beat the first man. There’s equal responsibility. Our strikers all want a perfect ball to their feet or they’re not interested.
 

djr8369

Well-Known Member
Really struggling to get this one out of my system, to be honest. I can take losing, it's sports. It happens, you deal with it. But the manner of it, the absolute shambles we were, and what happened to Sakamoto all combined....
A catastrophic evening.

I hate how negative this place is after a loss. The levels of panic are comical. But we looked completely lost last night.

These games happen occasionally though just have to hope players stand up and be counted and move on.
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
A catastrophic evening.

I hate how negative this place is after a loss. The levels of panic are comical. But we looked completely lost last night.

These games happen occasionally though just have to hope players stand up and be counted and move on.
Go back to our best back 4 and stick to it, entrust Collins with being the number 1 and stick to that too. It’s what you do with the attacking players that concerns me as we really can’t count on Palmer or Tavares out wide for the rest of the season.
 

djr8369

Well-Known Member
Go back to our best back 4 and stick to it, entrust Collins with being the number 1 and stick to that too. It’s what you do with the attacking players that concerns me as we really can’t count on Palmer or Tavares out wide for the rest of the season.
Can we pick up out of contract players? There must be someone who could do a job even as back up.
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
Can we pick up out of contract players? There must be someone who could do a job even as back up.
MR hasn’t done that outside of the transfer window since we gave Lee Camp a contract for a month. Think it would take so long for such a player to get up to fitness it wouldn’t be much use.
 

djr8369

Well-Known Member
MR hasn’t done that outside of the transfer window since we gave Lee Camp a contract for a month. Think it would take so long for such a player to get up to fitness it wouldn’t be much use.
Agreed but it’s getting to the point it’s a serious problem.

Maybe one of the young lads will step up in the manner that Bayliss and Shipley did several years ago.
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
Agreed but it’s getting to the point it’s a serious problem.

Maybe one of the young lads will step up in the manner that Bayliss and Shipley did several years ago.
My point is you’d throw such a player in ahead of time, they get injured and you’re back where you started.
 

oscillatewildly

Well-Known Member
This weekend was always gonna be about three parts - Part one spectacularly crashed and burned last night.
Part two can offer some resurrection in Cov beating Ampthill (2.30 KO) and then part three can put some shine on the weekend with England rubbing the jocks into the turf.
 

TomRad85

Well-Known Member
My point is you’d throw such a player in ahead of time, they get injured and you’re back where you started.
If only they allowed a month during the season where we could at least loan in players for exactly this kind of scenario...

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk
 

Chinny_Hill

New Member
A lot of teams play without a recognised striker these days, and I do feel that we don’t create many real opportunities for true strikers to capitalise on. I get in the formation we don’t ask the strikers to play a traditional number 9 type role, but the reality is Simms, Haji and Godden are strikers, and sometimes struggle for me in the role they are being asked to play. For the love of god I need to understand why we persist with Eccles on corners. Not an attack on him, just an observation. It’s painful that each of his corners are a foregone conclusion and why this hasn’t been addressed on the training ground I have no idea.
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
A lot of teams play without a recognised striker these days, and I do feel that we don’t create many real opportunities for true strikers to capitalise on. I get in the formation we don’t ask the strikers to play a traditional number 9 type role, but the reality is Simms, Haji and Godden are strikers, and sometimes struggle for me in the role they are being asked to play. For the love of god I need to understand why we persist with Eccles on corners. Not an attack on him, just an observation. It’s painful that each of his corners are a foregone conclusion and why this hasn’t been addressed on the training ground I have no idea.
Bidwell and Torp take good ones but neither were on the pitch
 

stupot07

Well-Known Member
Honestly don’t think it’s the crossing. Our forwards have all the anticipation and positioning of a new born baby. Never attack the ball, never attack the front post, rarely challenge for headers. Even when Torp is taking them the balls are great but come to nothing. For a team led by a striker out final third play is shocking at times.
Chicken and egg though isn't it. Our forwards show decent movement but we delay the cross too much time and again, and then delivery is poor, so they stop moving. They obviously practice corners and the hand signals tell the players where the ball is aiming from. Eccles can barely beat the last man. Blame those in the box, but look at how dangerous Torps are, so it is about the quality of the delivery.


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shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Chicken and egg though isn't it. Our forwards show decent movement but we delay the cross too much time and again, and then delivery is poor, so they stop moving. They obviously practice corners and the hand signals tell the players where the ball is aiming from. Eccles can barely beat the last man. Blame those in the box, but look at how dangerous Torps are, so it is about the quality of the delivery.


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Yeah that’s true. There’s a certain level of predictability needed on all sides. What we’ve really lacked without Hamer is that speed of thought plus execution. The constant changing of the team won’t help either.
 

Londonccfcfan

Well-Known Member
Our best 2 players last night were Haji and Simms. With little or no service. Only ones who cone out of yesterday with any sort od credit. We lost because of a shit show at the back, then a lack of confidence.
 

Warwickhunt

Well-Known Member
We played poorly last night, but Da Silva for the second goal (which killed the game imo) was just one of them - nothing 'tactics can do about that. Don't think we looked physically up to it last night once those 2 early goals went in - literally took the wind out of any sails we might have had.
Also JDS misread the situation and tried to make amends with a powder puff of a header to gave away the corner within 39 seconds for the first goal. I said to my mate upon seeing JDS playing at left back he will be targeted by the opposition as all the other teams do. MR should see he is not a full back and stop using him there.
 

2024/25 League 1 Champs?

Well-Known Member
A catastrophic evening.

I hate how negative this place is after a loss. The levels of panic are comical. But we looked completely lost last night.

These games happen occasionally though just have to hope players stand up and be counted and move on.

Rather than being negative after a loss, I think it’s more that people can see we aren’t good enough in terms of squad and perhaps some individual players to compete, and after a disappointing and pretty confusing January window, coupled with the inevitable loss of key players to injuries with no mitigation in place, we have lost more ground to rivals, but yet positive results almost paper over the cracks….

yes we’ve had some good results, but haven’t looked convincing for a long while and a number of those results have been by the skin of our teeth / because the opposition have been dire, and even then we’ve made hard work of it.

The questions around players, manager, tactics, transfers etc are still there, but a win kind of suppresses them

If you see this season for what it is though, a season of consolidation and partial rebuilding, then where we are is actually probably ok, albeit I do think we are still way short of a top championship team… I think it’s just a bit disappointing for most that we managed to get into a position where we are in with a shout at this stage but yet we didn’t seem to have the motivation to take a risk in January for a final push. It’s like MR switching formation last night to ‘protect’ a 0-3 loss - that’s not the mentality of an ambitious management team is it?
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
A catastrophic evening.

I hate how negative this place is after a loss. The levels of panic are comical. But we looked completely lost last night.

These games happen occasionally though just have to hope players stand up and be counted and move on.
It's more that we have spent a huge amount of money in order to be struggling for numbers and squad depth. And it's an amount of money we won't see again for some time.
 

CCFCSteve

Well-Known Member
.
Yeah that’s true. There’s a certain level of predictability needed on all sides. What we’ve really lacked without Hamer is that speed of thought plus execution. The constant changing of the team won’t help either.

Torps has already shown he’s got that in his game.
 

CCFCSteve

Well-Known Member
It's more that we have spent a huge amount of money in order to be struggling for numbers and squad depth. And it's an amount of money we won't see again for some time.

It’s a total squad rebuild since Wembley.

I’ve always felt if we finish top 10 and are in and around the play offs this year it wouldn’t be a bad season. If we get to quarters or further in FA Cup it’s a bonus/bit of fun

I’ve also thought with Leicester, Leeds and Southampton in the league it would take a lot of luck and fuck ups by them to get promoted this year
 
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NorthernWisdom

Well-Known Member
It’s a total squad rebuild since Wembley.

I’ve always felt if we finish top 10 and are in and around the play offs this year it wouldn’t be a bad season. If we get to quarters or further in FA Cup it’s a bonus/bit of fun

I’ve always thought with Leicester, Leeds and Southampton in the league it would take a lot of luck and fuck ups by them to get promoted this year
We've also started from a base where we owned very few of our first team, so to get to a point where we do, and can add to the squad in the future rather than starting from scratch each pre-season, is a massive bonus.

Got to remember it's not that long ago we were down among the dead men, to rebuild the club and team isn't a quick fix.
 

CCFCSteve

Well-Known Member
We've also started from a base where we owned very few of our first team, so to get to a point where we do, and can add to the squad in the future rather than starting from scratch each pre-season, is a massive bonus.

Got to remember it's not that long ago we were down among the dead men, to rebuild the club and team isn't a quick fix.

Most of the signings are young and likely to develop/improve as well. But we live in a world where everything’s got to happen now….otherwise I’m gonna wave my camera phone light around and then take a selfie
 

Old Warwickshire lad

Well-Known Member
Let’s put a bit of perspective on this season.
If after the start we made again,I had said with a dozen or so games to go. We will still be in with an outside chance of the playoffs and the q/ finals of the fa cup.
Most of you lot would have phoned for the men in white coats for the old bugger.
And that’s from someone who moans for England.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Let’s put a bit of perspective on this season.
If after the start we made again,I had said with a dozen or so games to go. We will still be in with an outside chance of the playoffs and the q/ finals of the fa cup.
Most of you lot would have phoned for the men in white coats for the old bugger.
And that’s from someone who moans for England.

Yeah can’t lose sight of what’s been a good transition season even if we lose every game remaining. Key injuries have really hit us, but Torp is back it seems, Sheaf not too far behind, all is not lost.
 

Sick Boy

Well-Known Member
Yeah can’t lose sight of what’s been a good transition season even if we lose every game remaining. Key injuries have really hit us, but Torp is back it seems, Sheaf not too far behind, all is not lost.
Even if we don't make the play-offs, I'd still see it as a season of progression based on the high turnover of players. That being said, I do expect us to comfortably make the POs next season and even challenge for the top 2- anything less would be very disappointing.
 

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