MATCHWATCH : Swansea City (h)

[Hound]

Always harder on a phone to be fair, but two that come to mind straight away are - beautiful defence-splitting pass for Ince, where unfortunately Ince was marginally off-side, and - very significantly, the aggressive press on Joe Lumley that led to the second goal.

Those aren't "generally ok mundane stuff"

Fully agree but I think you may have inadvertently referred to the wrong player/keeper when you talk about the aggressive press?

I meant to say Joe Allen, brain misfire!

Yep think it was Russell Martin who did the aggressive press on Lumley

[muirinho]

Fully agree but I think you may have inadvertently referred to the wrong player/keeper when you talk about the aggressive press?

I meant to say Joe Allen, brain misfire!

Yep think it was Russell Martin who did the aggressive press on Lumley

[Crowbar6753]

The ref was decent enough. Felt he fell for a number of the Swansea dives but overall he was pretty good

Don’t get the Loum was poor comments. Thought he was excellent bar a couple of misplaced passes out of touch. Looks much quicker and more energetic than when he first joined.

I agree with you about Loum. He looks much fitter now and I thought he looked decent last night.

Overall, I was happy with our performance and it was a better turn out than I was expecting but I’d still like to see 2 or 3k more.

I am not sure if I am delusional but at times I think there’s much more to come from this team but we always fall back into grinding out a narrow win. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take that all day long but I’d love to see one or two more Blackburn type performances.

Ince has hinted a few times that 4-3-3 is his preferred formation and personally one that would suit this group of players, however, i think this current formation and style is slowly getting us to safety and probably the reason he's sticking to it.
The football currently on show is a hard watch but i would expect that to change once we hit that magic number of around 50+ points.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

The ref was decent enough. Felt he fell for a number of the Swansea dives but overall he was pretty good

Don’t get the Loum was poor comments. Thought he was excellent bar a couple of misplaced passes out of touch. Looks much quicker and more energetic than when he first joined.

I agree with you about Loum. He looks much fitter now and I thought he looked decent last night.

Overall, I was happy with our performance and it was a better turn out than I was expecting but I’d still like to see 2 or 3k more.

I am not sure if I am delusional but at times I think there’s much more to come from this team but we always fall back into grinding out a narrow win. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take that all day long but I’d love to see one or two more Blackburn type performances.

Ince has hinted a few times that 4-3-3 is his preferred formation and personally one that would suit this group of players, however, i think this current formation and style is slowly getting us to safety and probably the reason he's sticking to it.
The football currently on show is a hard watch but i would expect that to change once we hit that magic number of around 50+ points.

Possibly, I think we just have a lot of CB options and not many CM or wide options really to play a 4-3-3. Loum, Hendrick and Fornah you'd assume would be the 3, which would leave who capable of playing in midfield? Hutchinson and Tetek? Not great depth. Out wide you've got Ince, Meite, Hoilett and Ejaria, the first 3 are good, Ejaria I'm not convinced by and we've got about 7 CB's at the moment on our books I think? Holmes, TMac, Sarr, Moore, Dann, Mbengue, Huctinson... with the likes of Abbey and Dorsett looking promising, I think it could be here to stay for a bit.

[SCIAG]

The best version of Paul's comment I can come up with is that if you asked the average Reading fan in summer 2005 what they thought of Little, Convey, Sonko, perhaps even Murty and Harper (popular but not exactly regular match-winners - Harper had been dropped for Ricky Newman the previous season), they'd probably say they were average Championship players.

Sidwell was generally viewed as the best or second-best player in the league, he and Jagielka were the Gerrard and Lampard of the Championship. Shorey and Kitson were amongst the best in their positions. I was a big fan of Ingimarsson but not sure how the fanbase as a whole viewed him. Marcus wasn't quite as well-regarded as he is now - not long beforehand he'd been displaced from the side by Jamie Ashdown.

Of the summer signings, I can only remember much excitement about Lita. Oster had talent but a chequered past. The rest had very little name recognition and not much expected of them.

In hindsight we badly underestimated them. When you watch Bobby play it's obvious he had spades of talent, and if not for his various health issues he would have had a long career at a high level. Sonko and Little both had talent, but also had serious limitations that Coppell worked around. Harper was the perfect partner for Sidwell. And Doyle was a much better player than anyone taken straight from Ireland had the right to be.

[From Despair To Where?]

As individuals, they were unheralded, or at least went under the radar but as a team, the organisation, spirit and work rate was absolutely phenomenal. This carried through to the next season where Seol was the only real addition who was regular starter. I suppose de la Cruz worked his way onto the team later on.

It was when key players like Sidwell left and weren't replaced with players with anything like the same quality, spirit and workrate that it started to go wrong.

[Snowflake Royal]

I agree with you about Loum. He looks much fitter now and I thought he looked decent last night.

Overall, I was happy with our performance and it was a better turn out than I was expecting but I’d still like to see 2 or 3k more.

I am not sure if I am delusional but at times I think there’s much more to come from this team but we always fall back into grinding out a narrow win. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take that all day long but I’d love to see one or two more Blackburn type performances.

Ince has hinted a few times that 4-3-3 is his preferred formation and personally one that would suit this group of players, however, i think this current formation and style is slowly getting us to safety and probably the reason he's sticking to it.
The football currently on show is a hard watch but i would expect that to change once we hit that magic number of around 50+ points.

Possibly, I think we just have a lot of CB options and not many CM or wide options really to play a 4-3-3. Loum, Hendrick and Fornah you'd assume would be the 3, which would leave who capable of playing in midfield? Hutchinson and Tetek? Not great depth. Out wide you've got Ince, Meite, Hoilett and Ejaria, the first 3 are good, Ejaria I'm not convinced by and we've got about 7 CB's at the moment on our books I think? Holmes, TMac, Sarr, Moore, Dann, Mbengue, Huctinson... with the likes of Abbey and Dorsett looking promising, I think it could be here to stay for a bit.

Think we've got better wide options to play 4-3-3 than in years. Especially for right forward/wing:

Meite's best position, Azeez has done well there, Hoilett is very capable there, Ince played well there last season.

Left forward/wing is a bit trickier, but both Ince and Hoilett can play there, maybe Azeez, probably NGW to some extent, Long could do a job. Then you have the more midfieldery Ejaria who has played there regularly and Fornah who could do a similar job.

We are certainly a bit light in midfield though, with just Loum, Hendrick, Fornah and then Hutchinson, Tetek and maybe Ejaria, McIntyre etc.

Personally quite like the look of:

...............................Lumley
...........Yiadom, Holmes, Sarr, NGW
........Hendrick, Loum/Hutchinson, Fornah
Meite........................................................Ince
...........................Joao/Carroll

Question marks more in how the defence cope with two CBs and if NGW can be consistent enough, rather than further forward. Sarr not been brilliant since his return from injury, whilst McIntyre is really a bit slow to be paired with Holmes and vulnerable to being caught out in the left channel.

In terms of midfield depth, it's no different to what we were playing for much of the season already.

[YorkshireRoyal99]

Ince has hinted a few times that 4-3-3 is his preferred formation and personally one that would suit this group of players, however, i think this current formation and style is slowly getting us to safety and probably the reason he's sticking to it.
The football currently on show is a hard watch but i would expect that to change once we hit that magic number of around 50+ points.

Possibly, I think we just have a lot of CB options and not many CM or wide options really to play a 4-3-3. Loum, Hendrick and Fornah you'd assume would be the 3, which would leave who capable of playing in midfield? Hutchinson and Tetek? Not great depth. Out wide you've got Ince, Meite, Hoilett and Ejaria, the first 3 are good, Ejaria I'm not convinced by and we've got about 7 CB's at the moment on our books I think? Holmes, TMac, Sarr, Moore, Dann, Mbengue, Huctinson... with the likes of Abbey and Dorsett looking promising, I think it could be here to stay for a bit.

Think we've got better wide options to play 4-3-3 than in years. Especially for right forward/wing:

Meite's best position, Azeez has done well there, Hoilett is very capable there, Ince played well there last season.

Left forward/wing is a bit trickier, but both Ince and Hoilett can play there, maybe Azeez, probably NGW to some extent, Long could do a job. Then you have the more midfieldery Ejaria who has played there regularly and Fornah who could do a similar job.

We are certainly a bit light in midfield though, with just Loum, Hendrick, Fornah and then Hutchinson, Tetek and maybe Ejaria, McIntyre etc.

Personally quite like the look of:

...............................Lumley
...........Yiadom, Holmes, Sarr, NGW
........Hendrick, Loum/Hutchinson, Fornah
Meite........................................................Ince
...........................Joao/Carroll

Question marks more in how the defence cope with two CBs and if NGW can be consistent enough, rather than further forward. Sarr not been brilliant since his return from injury, whilst McIntyre is really a bit slow to be paired with Holmes and vulnerable to being caught out in the left channel.

In terms of midfield depth, it's no different to what we were playing for much of the season already.

Forgot about Azeez, we just seem to be loaded with players who play on the right and come in onto their left, we just don't have that much on the other side, Hoilett and Ejaria but don't like the latter as a winger. I think it might be best used in a 3-4-3, similar to what it was against Swansea a couple of days ago.

I think the difference with the midfield depth is we've played Ince as part of the 3, so he's becoming a bit of a makeshift midfielder there really. I actually thought McIntyre had a good game in his "left back" position against Swansea in fairness, think he's strictly a "stay at home" left back, rather than a Rahman or NGW who prefer to go forward.

[Mr Optimist]

I worked in Manchester with a Burnley fan around the time we signed Glen Little. He had God like status with their fans at the time, they worshipped him. My mate said he was the single reason a number of people were still going to Turf Moor was to see him play. He was less than happy when he left them!

Lita was the headline grabbing signing for a £1m fee. Kits was the lower league signing a season or so earlier who was showing encouraging signs for the future and the 2 for 1 deal of Doyle and Long were just meant to be squad back up players. The quote that struck me at the time was that the Cork fans were already gutted we had effectively stolen Doyle from them from €60k but then discovered we had also nicked his replacement Shane Long for €30k too!!

There were a number of other signings that at the time were underwhelming like Stephen Hunt, Nicky Shorey, Sonko, and Ivar as someone else has mentioned. Classic case of the whole being more than the component parts and the blend and team spirit being spot on.

Coppell had previous for assembling a couple of Division 2 promotion winning sides at Palace in a similar vein before his time with us.

[Snowflake Royal]

Ince would be a natural left winger. Don’t really count him for midfield as he's so much better elsewhere it would have to be an emergency to use him in midfield.

[Snowflake Royal]

I worked in Manchester with a Burnley fan around the time we signed Glen Little. He had God like status with their fans at the time, they worshipped him. My mate said he was the single reason a number of people were still going to Turf Moor was to see him play. He was less than happy when he left them!

Lita was the headline grabbing signing for a £1m fee. Kits was the lower league signing a season or so earlier who was showing encouraging signs for the future and the 2 for 1 deal of Doyle and Long were just meant to be squad back up players. The quote that struck me at the time was that the Cork fans were already gutted we had effectively stolen Doyle from them from €60k but then discovered we had also nicked his replacement Shane Long for €30k too!!

There were a number of other signings that at the time were underwhelming like Stephen Hunt, Nicky Shorey, Sonko, and Ivar as someone else has mentioned. Classic case of the whole being more than the component parts and the blend and team spirit being spot on.

Coppell had previous for assembling a couple of Division 2 promotion winning sides at Palace in a similar vein before his time with us.

Kitson scored 19 goals for us in 2004/5.

Shorey signed in 2001 and was the best left back in the Championship by 2005.

A lot of people forget Gunnarsson was a good starting Championship player for Watford when we signed him as back up to Sidwell and Harper in 05/06

Kitson, Sidwell, Shorey and Little would have got into pretty much any first XI in the Championship and they were supported by a further core of hardworking players who would have comfortably made the matchday squad of most teams.

We shouldn't let the fact it was assembled over several years for limited transfer fees undermine the fact it was an outstanding squad. The best the Championship has ever seen.