Bowen Out.

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Snowflake Royal
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Re: Bowen Out.

by Snowflake Royal » 01 Mar 2020 10:35

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URZZZZ
Progress has been made in terms of results and can be supported by statistics easily

Performances is another question however. Even today, in a so called "comfortable" performance, 7 shots to the opponents 23. Still think we drop too deep but today is a win and you can't get anything more than that

And prior to Bowen it wasn't unheard of for us to get zero shots on target.

We don't need to fire in shot after shot if we've already scored 2 goals.

We've gone on a rather more extended poor run than we'd like, but really, there aren't actually many obvious poor results in that run.

Millwall - were on an excellent run at the time, but disappointing
Forest - good result
Bristol - right at the top
Cardiff - ok result
Hull - disappointing for sure, but one mistake stopped us winning
WBA - top team
Weds - comfortable win, even before the red we were on top
Leeds - top team and a slightly lucky goal
Wigan - one of the form sides
Barnsley - comfortable win

Really there's only two disappointing showings there and one was a draw. It's just been a very hard run and we've struggled a bit. I'd certainly take that poor run over any of the ones we had under Gomes, Clement or Stam. It's still 9 points from 10 games. We've had managers where that level of point return is basically their whole tenure.

But for this narrative to work, we need to kick on with our run in. It's easy; even Brentford are totally out of form. If 0.9ppg is acceptable from a tough run, I'd like to see 2 per game over the remainder of the season.

Yes, we do need to string a run together. 1.5+ would probably do me... it'd see us on 60 points and probably about 14th. Anything better than that is great.

I'd much rather we wobble at this point and pick up towards the end than tail off into a poor end in the same position.

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Zip » 01 Mar 2020 11:21

Snowball UPDATE


RFC under Bowen


If the League had started with Bowen's first game, we would be in the play-offs!

Table since October 11th 2019

1 25 14 6 5 39 23 +16 48 Leeds
2 25 13 8 4 43 24 +19 47 West Bromwich Albion
3 25 13 6 6 50 24 +26 45 Brentford
4 25 13 5 7 31 27 +04 44 Fulham
5 25 10 9 6 39 27 +12 39 Blackburn
6 25 10 7 8 32 24 +08 37 Reading
===============================================
7 24 10 7 7 30 24 +06 37 Nottingham Forest
8 25 9 10 6 31 26 +05 37 Millwall

Throw in two FA Cup wins as well.

Hard to ask for much more considering how things looked when he took over.


Yet people want him sacked. Madness.

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Re: Bowen Out.

by URZZZZ » 01 Mar 2020 11:47

Hound Just think with the situation he inherited with the bloated expensive squad, bottom 3, shite crowds etc it was always simply a case of surviving this season and making small steps

Bowen has very much done that imo - obvs once we get the 2 more wins or so we need

Big summer ahead. Sensible decisions need to be made and the wage bill cut to give us some flexibility again


It’s been a “big summer” for ages though. No manager seems to have got it right, cracked the code and subsequently they fail

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Hound » 01 Mar 2020 11:50

URZZZZ
Hound Just think with the situation he inherited with the bloated expensive squad, bottom 3, shite crowds etc it was always simply a case of surviving this season and making small steps

Bowen has very much done that imo - obvs once we get the 2 more wins or so we need

Big summer ahead. Sensible decisions need to be made and the wage bill cut to give us some flexibility again


It’s been a “big summer” for ages though. No manager seems to have got it right, cracked the code and subsequently they fail


Well of course every summer is a big one. But genuinely feels like an end of a cycle to me - and a pretty poor one at that

Should get an idea of the strategy for the next few years

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Snowflake Royal » 01 Mar 2020 11:52

Zip
Snowball UPDATE


RFC under Bowen


If the League had started with Bowen's first game, we would be in the play-offs!

Table since October 11th 2019

1 25 14 6 5 39 23 +16 48 Leeds
2 25 13 8 4 43 24 +19 47 West Bromwich Albion
3 25 13 6 6 50 24 +26 45 Brentford
4 25 13 5 7 31 27 +04 44 Fulham
5 25 10 9 6 39 27 +12 39 Blackburn
6 25 10 7 8 32 24 +08 37 Reading
===============================================
7 24 10 7 7 30 24 +06 37 Nottingham Forest
8 25 9 10 6 31 26 +05 37 Millwall

Throw in two FA Cup wins as well.

Hard to ask for much more considering how things looked when he took over.


Yet people want him sacked. Madness.

Thing is, most people mostly only go to home games. Our record has been dire at home for getting towards a decade bar one season.

When what you're watching is rarely a win and you've been through six false dawns then patience wears thin. Especially in a society geared towards instant gratification.

It's disappointing, but not really a surprise. Especially coming off of about 15 years of almost constant and unprecedented success.


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Re: Bowen Out.

by 3points » 01 Mar 2020 12:49

The Championship has also changed over the last few years, probably partly driven by the money side of life, partly due to the constant pressure and Merry go round of managers at most clubs. It’s rare to see a side now come to the Madejski and play decent football with their first thought being to win the game. Most teams now come not to lose, and look to capitalise on a mistake, set piece or sneak one on the break. Under Bowen we’re doing exactly the same thing as well.

For me there’s a massive onus on us to break down a 10 man defence and, quite simply, we’re not good enough to do it. I’ve said before on here that we lack true creativity or that X Factor player that can unlock a tight defence. Ejaria is too inconsistent without a regular end product. Swift tries hard and I’m a big fan, but needs help. Olise definitely has potential. Even in the past couple of seasons we’ve had Mo Barrow (and I’m not a fan of his) but he has scored important goals and got some key assists to help us stave off relegation and that is because opposition teams are wary of his pure pace, even if his end product leaves much to be desired.

It’s now a very attritional league. You need to keep mistakes to a minimum but we’ve been too easy to play against until Bowen stepped in. Under Gomes he wanted to win every game, home and away. Clement just had no plan. Bowen is a defensive minded coach in my opinion. It may be enough to get us out of the league next year if he can keep the individual mistakes down and we have a high conversion rate of the limited chances we create.

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Re: Bowen Out.

by URZZZZ » 01 Mar 2020 13:03

3points The Championship has also changed over the last few years, probably partly driven by the money side of life, partly due to the constant pressure and Merry go round of managers at most clubs. It’s rare to see a side now come to the Madejski and play decent football with their first thought being to win the game. Most teams now come not to lose, and look to capitalise on a mistake, set piece or sneak one on the break. Under Bowen we’re doing exactly the same thing as well.

For me there’s a massive onus on us to break down a 10 man defence and, quite simply, we’re not good enough to do it. I’ve said before on here that we lack true creativity or that X Factor player that can unlock a tight defence. Ejaria is too inconsistent without a regular end product. Swift tries hard and I’m a big fan, but needs help. Olise definitely has potential. Even in the past couple of seasons we’ve had Mo Barrow (and I’m not a fan of his) but he has scored important goals and got some key assists to help us stave off relegation and that is because opposition teams are wary of his pure pace, even if his end product leaves much to be desired.

It’s now a very attritional league. You need to keep mistakes to a minimum but we’ve been too easy to play against until Bowen stepped in. Under Gomes he wanted to win every game, home and away. Clement just had no plan. Bowen is a defensive minded coach in my opinion. It may be enough to get us out of the league next year if he can keep the individual mistakes down and we have a high conversion rate of the limited chances we create.


Good post and I agree with most of that. I don’t think it’s just a Championship thing though, many teams in the Prem play that way too and without watching L1 or L2 much, I could hazard a guess it’s not too dissimilar there either

Don’t want to go back into the Clement thing into much detail but he did begin to have a plan towards the end, which, confusingly was the period in which he was sacked

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Snowball » 01 Mar 2020 13:15

Zip
Snowball UPDATE


RFC under Bowen


If the League had started with Bowen's first game, we would be in the play-offs!

Table since October 11th 2019

1 25 14 6 5 39 23 +16 48 Leeds
2 25 13 8 4 43 24 +19 47 West Bromwich Albion
3 25 13 6 6 50 24 +26 45 Brentford
4 25 13 5 7 31 27 +04 44 Fulham
5 25 10 9 6 39 27 +12 39 Blackburn
6 25 10 7 8 32 24 +08 37 Reading
===============================================
7 24 10 7 7 30 24 +06 37 Nottingham Forest
8 25 9 10 6 31 26 +05 37 Millwall

Throw in two FA Cup wins as well.

Hard to ask for much more considering how things looked when he took over.


Yet people want him sacked. Madness.


Not me. I worry that at-a-glance it looks like I started
a thread to suggest "Bowen Out" when, of course I was
being ironic, but then we had that horrible game, and...

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Snowball » 01 Mar 2020 13:32

3points
It’s now a very attritional league. You need to keep mistakes to a minimum but we’ve been too easy to play against until Bowen stepped in. Under Gomes he wanted to win every game, home and away. Clement just had no plan. Bowen is a defensive minded coach in my opinion. It may be enough to get us out of the league next year if he can keep the individual mistakes down and we have a high conversion rate of the limited chances we create.


I've thought for a while, that a deadly striker would transform us.

I know that's "essentially obvious" but what I mean is, if you get a purple
Blackmanesque patch (who he?) or a duo who get 35+ goals between them
(like Hunt-Long) or a little bloke who just keeps grabbing goals (le Fondre)
then you're transformed.

But for us, I think more so. We are a confidence side, I'd say. If we had
a striker or a pair (say Meite/Puscas for the argument) that went on a
real scoring run, (say 4 goals every three/four games between them)
confidence would rocket, the midfield would run harder, the defence
would have more shut outs etc

For me we are a side that if we started a season REALLY well, we could
be awesome. It started to look that way when Blackett-Swift-Ejaria were
playing their own game down the left wing a few games ago. We could be
scoring 4s and 5s.

But we still look like we can CONCEDE 4s or 5s (even though we are not
actually leaking a goal a game on average)

We lack mentality, I think. We don't have an animal, a leader, a player the
rest are scared of. We lack sheer speed*. We also lack a monster, a power player,
a battering ram, the one that leaves marks on CBs. Meite, for all his size, looks
a bit soft. I'm not convinced Joao is right long-term either. We aren't SCARY.


*The 25 yesterday might be the guy


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Re: Bowen Out.

by krapmle » 01 Mar 2020 13:56

Totally agree. The lacking element are strikers. Goalkeeper, defence, midfield all looking solid.
If only the strikers were banging them in at a higher rate than now, things would be very different.

However, If Bowen brought in Puscas, then both should go. :wink: unless he also brought in Pele who has been brilliant.
Last edited by krapmle on 01 Mar 2020 13:59, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Snowball » 01 Mar 2020 13:59

krapmle Totally agree. The lacking element are strikers. Goalkeeper, defence, midfield all looking solid.
If only the strikers were banging them in at a higher rate than now, things would be very different.

However, If Bowen brought in Puscas, then both should go. :wink:



Was it last season when Ipswich were top for 4/6/8 games or summit
but it was because their conversion rates stupidly good?

When that conversion rate regressed back to the mean they were in trouble

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Zip » 01 Mar 2020 14:04

krapmle Totally agree. The lacking element are strikers. Goalkeeper, defence, midfield all looking solid.
If only the strikers were banging them in at a higher rate than now, things would be very different.

However, If Bowen brought in Puscas, then both should go. :wink: unless he also brought in Pele who has been brilliant.


Our strikers are not missing many chances. We create few chances.

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Snowball » 01 Mar 2020 14:31

Update on Strikers


League Goals

28 1,889 Mins 09 Goals 0 Assists 210 Mins/Goal 210 Mins/G-A Puscas
30 2,055 Mins 07 Goals 1 Assists 294 Mins/Goal 257 Mins/G-A Meite
18 0,924 Mins 04 Goals 0 Assists 231 Mins/Goal 231 Mins/G-A Baldock

So Puscas looking pretty decent, now.
On target for maybe 12-13 league goals, ATM

Baldock unfairly maligned. His lower goal tally mainly down to fewer
minutes on the pitch. He has had just 45% of Meite's Minutes, 49% of Puscas's

Scaled up minutes-wise, Baldock would be on 9 League Goals, Puscas 10 (9.8)

All Goals, incl Cup Games

34 2,445 Mins 11 Goals 1 Assists 222 Mins/Goal 204 Mins/G-A Meite
31 2,048 Mins 10 Goals 0 Assists 205 Mins/Goal 205 Mins/G-A Puscas
21 1,053 Mins 05 Goals 1 Assists 211 Mins/Goal 176 Mins/G-A Baldock

Meite edging the total goals but Puscas better on minutes per goal. Baldock shows up well.

When assists added Puscas and Meite are almost identical but Baldock comes out best.


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Re: Bowen Out.

by krapmle » 01 Mar 2020 15:14

Zip
krapmle Totally agree. The lacking element are strikers. Goalkeeper, defence, midfield all looking solid.
If only the strikers were banging them in at a higher rate than now, things would be very different.

However, If Bowen brought in Puscas, then both should go. :wink: unless he also brought in Pele who has been brilliant.


Our strikers are not missing many chances. We create few chances.


I disagree. The hold up play, the lay off's, the first touch, all poor. Very rarely keep the ball following a long ball or goal kick to our front line.
They are not helping themselves. I hope it comes good for them but honestly not impressed with any of them up till now.

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Zip » 01 Mar 2020 15:40

krapmle
Zip
krapmle Totally agree. The lacking element are strikers. Goalkeeper, defence, midfield all looking solid.
If only the strikers were banging them in at a higher rate than now, things would be very different.

However, If Bowen brought in Puscas, then both should go. :wink: unless he also brought in Pele who has been brilliant.


Our strikers are not missing many chances. We create few chances.


I disagree. The hold up play, the lay off's, the first touch, all poor. Very rarely keep the ball following a long ball or goal kick to our front line.
They are not helping themselves. I hope it comes good for them but honestly not impressed with any of them up till now.



What chances have Puscas and Meite missed over the past few months? Not very many. Puscas had a spell early on in the season when he was missing good chances but we are not creating much at all for them at the moment.

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Hound » 01 Mar 2020 15:43

Not esp worried with Puscas, Meite, Baldock and Joao tbh. Its just finding the right combination

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Re: Bowen Out.

by krapmle » 01 Mar 2020 16:59

Zip
krapmle
Zip
Our strikers are not missing many chances. We create few chances.


I disagree. The hold up play, the lay off's, the first touch, all poor. Very rarely keep the ball following a long ball or goal kick to our front line.
They are not helping themselves. I hope it comes good for them but honestly not impressed with any of them up till now.



What chances have Puscas and Meite missed over the past few months? Not very many. Puscas had a spell early on in the season when he was missing good chances but we are not creating much at all for them at the moment.


You could see what the goal meant to Puscas yesterday. Thats fine. But forwards don't just hang around and wait they are also part of the movement and off the ball running to make chances. At the moment its not happening. They are just as much to blame (if thats the right word) as anyone else in the team. They still have time but if it hasn't gelled by the end of the season, its the front line that has to change.

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Re: Bowen Out.

by 3points » 01 Mar 2020 17:29

I do think Puscas is / will be a good goal scorer in this league. For me, we need to build a team around him and a style of play that best suits him. In the last few seasons I can only think of one season with Kermogant where we played in a way that suited our main striker (or vice versa). I think you could put many decent strikers in our team at the moment and they’d struggle to improve on the return of Meite and Puscas. Remember we’ve had players like Grabban and Vydra here and they both struggled because of the system not suiting their style (or being played out of position).

I think a system with Joao and Puscas could be pretty decent. We just don’t need Puscas playing with his back to goal. My concern with this pairing is a lack of work rate, so you’d need a couple of high energy midfielders as well (Rino is ideal). Oliviera would really suit us at the moment, as would HRK. I don’t think Glenn Murray would imo. Mitrovic would, but Grabban wouldn’t.

Because of the managerial changes it always feels our squad has too many square pegs for round holes, or too many players that seem the same. When a new manager changes style or formation then we always seem to be chasing our tail in terms of playing personnel that’s why I’d like to see Bowen given a decent period (ie the whole of next season) to start to build something coherent. Bristol City have benefitted from sticking with Lee Johnson.

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Mid Sussex Royal » 01 Mar 2020 17:52

Snowball
krapmle Totally agree. The lacking element are strikers. Goalkeeper, defence, midfield all looking solid.
If only the strikers were banging them in at a higher rate than now, things would be very different.

However, If Bowen brought in Puscas, then both should go. :wink:



Was it last season when Ipswich were top for 4/6/8 games or summit
but it was because their conversion rates stupidly good?

When that conversion rate regressed back to the mean they were in trouble


Bolton I think - and similarly Charlton this season

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Re: Bowen Out.

by Lower West » 01 Mar 2020 17:53

URZZZZ
3points The Championship has also changed over the last few years, probably partly driven by the money side of life, partly due to the constant pressure and Merry go round of managers at most clubs. It’s rare to see a side now come to the Madejski and play decent football with their first thought being to win the game. Most teams now come not to lose, and look to capitalise on a mistake, set piece or sneak one on the break. Under Bowen we’re doing exactly the same thing as well.

For me there’s a massive onus on us to break down a 10 man defence and, quite simply, we’re not good enough to do it. I’ve said before on here that we lack true creativity or that X Factor player that can unlock a tight defence. Ejaria is too inconsistent without a regular end product. Swift tries hard and I’m a big fan, but needs help. Olise definitely has potential. Even in the past couple of seasons we’ve had Mo Barrow (and I’m not a fan of his) but he has scored important goals and got some key assists to help us stave off relegation and that is because opposition teams are wary of his pure pace, even if his end product leaves much to be desired.

It’s now a very attritional league. You need to keep mistakes to a minimum but we’ve been too easy to play against until Bowen stepped in. Under Gomes he wanted to win every game, home and away. Clement just had no plan. Bowen is a defensive minded coach in my opinion. It may be enough to get us out of the league next year if he can keep the individual mistakes down and we have a high conversion rate of the limited chances we create.


Good post and I agree with most of that. I don’t think it’s just a Championship thing though, many teams in the Prem play that way too and without watching L1 or L2 much, I could hazard a guess it’s not too dissimilar there either

Don’t want to go back into the Clement thing into much detail but he did begin to have a plan towards the end, which, confusingly was the period in which he was sacked


Watched a fair number of league 1 and 2 games during the past decade. Quality is obviously not as good. But many teams do try and play a passing style of football. Quality of pitches is the major factor. Not the mudbaths of years gone by.

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