BFTG Wednesday

[Tom Clancey the II]

Watched a fair few Hellenic/Thames Valley/Reading Sunday League games over the last 2 years. Yet to see a Referee perform anywhere near Langford's level of woefulness.

Can think of at least one local Assessor who would be totally salivating at the thought of giving that ref a complete shoeing.

[andrew1957]

I must be missing something on Holmes as he doesn't calm me at all. More than once Wednesday broke away and he was wandering aimlessly around on our right flank.

For the record Holmes has played 542 minutes this season and we have conceded 6 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

Esteves has played 525 minutes and we have conceded 13 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

I rest my case.

[RoyalBlue]

Oh and I disagree with Ian's criticism of Rafa for their goal. Sometimes you just have to credit the opposition - it was an absolute dream of a cross that had the keeper stuck between coming out for it and staying on his line, and Paterson's header was perfect, it went into the side of the goal.

.

Agreed. I'm not sure where the critics would have had him be positioned. It was a great header powerfully back across Rafael and down into the far corner as he was moving in the opposite direction. It also went through Moore's legs I believe. I suspect Rafael would've still struggled to save the header even if he had been more centrally positioned - it would've been a world class save had he done so.

[Sanguine]

I must be missing something on Holmes as he doesn't calm me at all. More than once Wednesday broke away and he was wandering aimlessly around on our right flank.

For the record Holmes has played 542 minutes this season and we have conceded 6 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

Esteves has played 525 minutes and we have conceded 13 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

I rest my case.

What case are you making?

[RoyalBlue]

Do you think the poor officiating in this league is largely because the talent pool isn't good enough to do better? I've read a couple of articles on it, and at the grass roots and non-league levels there's not enough protection from abuse and intimidation. So if we relegate last night's clown to L1 or L2 (and he was abysmal), would he not simply be replaced by another clown? The FA need to work on a talent pipeline for decent officials.

Definitely.
Nor do I think VAR is the answer. The official reviewing would probably be equally as poor as Langford.

[Hound]

I must be missing something on Holmes as he doesn't calm me at all. More than once Wednesday broke away and he was wandering aimlessly around on our right flank.

For the record Holmes has played 542 minutes this season and we have conceded 6 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

Esteves has played 525 minutes and we have conceded 13 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

I rest my case.

Not sure you can exactly blame Esteves for many of those goals though. 2 or 3 maybe

[andrew1957]

I must be missing something on Holmes as he doesn't calm me at all. More than once Wednesday broke away and he was wandering aimlessly around on our right flank.

For the record Holmes has played 542 minutes this season and we have conceded 6 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

Esteves has played 525 minutes and we have conceded 13 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

I rest my case.

Not sure you can exactly blame Esteves for many of those goals though. 2 or 3 maybe

I am not sure that Holmes was personally responsible for many of the 6 either. With a defence it needs to work as a unit to be effective and to me Holmes is an important part of making us an effective unit. Esteves seemingly offers something going forwards but I don't think he is up to this level yet as a defender.

[tidus_mi2]

For the record Holmes has played 542 minutes this season and we have conceded 6 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

Esteves has played 525 minutes and we have conceded 13 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

I rest my case.

Not sure you can exactly blame Esteves for many of those goals though. 2 or 3 maybe

I am not sure that Holmes was personally responsible for many of the 6 either. With a defence it needs to work as a unit to be effective and to me Holmes is an important part of making us an effective unit. Esteves seemingly offers something going forwards but I don't think he is up to this level yet as a defender.

I'd wager than with Meite ahead of him, we don't concede near the amount of goals we did with Aluko down the right wing, harsh to blame Esteves solely for the amount of goals conceded.

[Snowflake Royal]

Pauno 5? Is it his fault we have no one decent on the bench to bring on?!

Yes, because he brought them on anyway and for the wrong people.

I thought the subs were the right ones , but probably 10-15 mins too late. Esteves could have come on at ht, and Aluko certainly offered more than Rino in the final third.

Ok,

So we were never really troubled defensively so Holmes and Rino seem wasted.

BUT.

Holmes gives us extra height and strength in their box at set pieces. He's also got a decent cross on him.

Esteves likes to step inside and his threat is from beating his man around the halfway line and breaking forward into space. Wednesday were defending their box so there was no space for him to exploit and he just made us narrower.

Olise has the best set pieces, plays the most inventive passes and moves the ball the quickest. He's our main goal creator.

Semedo was barely involved all game. Tires easily and early.

Ejaria slows everything down and drags everything central.

Rino will bring the ball forward quicker than the defenders or some of the forwards.

Baldock isn't a match winner. He plays on the shoulder and works hard. There was no shoulder to play on.

Incidentally we were trying to bring on the subs for 5 - 10minutes, but our dominance was such the only chances were Weds corners and long throws and that ism6the time to make the change.

Olise and Holmes should have stayed on. Aluko should have come on for Semedo, and if anyone se came on it should have been someone big for Rino or tricky for Ejaria.

We should have got wide to stretch them rather than stayed narrow and allowed them to compress the pitch, that way we could do pull backs and crosses, and look for knock downs and loose balls.

Our goal and two best chances came from getting wide... Olise's cross and Richards shot.

A lot of our joy came from going wide. We stopped trying that and helped them squeeze the pitch.

[windermereROYAL]

Didn`t see people critical of Ejaria when he moved inside and scored on Saturday, lots of fans think he is wasted out wide then when he moves central you moan.

[Hound]

I'd certainly have been happy for Aluko to come on for Semedo instead of Rino, but I think Semedo did the same job as Rino anyway after he came on. And wasn't against given Rino a bit of a rest when he wasn't needed in all honesty

With Baldock, I think you're hoping for a bit of his penalty box nous to come into play. Really wasn't any other options so you may as well put someone on who has scored a few. Almost worked on the non-pen decision against him tbf. Olise looked a bit tired to me - again not against protecting him a bit.

I think we immediately looked a lot more dynamic down the right when Esteves came on. Holmes is fine, but just doesn't have the same movement - he'll never beat a man. The aerial threat is obvs lost - but I think we'd decided not to throw too many balls in the box where he could have been effective

[andrew1957]

Well, thought I would stick to the uncontroversial incidents

Penalty incident 1 - Richards - quite what the referee sees to give a free kick the other way is beyond my comprehension
Penalty incident 2 - Handball - well, much as I hate VAR, that would certainly have been given with any second look. Would suggest that the linesman would have been unsighted by the defenders body and by coincidence I assume the referee must've been unsighted too
Penalty incident 3 - Baldock - given that neither the referee nor the linesman were more than 20 yards from that incident I fail to see how they've both missed the kick on the back of Baldock's leg
Penalty incident 4 - Laurent - of all of the incidents, this is the one where Laurent gave the referee every chance to turn it down by grabbing the shirt of the defender, probably pulling the defender into him

My summing up - the referee may have been 'persuaded' that the red was a little harsh (it wasn't) and has sought to 'even things up'. That's the only thing I can think of as to how he's missed all three of the, relatively, clear cut incidents

With the money now at stake for promotion to the PL I think we have to have VAR at this level. But I do think VAR needs changing with the offside rule in particular to give a margin of error of say 10 centimetres in favour of the striker - as the Dutch have done. For the Villa goal to be disallowed earlier this week v West Ham was a joke as the player was only offside by a millimetre. In fact having watched the replay multiple times as a neutral I thought he was level and so I can see why people get angry about VAR when ridiculous decisions are made that always seem to favour the defender.

[Hound]

Didn`t see people critical of Ejaria when he moved inside and scored on Saturday, lots of fans think he is wasted out wide then when he moves central you moan.

yeah i'm a bit bored of the Ovie criticism tbh. He put in some lovely balls and is a constant threat. One of the classic ask the opposition manager if they want to play against him or not. He doesn't always slow the play down, he just keeps possession at times rather than throw the ball in. Very rarely see him play the kind of Liam Kelly-esque safe ball backwards, he is always looking to do something

[winchester_royal]

Obviously we should have had a minimum of 2 pens last night, and if we score one of those it's a different game and we're to pick them off on the counter to win be 2 or 3.

However ignoring that for a moment, I was quite disappointed with out second half performance, especially after we'd looked so good on the ball in the first. When you're playing against 10 men who are sat back to the extend they were, you have to play with width and tempo. We played with neither, and as such I'm not sure we did enough to really deserve the win.

We massively missed Meite (never thought I'd write those words) and our failure to bring in another winger during the summer was exposed.

[hughsies no.1]

Such a frustrating match to watch, my thoughts fwiw:

- Pulis had done his homework and set-up perfectly with XI men to allow us to have the ball, wait for a mistake then nab a goal. Exactly how Cov, PNE and Stoke beat us. Then tbf to him, what he did at HT to stifle us further worked

- We shouldn't have to rely on penalty decisions when playing against 10-men for 60 mins, our goal came from a set-piece too

- Richards and the handball were the obvious ones, rate how Pauno didn't want to dwell on these though

- Esteves for Holmes was an obvious move, don't get people criticising that, Holmes is better than Esteves at defending and Esteves is better than Holmes attacking - so makes perfect logical sense when we are not needing to defend to switch that up. Holmes has the RB position nailed from the start atm

- Baldock had to come on, if he didn't manager would have got pelters for leaving a striker on the bench when chasing a game vs 10 men, whether Olise was the right player to replace is another matter

- Two points definitely dropped

- Have to get channel that frustration from last night into getting a win vs Forest on Saturday

[NewCorkSeth]

On the subs I understand why people are saying it should have been Semedo off instead of Rinkmhota but I guess the logic is he expected Semedo to be more progressive and creative than Rinomhota is. Also no problem with resting Rinomhota a bit.

Esteves for Holmes seemed logical to me. He's fast and Wednesday were only ever going to counter attack. In fact Esteves did use his speed to stop a counter then immediately dribbled the ball up to the box and laid it off, received 8t back and took a decent shot that was blocked.

On Holmes I think certain fans are guilty of overplaying his defensive performances while also ubderplaying his attacking performances. He does pretty well at both. Not exceptional but he is a solid player. Exactly the kind we need as an option. I wont stand for the over the top praise though. He's not exceptional.

[Pepe the Horseman]

I must be missing something on Holmes as he doesn't calm me at all. More than once Wednesday broke away and he was wandering aimlessly around on our right flank.

For the record Holmes has played 542 minutes this season and we have conceded 6 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

Esteves has played 525 minutes and we have conceded 13 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

I rest my case.

Not sure you can exactly blame Esteves for many of those goals though. 2 or 3 maybe

The one against Stoke is probably the only one that was really his fault. The goals against Bournemouth that he was rinsed on here for were harder to score than some of the chances that Holmes has conceded. Don't think there's much between them, but people seem to have taken a dislike to Esteves, perhaps based on ridiculously high expectations.

[Hound]

For the record Holmes has played 542 minutes this season and we have conceded 6 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

Esteves has played 525 minutes and we have conceded 13 goals whilst he is on the pitch.

I rest my case.

Not sure you can exactly blame Esteves for many of those goals though. 2 or 3 maybe

The one against Stoke is probably the only one that was really his fault. The goals against Bournemouth that he was rinsed on here for were harder to score than some of the chances that Holmes has conceded. Don't think there's much between them, but people seem to have taken a dislike to Esteves, perhaps based on ridiculously high expectations.

yep agreed. Still think Esteves is the long term answer for the season, just not quite yet. Couple more competent sub appearances and he'll be back in

[CrowthorneRoyal]

With the money now at stake for promotion to the PL I think we have to have VAR at this level. But I do think VAR needs changing with the offside rule in particular to give a margin of error of say 10 centimetres in favour of the striker - as the Dutch have done. For the Villa goal to be disallowed earlier this week v West Ham was a joke as the player was only offside by a millimetre. In fact having watched the replay multiple times as a neutral I thought he was level and so I can see why people get angry about VAR when ridiculous decisions are made that always seem to favour the defender.

Best use of VAR would be like in Hockey. You have a challenge that you can use. If you are successful you can challenge again. If you are not successful you cant. If video in inconclusive the decision on the pitch stands and the challenge is kept. Refs themselves can refer some things if they arent sure. But things like offsides etc do not get automatically checked.

[South Coast Royal]

Obviously we should have had a minimum of 2 pens last night, and if we score one of those it's a different game and we're to pick them off on the counter to win be 2 or 3.

However ignoring that for a moment, I was quite disappointed with out second half performance, especially after we'd looked so good on the ball in the first. When you're playing against 10 men who are sat back to the extend they were, you have to play with width and tempo. We played with neither, and as such I'm not sure we did enough to really deserve the win.

We massively missed Meite (never thought I'd write those words) and our failure to bring in another winger during the summer was exposed.

Spot on.
We are a side that plays better when teams come on to us but when we have to break down a stubborn defence we lack the craft and pace.

A fit McCleary would have won us that match last night by getting behind the full-back to pull crosses away from the keeper whereas most of our balls into the box were cleared by defenders facing play.

Ironically I think we might have won the game with eleven of theirs on the pitch as it would have been less of a game of our attack v their defence.

As OP says, Baldock coming on nearly always means that the game is over.
Some teams have super-subs, we have Baldock and Aluko.

Our first team is now up amongst the very best in this division but once a Moore, Meite or a Joao is unavailable we really don't have replacements offering anywhere near as much.

2 points lost last night but in any other season a point away at Sheff Wed would be ok.
BTW aren't we just about the cleanest side in this division?