Football League 2023/24 - 28-29th November, 2023

[Stan]

1 hour ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

I haven't checked admittedly but how's your form been since Leeds (I think?) stopped your winning streak when you won more or less every game bar one?

When I've seen your results since, it seems a little patchy at present.

It's patchy/poor considering our position. 

The win against Watford stopped the mini-slump of the two losses (Leeds/Boro). 

But the performances haven't been that good. By all accounts we should have got something out of the game against Middlesbrough, and it took a very good goal to win it for them, but yesterday we didn't deserve anything. 

I think @Dan mentioned in another thread about our fixtures coming up. It's favourable to say the least but then anyone would have thought yesterday was the most favourable. 

West Brom, Plymouth, Millwall, Birmingham, Rotherham (before the clash against Ipswich). 

Average position of 16th(ish). And barring West Brom, they're all currently in the bottom half. 

It really should be a time we should start to pull away from the play-off positions and hopefully last night can be the kick up the arse some of the players need. 

[Lucas]

1 hour ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

I haven't checked admittedly but how's your form been since Leeds (I think?) stopped your winning streak when you won more or less every game bar one?

When I've seen your results since, it seems a little patchy at present.

I think I read a little while ago before our game with them that their results, as well as Ipswich's too, were not in correlation to their performances. It was more over performing from the chances they were actually creating and I just think that now we're seeing that level out.

It was always a tough ask to keep up form that could potentially beat that famous Reading side, it's just that when you gain some momentum, everything seems to go for you ok and can paint an entirely different picture.

Leicester in particular just need to stay calm and not overreact to things. They are still one of the best sides in the league. Thing is, you will drop points to teams you really should beat. It happens every year to everyone. You can't beat yourself up over it.

Jesus, we've dropped points to Wednesday and Rotherham because we've not been clinical. But then we've beaten First and Second away from home. You've got to have perspective.

You'll get away with and nick a fair few games you probably dont deserve to also. It's a 46 game slog.

I think everyone has 7 games in December and you just got to grind out the results, so by the time Jan 1st comes, it feels like the business really begins.

[Dan+]

15 hours ago, Lucas said:

I think I read a little while ago before our game with them that their results, as well as Ipswich's too, were not in correlation to their performances. It was more over performing from the chances they were actually creating and I just think that now we're seeing that level out.

It was always a tough ask to keep up form that could potentially beat that famous Reading side, it's just that when you gain some momentum, everything seems to go for you ok and can paint an entirely different picture.

Leicester in particular just need to stay calm and not overreact to things. They are still one of the best sides in the league. Thing is, you will drop points to teams you really should beat. It happens every year to everyone. You can't beat yourself up over it.

Jesus, we've dropped points to Wednesday and Rotherham because we've not been clinical. But then we've beaten First and Second away from home. You've got to have perspective.

You'll get away with and nick a fair few games you probably dont deserve to also. It's a 46 game slog.

I think everyone has 7 games in December and you just got to grind out the results, so by the time Jan 1st comes, it feels like the business really begins.

If this is what happened the other night I'd hold no concerns really, for me that's just the peaks and troughs of football and it can happen. If we batter a side and don't win, it's very annoying, but there isn't a long term concern.

But that performance was abject. Sheffield Wednesday had the better chances most of the game. This is a side on six points all season. They should probably take some encouragement and I think there's a chance they do have a bit of an upturn (it's admittedly going to be hard to be as bad as to keep getting 0.35 points a game) but for the unquestionable gulf in quality between the two teams that was a seriously dire showing and the trend in our performances is a red flag to me. I think teams have worked out a bit how to stop us but he doesn't really appear to be reacting to that.

I think our quality will see us through but for the first time since probably the Coventry game I've started to have doubts about if we'll do this. As I've stated elsewhere I think the points threshold is looking likely to be an alltime high this season. You genuinely could come 3rd with 95 points. Ipswich have been remarkable and Leeds / Southampton have really picked up after iffy starts. It's very competitive at the top this season and we're playing the worst stuff of the top four for me currently. In-fact we have the worst form of the top eight.

I knew there'd be bumps but I think we have too big a tendency to keep things tighter than we need to. We can usually be relied upon to punish a team late on as our style of play does wear down the opposition, but I still think we're making things more complicated at times than we need to. We don't need to play stealth-ball against a side like Wednesday. They were so clearly lacking in confidence and quality and I think our passivity has let them off the hook. I wouldn't mind if it was a one off, but we've been making hard work of a lot of these games all season. I think we overcomplicate things.