Jump to content
talkfootball365
  • Welcome to talkfootball365!

    The better place to talk football.

Football League 2023/24 - 12-13th December, 2023


football forums

Recommended Posts

  • Administrator

all kick-offs 19.45 (GMT) unless stated
eflsb_ch_l_dm_reg_st_rgb_gzrc8m.png?f=&f
Tuesday 12th December, 2023
Blackburn vs Bristol City
Huddersfield vs Preston
Rotherham vs West Brom
Stoke vs Swansea
Watford vs Ipswich

Sunderland vs Leeds, 20.00

Wednesday 13th December, 2023
Cardiff vs Birmingham
Coventry vs Southampton
Leicester vs Millwall
Norwich vs Sheff Weds
QPR vs Plymouth

Middlesbrough vs Hull, 20.00
 

l1.png

Tuesday 12th December, 2023
Reading vs Oxford, 20.00

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 22
  • Created
  • Last Reply
Just now, Stan said:

Ipswich are like the itch that just won't go away. 

But guess the gap to 3rd is the main priority. Leeds losing currently... 

I'm convinced now we'll go up. We can still fall because I'm not 100% on the squad quality to maintain such a long season but collectively we are insane. McKenna was a great gamble when we were struggling 2 years ago. Patience is a virtue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Poor from us tonight. No tempo or urgency, but that's a big part down to the opposition defending as deep as they did. Really did a job on us.

Surprisingly, Sunderland defended as a low block, not like I've seen from them before. I really thought they'd go toe to toe with us given their attacking talent but as it turned out, they made it extremely hard for us to use any width to get round them.

They executed their gameplan well and we struggled to find any real answer to it. You could literally see at times how clueless some of our players looked when trying to find an answer on the ball  which only resulted in a forced pass.

They had the better attempts overall too from the set pieces they had which were always a threat, although in general play, we always looked comfortable.

I think our failing sometimes is we don't mix up our play enough and go direct when sometimes it's just as effective. 

Tonight, just seemed to be Sunderland camped and us tippy tappying in the final third without cutting them open. It wasn't working. We just seemed reluctant to get a cross in.

And yet, look how Sunderland won tonight. Got an early cross in, bit of luck where the ball fell and a goal coming from it. But sometimes you just got to take a chance and I don't think it's in our DNA to really do that.

Very hard to criticise too much because you have performances like this over a 46 game season and we've won a lot of games recently with some great attacking play.

It just feels a little harsh at the moment that one defeat feels like a bigger blow given it's a weird season where the two teams above us have overperformed above their expected points totals.

But we got to crack on and continue the fight. Very much a side still in development and we haven't quite got that knack of finding a way to nick games when we play poor like others have yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Subscriber

How Ipswich are doing this. I say it every week but it's just incredible. Every single week they seem to go 1-0 down quite early and then come back. Totally unprecedented form for any team let alone a newly promoted side. We've come down into the league from as strong a position as a team has come down from in probably the last decade, arguably longer, we aren't underperforming, and they're still above us.

When you look at the next fortnight... Ipswich have Norwich at home, naturally a banana skin with it being a derby, Leeds away, and then Leicester at home. We on the flip side play Millwall at home later on, Birmingham away on Monday and Rotherham at home before the boxing day game at Ipswich. In other words we have as kind a run as we could probably ask for and really should be taking 9/9 points, while they have two tricky fixtures before playing us. If they come out of boxing day top of the league I think we have to concede they are probably better than us and they would be favourites to win the league for me.

I thought they would drop points in one of these games at Middlesbrough and Watford. Two tricky away games and no mistakes made. They're completely relentless and when you look through their side, you see no obvious stars, no obvious players carrying them, it's a collective effort that tells me it's totally sustainable even if they were to lose a couple. McKenna's ceiling is extremely high.

Also thankyou Sunderland. Leeds yet again have their 4 gamely clanger. We have a fantastic opportunity to widen that gap tonight. I think we've caught Millwall at a quite good time. I think the traditionally robust Millwall have always given us problems, but this very much seems like a different version where they are trying to play a more open and attacking way whilst being built on the foundations of a more direct, defensive side. This for me should make them a great opposition for us. They've always been a traditional banana skin, they love a surprise 0-1 victory and they've done it here a few times. But I think we'll be too much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrator

Millwall ahead. Good header by Bradshaw. Worst outcome for us for a side away at ours to go ahead. Means they can just sit back and camp in their own half. 

Gonna be difficult to break them down by the looks of it. They've got a flat back 5 pretty much. Lucky not to already have a red card though with 3 late challenges so far. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • The topic was unpinned
  • Subscriber

Scoreline flattered Millwall. No idea how it's they of all sides who've managed to break the 2 goal barrier against us as they offered very little, seemed to basically get 2 chances and score both.

7 goals in 2 games is more like it even if the opposition was pretty tame. 13 points from 15 again, think we've gotten through the blip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrator
10 minutes ago, Dan said:

Scoreline flattered Millwall. No idea how it's they of all sides who've managed to break the 2 goal barrier against us as they offered very little, seemed to basically get 2 chances and score both.

7 goals in 2 games is more like it even if the opposition was pretty tame. 13 points from 15 again, think we've gotten through the blip.

Should have had at least 1 red card as well I thought. And that penalty shout not to be given is such a bad decision. 

Hoping we make light work of Birmingham and not make it too difficult for ourselves. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Subscriber
5 minutes ago, Stan said:

Should have had at least 1 red card as well I thought. And that penalty shout not to be given is such a bad decision. 

Hoping we make light work of Birmingham and not make it too difficult for ourselves. 

I did think as soon as we had three of their back four on bookings within 20 minutes that they would eventually end up caving in. They couldn't deal with Fatawu at all. Referee was appalling. I do wonder what the score would've been if we'd gotten that penalty - that would've been likely 1-1 against 10 men in the first half.

I'm mates with a Birmingham fan who has been very down on them under Rooney, unsurprisingly, but said last night he went back to a more pragmatic system and it paid off. The irony there of course being that Rooney was brought in to move away from that supposedly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

Sign up or subscribe to remove this ad.


×
×
  • Create New...