I watched a first half were Hughes and Kerr sat deep in our half under no pressure banging upteen utter useless 40yard cross field balls to the wings which had little affect and in return I watched Cambridge hit it long, straight down our necks and try to win the nod down,
Then second half I then watched Hughes and Kerr change tactics both deciding to pick the ball up and run with it into their half then passing it along the floor mainly for Godo then M.Smith (from centre mid not wing) puts a lovely dink ball over for Godo to run onto and nicely tuck away
But the most worrying thing and it wasn’t how sh*t Magennis or Shaw were it was the subs and when.
Now we all know we were poor 1st half, p*ss poor but still in it at 1-0 down and a full half to go what I saw was a clueless manager sh*it it and panic at half time.
Tweak it at half time? I agree yes your only 1-0 down with a full 45 to go,
3 at the back with 5-10mins to go 1-0 down? Yeah why not, throw caution to the wind ? yes
But to go 3 at the back with a full half/45mins to go but worse bring a guy like Humphrys on then ask him track back ? that’s a desperate from a clueless manager and to make matters worse he never did and did nothing but gave it away pretending to be Pele it was panic from Maloney.
We then ended up with 6 attackers on the pitch (sorry 5, Magennis stayed on) but thing was we were only 1-0 down for fooks sake!
Playing us is about as easy as reading a “Jack n Jill” book just follow the below steps:-
1) Sit deep don’t get drawn out by Hughes, Kerr and a midfielder all tippy tappy it, let them invite you in but just say no stay put in our half they’ll hit it long and wide,
2) Mark the wings and wait for their obligatory 40 yard Hail Mary and simply clear it or watch it go straight out,
3) Then us? Well that’s easy, simply hit it long, high and straight down their throats and try and get the knockdown, they can’t deal with that
I’m sorry but as the improvement proved in the second half (massive improvement over the first half) Maloney still doesn’t know his best starting 11 and just uses every sub and hope he hits it lucky those players must be scratching their heads before in the middle and after the game cause I do
S.Smith has been along with Chambers and Tickle one of our best players in recent weeks. Tickle and Chambers are first down on the team sheet but S.Smith ?.
Maloney before the match outlined changes because some players hadn’t performed well against Burton,
S.Smith wasn’t one of them but he’s made a Scapegoat to shoehorn Shaw in when Adeeko has been poor in recent weeks.
Clair’s back, stick him in and play your inform players in their best position.
I’m highlighting because this has nothing to do with S.Smiths form this is basically a manager clutching at straws for me a clueless one.
His loyalty to Magennis is on par with Fletcher and for a player who couldn’t hit the West Stand glass front with a SpaceHopper he still picks him.
Again that’s a manager error.
Those first half tactics and players choices were at there worse I’ve seen this season. I’ve always said Maloney needs a few transfer windows but that style of long stupid punts wouldn’t work even if we had Mbappe outwide nevermind Chambers.
If our poor form was against teams and the top and middle table yeah fine but there against poor poor sides.
If you changed all starting 11 for 11 brand new players of his choice and play those tactics we’d still lose. It’s nothing to do with the quality of the current squad but more to do with a clueless managers who dips in the lucky bag of subs every game and prays
