Gallowgate Toon

I was reading Brighton's forum a couple of months back and was surprised at their opinion of him - lots of commentary on his inconsistency. I didn't think he was that great against us in either game.

I like Cairney but he's definitely not the most athletic. For that price, he'd not be coming as a backup and I don't think he'd complement Shelvey, a superior player, well at all. Unless we're going for a 4-3-3 next season...

Huddersfield, like us, have lost to some very ordinary sides, iirc.

I just find some of the criticisms of Rafa really lazy, tbh. And, of course, the annoying way in which they're presented by people who only seem to surface when we've had a wobble doesn't help. As an example, I've just watched the game all the way through yesterday. I saw comments after the game that we just sat off and let them have it. From what I saw, that absolutely wasn't the case - we pressed high on numerous occasions but they kept the ball really, really well. Of course, we struggle when the game gets stretched due to our lack of athleticism and they managed it well from that POV. I wasn't that amazed by them, though - they kept the ball to stop us from having it, that was smart, but they really capitalized with breaks due to our unforced errors. If Rafa had been allowed to bring in another CM, I don't think we'd have seen that. I also thought Wednesday were just as good when they came up here. Personally, I reckon we've lost more games this season due to player incompetence than managerial/tactical mistakes (he has made errors, just like every other manager). I don't believe they're talented enough to always stay true to instructions, and some of our defensive play when midfield protection is gone is pretty laughable. If he were a true defensive manager, we'd have drawn a lot more than we have, we'd have scored a lot less, and we'd average far less shots than we do. And if Rafa was designing us as a truly defensive team, I seriously doubt you'd see the basic errors we saw on Saturday, as we wouldn't even offer that space. If anything, I think we have a problem with leaving too many gaps when on home soil. Edit: Nor did we start slowly on Saturday either, as we rarely do, IMO. We looked more dangerous in the opening 10.

Nowt new there. Everyone knows we needed strengthening in a couple of positions in January. That's nowt to do with the negative tactics at home though We've scored 38 goals in 18 league home games, like, and have some of the highest possession & shots. I'd hardly say we're negative. Inefficient & inconsistent, definitely. Stats can hide a multitude of sins. According to the stats we should have got battered at Huddersfield last week. Over a whole season? Plus, didn't they have less shots on target than us? I'll concede that the football in the second half of the season hasn't been to the standard of some of the stuff we played in the first, but I don't think it's down to negativity.

Nowt new there. Everyone knows we needed strengthening in a couple of positions in January. That's nowt to do with the negative tactics at home though We've scored 38 goals in 18 league home games, like, and have some of the highest possession & shots. I'd hardly say we're negative. Inefficient & inconsistent, definitely.

? We sit back early on. That is what we are discussing. It wasn't that long ago we were scoring really early on in a bunch of matches, like.

We average some of the highest shots and possession for a home side in the league. Any claims we regularly sit back are unfounded, imo.

According to journos, we'd made a decent start. They just scored a good goal. Let's not panic.

Was perusing the Brighton thread for this game and one fan had the cheek to say we 'seemingly got decisions'. Coming from a Brighton fan, who's team have had about 4x as many pens as we've had this season, man

Love how much he loves to goad fans, like.

10

I think he'd be OK as a backup PL winger for a year, tbh. Imperative we buy a starting LM though.

He's just mint.

No.

Another win. I'm more worried about the Reading game now, tbh.

The irony being that most of the criticism on here is about players and staff 'lacking balls'.

There was a fairly recent game where he and Shelvey played CM together and we were cut through, tbf. I don't really disagree, mind, as Colback is utter pants at everything.

Delicious.

Love a frustrating as fuck winger.

Absolute weirdo.

Side absolutely built to counter. That's also Brighton's strategy, so don't expect this to be a spectacle

Would've been fine with Murphy but I actually don't mind that.

How long do we get to blame confidence? He's had that problem since day 1 at the club. The level of performance he's putting in now is the worst I've ever seen from him. Always had confidence issues in front of goal, aye, but the rest of his game now looks knackered too.