superniko

I actually thought we looked worse when Hyam came on. Didn't cover himself in glory for the goal, another time he got absolutely skinned on the left until Pickering saved him with a sliding tackle. The 2nd half performance as a team was far worse than the 1st too (though that's not necessarily down to him)

Aren't Sheffield United under some sort of transfer ban? Would love it if Boro catch them for that alone. (Obviously would rather they catch those next door instead, but that feels unlikely)

5 of our next 7 at home (if Burnley stays where it is). Weirdly only played 14 home vs 17 away so far this season.

2 great draws to be fair. Taking points off our rivals. Does make me rue not taking 3 from Wigan. Hopefully we can the business in the next 2 home games and get ourselves back in the top 6

Yeah that’s how I see it too. 2nd half was poor after a decent enough 1st half. Morton/Buckley too slow and weak. Travis not good enough with the ball. Tricky to know the best combo. I’d go Travis and JRC next week, maybe JRC can be our O’Brien type, he’s been one of our best attacking outlets recently from full back!

Overall, the best I’ve seen us play for a while. 1st half in particular we were decent in a tough away game, 2nd half not so much, but they will be feeling good getting a draw there. We still create very very little (0.66xG today - think that’s 4 in a row sub 1), but look more solid overall. Travis can frustrate in his attacking and general footballing ability, but he offers more than Morton/Buckley as a central midfielder (e.g closing down, winning the ball back, just not quick enough to make anything with it). Cameos from Szmodics and Hedges were underwhelming, but won’t judge that much. Dolan is a better option than Gallagher as a central striker which shows how dire Sam is. No more Tyler Morton please, nothing more to say on that Hopefully JRC is okay, stick him in the middle with Travis and Brittain at RB and let’s have some home wins coming up.

I’m questioning why I watched this instead of Arsenal v City to be fair. Just a sucker for pain.

Travis lying on the floor and Morton pathetic clearance. Blame the player all you want but that man on the sidelines is picking Morton more than every player bar Brereton this year. HE IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR THIS LEAGUE

Convinced he’s just Leighton Clarkson who has had a run of 20 games. So far off the standard we need.

JRC centre mid next week please. Better than anything we’ve got there.

Anyone know how these are selling? STH have had a few days now. Tuesday night FA Cup match just seems so wrong, I'd imagine we'd have sold 5k+ if this was a regular Saturday at those prices.

Yeah, we were screaming out for a ST and CM as priorities in January and the way it panned out is equally pathetic from the club and depressing for us fans. I think it was the Wigan pre-match where Maloney talked about our attacking threat being known to be one of the best in the league, I remember other managers saying this too. These guys mustn't watch us and just go off some top level Brereton numbers! (Vale or Gallagher leading the line wouldn't threaten Accy)

The players aren't that young though. Mowbray used to say the same sh*te "he's only a kid" etc. usually when throwing them under a bus (Raya / Nyambe), and he rightly got pelters from us when we'd state they're like 25 years old and not a kid! Assuming he (and yourself) are talking about the academy graduates, Carter 23, Wharton 25, Travis 25, Buckley 23. Then likely starters of Kaminski, Ayala, Hyam, Szmodics, Dack, Hedges, Gallagher are all 27 or older. Diaz and Thomas have over 5 years + international experience, Pickering and Brittain are 24. These are players in their alleged peak, not young/inexperienced. I can give him Vale and Morton as 'young' but neither should be starting anyway. The other youngsters like Phillips (5 starts), Wharton (6 starts) and Garrett (4 starts) are just like what everyone else has in academy squad players. We only actually have 4 teenagers in the squad (those 3 + Leonard who hasn't featured at all). Our average team this year is only 1 year younger than Burnley. Apologies as it's a bit off topic from the Match Thread, so maybe we leave it there.

Maybe, but every week it's "projects, journeys and we shouldn't be this high in the league" (even though we seem to be dropping a place each week). He's right in one aspect, all stats do point to us being a bottom 5 ranked team, and I'm not surprised, if you're a player and you're told every week you're not good enough to be near the playoffs you probably begin to be satisfied with 0-0 draws at home to Wigan. But if it's to do with age and budget then Sunderland (younger), Luton (cheaper) and Millwall (cheaper) managers should all be shouting the same rubbish. Personally, I think our issue is more leant towards naive and poor coaching and tactics.

Install a losing mentality and you get a team of losers. I'm sick of it, spouts more sh*te than old Tone.

There was one comment about him ‘looking sick on the bench’. Probably thinking, shit we’re getting a bit close for comfort to the playoffs here.

The lads in the north east are very happy tonight. It does seem surreal watching a Mowbray team go on a decent run in January/February rather than complete collapse. I’ll admit, I do miss at least having the odd entertaining game

Not looking good so far tonight. With likely defeat tomorrow we’ll drop to 10th, and I doubt we‘ll be climbing any higher than that for the rest of the season.

In principle with this horrible 6 month foreign club rule he shouldn’t be playing for us any more. Deserves dropping, just like Buckley, Travis etc earlier in the year. I’d like to see Hedges and Thomas out wide personally.

Yeah that’s fair, my personal opinion is that a team like us with limited budget should lean on the loan market more though. Feels tragic that Mowbray only managed a 15th place finish with Harvey Elliott, Armstrong (2nd top scorer), Brereton and Rothwell (Dack injured that year I think).

For what it’s worth I completely agree about the number 9 with yourself and exiled rover and every one else. We all know we’re missing a decent striker, it’s horrible it wasn’t addressed in January (Venkys). But, I don’t agree that it’s the missing piece. Our midfield and wingers don’t do enough, we play pedestrian with no pace. I’m hopeful Thomas changes this a little but the 11 is far off it unfortunately.

But i also think we rate towards the bottom for shots on target, touches in opposite box, passes in opposition half. Almost everything that measure us as a team, we rank 20th down. We don’t create chances.

So you think we have a better team and squad now than what Mowbray had, but we’re in an inferior position both literally and with every stat in the league showing we’re a bottom 5 rated team?

Wait, what? 4-0 Rotherham, draw with bottom of the league and draw with Bristol City. xG 0.65, 1.16, 0.96 You constantly mention “not taking our chances”, “we’re just missing a number 9”. Absolute nonsense. We create zero and we’re a terrible football team to watch.

About 12th - 16th