⚽Match Thread vs. Sutton United FC 27.02.24 [EFL L2]

[queenslandpie]

Strangely enough, l joked with my brother that since the Taylor Swift story broke the team has under performed. I just wonder that there was some truth in a possible takeover and when it was stopped by the club, the players lost a bit of heart, hoping that they would have been playing for Wrexham/Netflix type club? Just a thought.

This story was in the Sunday Sport. Is your post actually serious?

[Glad2BeAPie]

I'll go and watch the Wembley final just to cheer myself up.

[Kyle95]

For me i stand by it Karl Robinson was the man for us. Yes he lost at Mansfield (badly) but that was his only loss so far. I'm 50/50 with Maynard. I feel sorry for him because not signing some quality defenders has really thrown him under the bus. However the way we are setup and the way we are playing reminds me of Ardleyball in the NL. The owners let go recruitment staff after promotion, and it's quite clear that was a mistake. They all said at the forum financially we were way ahead of expectation, sorry then where was that money in January? The chief executive claimed we had the money to get to the Championship, something isn't adding up.

[irishpete]

To concede 9 goals against the bottom club should highlight the problem now. Maybe not

[Robertomac]

To concede 9 goals against the bottom club should highlight the problem now. Maybe not

They've scored 40 all season. Almost 25% of their total against us.

[optipez]

Just watched the Sutton goals back. I think without exaggeration this is a fair description:

1st goal - Nemane fails to win a tackle, Warner fails to stop the cross and Jodi Jones gets beaten to the ball on the back stick.

2nd goal - Baldwin shows he's learned absolutely nothing from his similarly sloppy error against Shrewsbury earlier in the season, and the goalkeeper doesn't do much to save Aden's blushes either

3rd goal - Not enough pressure from Crowley (for one) to stop the forward ball from midfield, Rawlinson done like a kipper by a simple change of direction from Harry Smith, Nemane ambling back and spectating just behind the play when a short sprint could have given him a chance of helping Rawlo, goalkeeper probably unlucky his parry went straight to a Sutton player.

4th goal - two attackers (jones and Macca) trying and failing to do a defender's job against their winger who beats them easily on the edge of the box causing Crowley to panic and dangle a leg for the penalty.

The consistent theme is players who aren't natural or very good defenders showing exactly why they aren't.

In one sense it's positional: our wing-backs are wingers who simply don't have the defensive skills and instincts to cope under attack

In one sense it's personnel: almost every game there are centre-halves - who are supposed to be able to defend - either getting straight up beaten man-to-man by their opponent or literally gifting possession in ridiculous areas.

We need to get back to basics. Every game starts at 0-0, make sure it doesn't get any worse. Get that right and our attacking talent will usually get us at least one goal.

The wing backs have been defensively dreadful all season. So many goals have come from Nemane and Jones being completely unable to defend. Jones is arguably worse than Nemane in that he just doesn't want to do the tracking back, always wrong side of his man.
I'm not sure what the answer is I look at the team sheet and bench and there's some glaring weaknesses.
Last night we had three defenders and maybe Robertson who's defensively minded. That's six attack minded players on the pitch in a team that can't defend.
We're now more gung ho than last season against better teams as we had Chicksen and Palmer in there last year helping the defence and also Scott who defended from the front.

[optipez]

Can't agree. Maybe booing will help. It was LW who defended the fans' right and made it the players' responsibility.

I think SM came in and ruled by ingratiation, seems like the players have gotten off lightly.
There is no technical or tactical solution to what's happening. We need the manager and players to be as angry as the fans.
Time to kick some ass and for the mollycoddling to end.

Agree with that. At some point they need to find some resolve and grit from within. So many individual errors all season and most aren't due to formations or style of play but personal responsibility and determination.
They / we are a soft touch.

[Stan Marshall]

I was a big LW fan but most of the problems last night were there when Luke was in charge and haven’t been addressed. It was clear as day that we needed to address our defensive ‘frailties’ but nothing was done in January.
Three times, last night, we equalised and I thought we could go on to win the game against a very poor team. However, once again, we stopped playing in the second half. How many times have we done that at Meadow Lane this season. They were parked in our half for five minutes before scoring their third and we offered nothing at 4-3. Can we also add fitness to our list of weaknesses? My other issue, and this applies to both LW and SM, is the habit of mass substitutions with 20 minutes or so to go. Very rarely has it improved our performance!
We’ve been on the slide for months now but we need to give our new Head Coach a chance to turn it round, supported by positive action from our Recruitment Team.

[pjace]

We can't carry on playing with Nemane and Jones as wing backs they can't defend and simply don't want to it's not in their skillset
Why doesn't anyone close down attacking players they just amble to within 5 yards and think that is good enough
We don't have enough physicality in the side at one stage last night we had 6 players 5'9" or smaller we can't compete in the
air and get knocked off the ball too easily.
Decent teams know how to play against us they just wait for us to lose the ball up field then break with pace and power
Poor teams just wait for us to give them a few goals.

We continue to have 75% plus possession but do nothing with it

[Stan Marshall]

Agreed. Physicality has been an issue for years.