So..have we got WORSE?

[Withdean Wanderer]

and I write this as one of the more anti-Wilkins posters...

In goal: Michel played every game last season and was superb. This season he started strongly, but the last few games he's looked very much off form. Is this a short-term thing or a long-term thing? Hopefully short, but it's not looking too encouraging at the moment.
Has it got worse? YES

Defence: Whing has had a fair few people criticising his displays on here. I'm not so sure, I think he's been generally pretty solid, as he was last season.

Elphick, despite being the clear winner of that 'best defender so far' poll, is not playing as well as last season.

Hawkins has been put in there, had a decent start, but now looks a liability. Is he unfit? Do professionals play 4 games in a fortnight if they are unfit? Lynch was tremendous at the end of last season but we've lost him. El-abd doesn't get near the backline, Virgo probably should but doesn't either, Richards has looked pretty steady.
Strong in numbers, but we're leaking goals galore.
Has it got worse? Yes

Midfield
Generally accepted as being dire last season.
Cox - poor. Livermore - an improvement. McLeod - cripple, but we've a replaced him well in Thornton. Savage - better than Racon?
It looks better on paper anyway.
Has it got worse? No, but there doesn't seem to have been much of an improvement in quality.

Forwards
Gatting and Dixon clearly not good enough. Forster hasn't really done much, just as he didn't at the end of last season. Glenn's still banging them in though.
Has it got worse? No, but it's not improved at all.

Overall then, it probably has. And that's reflected in the league table.
Mid table mediocrity it is then. Roll on the Paint trophy..

 

[clippedgull]

Overall then, it probably has. And that's reflected in the league table.
Mid table mediocrity it is then. Roll on the Paint trophy..

But there is still plenty of time for it to get better.

Injuries have held us back.

 

[RM-Taylor]

I would say the defence and midfield has got worse, they just can't play well together at the minute.

yesterday was one of the worst Albion performances I've seen

 

[Black Country Seagull]

If your talking about the units rather than individual positions then we have not improved at all, perhaps even declined in the midfield area and obviously so in the defensive unit.

Name on paper our midfield looks one of the best, yet in reality along with the defense look disorganised and lacking in confidence. As I have said time and time again, the basics of management apply to 'If it is not broken do not fix it'. Last year the defence were quite solid, whether that be down to lynch and elphick have a good understanding is open to debate, but it was reliable. Currently the pairing is not.

Hawkins will play saturday, who is with him I do not know, but please let Hawkins play on the right side for this one.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I would say that - for some reason - the standard of play in this league this time around appears to be much higher than it was last season. The standard was laughably poor back then which seems to me to be about two thirds of the reason we somehow got to SEVENTY points. That's one mighty points total, and we rarely looked like a seventy points team. Micky will have an uphill struggle to reach fifty points this season IMHO. Everybody seems to have worked out our weak points i.e. no credible midfield and a defence prone to panic if somebody runs straight at them.

 

[Seasider78]

Player for player I think we have a better squad than last year but we have too many players in certain positions which is preventing us getting any stability in the side and continue to put square pegs in round holes

Take yesterday Virgo arguably our best centre half right wing, then left footed Thornton on the right and right footed Cox on the left!

What worries me is we are now in mid-October and we are no closer to knowing what are best starting eleven is

 

[Scotty Mac]

it doesnt really help when there are players being crammed into positions just because adams is of the opinion that they have to play, no matter how detrimental it is the team as a whole

 

[Zesh Rehman]

Kuipers - worse
Defence - alot worse
Midfield - slightly worse
Forwards - slightly better