Free kick Farce..

[Pondicherry]

Agreed, the arguing over who would take the penalty at Norwich looked amateurish and fortunately did not put Colunga off. So it is very concerning that we replicated the squabble today and then compounded that with an embarrassing free kick.

Another aspect of concern today were various phases of play when there was a lack of formation and movement in our midfield. It was a pity to lose KLL but it then made sense to introduce Ince as Fulham were enjoying too much control in midfield. However instead of tightening things up, the trio of Gardner, JFC and Ince all played too deep and no one took responsibility for supporting the forwards, which left a 30 yard gap that Fulham happily exploited too often when our own build ups fizzled out. Why wasn't this corrected at half time? or from the touchline in the 2nd half?

Plus it is concerning that too many of our players look like strangers to each other, Bruno and Elliott Bennett come to mind. Bruno was the main culprit but Benno was guilty of being back on his heels.

For consecutive games Stockdale has 'passed' a clearance / dead ball direct to an opposing player and they have gone on to score, when Big Dave had safer options.

It's Murphy's law to then get punished by a deciding goal from such a bad deflection, but TBH Fulham were already opening us up far too comfortably.

I think 99.99% of fans would reasonably expect all of these issues to have been very clearly thrashed out on the training ground, especially the recurring and rather obvious basics. Some of these issues might be down to indiscipline by the players but ultimately the buck stops with the coaching staff. Rather embarrassing given the publicity re the recent opening of the 'elite performance centre'.

This lack of cohesion and rather erratic form cannot help confidence. Nor can having the fans on the players backs. It's not the end of the world but many fans I speak with are frustrated by the lack of conspicuous coaching from our touchline, especially positive interventions before issues actually cost us. Plus much of the good work built up over the last 2-3 seasons is being undermined. We had a mean defence, rarely let opposing teams play through us and were hard to beat, now I think they will fancy playing us.

I do wonder if Tony Bloom quietly asks himself 'WTF?' when he sees recurring faults going uncorrected and costing us dearly.

Excellent analysis of what happened yesterday imo and highlights the poor coaching and poor pre / in / post game management by Sami and Jones. I would only add that I thought before the game that Caskey and Gardner would get overrun and that Ince/Holla should have started in place of Caskey. The Jones/Sami indecisiveness after the Lua injury also confirmed they really haven't got a clue.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Agreed, the arguing over who would take the penalty at Norwich looked amateurish and fortunately did not put Colunga off. So it is very concerning that we replicated the squabble today and then compounded that with an embarrassing free kick.

Another aspect of concern today were various phases of play when there was a lack of formation and movement in our midfield. It was a pity to lose KLL but it then made sense to introduce Ince as Fulham were enjoying too much control in midfield. However instead of tightening things up, the trio of Gardner, JFC and Ince all played too deep and no one took responsibility for supporting the forwards, which left a 30 yard gap that Fulham happily exploited too often when our own build ups fizzled out. Why wasn't this corrected at half time? or from the touchline in the 2nd half?

Plus it is concerning that too many of our players look like strangers to each other, Bruno and Elliott Bennett come to mind. Bruno was the main culprit but Benno was guilty of being back on his heels.

For consecutive games Stockdale has 'passed' a clearance / dead ball direct to an opposing player and they have gone on to score, when Big Dave had safer options.

It's Murphy's law to then get punished by a deciding goal from such a bad deflection, but TBH Fulham were already opening us up far too comfortably.

I think 99.99% of fans would reasonably expect all of these issues to have been very clearly thrashed out on the training ground, especially the recurring and rather obvious basics. Some of these issues might be down to indiscipline by the players but ultimately the buck stops with the coaching staff. Rather embarrassing given the publicity re the recent opening of the 'elite performance centre'.

This lack of cohesion and rather erratic form cannot help confidence. Nor can having the fans on the players backs. It's not the end of the world but many fans I speak with are frustrated by the lack of conspicuous coaching from our touchline, especially positive interventions before issues actually cost us. Plus much of the good work built up over the last 2-3 seasons is being undermined. We had a mean defence, rarely let opposing teams play through us and were hard to beat, now I think they will fancy playing us.

I do wonder if Tony Bloom quietly asks himself 'WTF?' when he sees recurring faults going uncorrected and costing us dearly.

You'll do when can you start?

 

[Taybha]

Oh Well

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[Tom Hark Preston Park]

A free-kick on the edge of the box should be considered the potential source of a goal. And those are few and far between this season. Inexcusable not to have a clear strategy for them worked out in advance. Fancy new training ground's obviously wasted on them. Make the f*ckers train at the Uni until they learn the basics of their trade. Preferably under the supervision of fresh coaching staff. As many others have said, the current set-up is a League One Ready shambles.

 

[sydney]

..why does no one in the team seem to know who is responsible for free kicks around the box? Again we have Gardiner trying to hog the ball whilst JFC Colunga and others are all trying to tell him to **** off.

In the end it was a total balls up as usual with Colunga and Gardiner giving each other verbals for the next five minutes.

All whilst Hypia just sits there doing nothing with his arms folded.

Surely he should make a decision on who will be our dead ball specialist around the box ?

surefire sign...the players do not respect the management , this coupled with the general demeanor of Hyppia in the post match interview would appear to indicate....we are ****ed , Sami indicating that set pieces are practiced , so why don't these clowns adhere to the script...!!??

 

[sydney]

Agreed, the arguing over who would take the penalty at Norwich looked amateurish and fortunately did not put Colunga off. So it is very concerning that we replicated the squabble today and then compounded that with an embarrassing free kick.

Another aspect of concern today were various phases of play when there was a lack of formation and movement in our midfield. It was a pity to lose KLL but it then made sense to introduce Ince as Fulham were enjoying too much control in midfield. However instead of tightening things up, the trio of Gardner, JFC and Ince all played too deep and no one took responsibility for supporting the forwards, which left a 30 yard gap that Fulham happily exploited too often when our own build ups fizzled out. Why wasn't this corrected at half time? or from the touchline in the 2nd half?

Plus it is concerning that too many of our players look like strangers to each other, Bruno and Elliott Bennett come to mind. Bruno was the main culprit but Benno was guilty of being back on his heels.

For consecutive games Stockdale has 'passed' a clearance / dead ball direct to an opposing player and they have gone on to score, when Big Dave had safer options.

It's Murphy's law to then get punished by a deciding goal from such a bad deflection, but TBH Fulham were already opening us up far too comfortably.

I think 99.99% of fans would reasonably expect all of these issues to have been very clearly thrashed out on the training ground, especially the recurring and rather obvious basics. Some of these issues might be down to indiscipline by the players but ultimately the buck stops with the coaching staff. Rather embarrassing given the publicity re the recent opening of the 'elite performance centre'.

This lack of cohesion and rather erratic form cannot help confidence. Nor can having the fans on the players backs. It's not the end of the world but many fans I speak with are frustrated by the lack of conspicuous coaching from our touchline, especially positive interventions before issues actually cost us. Plus much of the good work built up over the last 2-3 seasons is being undermined. We had a mean defence, rarely let opposing teams play through us and were hard to beat, now I think they will fancy playing us.

I do wonder if Tony Bloom quietly asks himself 'WTF?' when he sees recurring faults going uncorrected and costing us dearly.

that...!

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

A free-kick on the edge of the box should be considered the potential source of a goal. And those are few and far between this season. Inexcusable not to have a clear strategy for them worked out in advance. Fancy new training ground's obviously wasted on them. Make the f*ckers train at the Uni until they learn the basics of their trade. Preferably under the supervision of fresh coaching staff. As many others have said, the current set-up is a League One Ready shambles.

Twelve months ago we endured a similar lean spell of form and could not buy many goals. However the pattern was broken at Doncaster when Spanish Dave curled in a delicious free kick from a similar distance to yesterday's shambolic effort. It was also the game in which JFC had earlier scored that 30 yarder, something that seemed unlikely at that time, but now seems a pipedream. The manner of the performance and result that day gave the team (and the fans) a huge boost in confidence. We then enjoyed three decent wins on the trot, something we desperately need now. Just goes to show quite how important it is to take these precious opportunities when they are presented. Quite apart from the arguing over who is going to take the kick, too many of our free kicks are not on target.

I know that David Lopez wasn't perfect and often went missing in games but IMO we sadly miss his ability to hit his target from set pieces.

Danny Holla ought to offer us an alternative set piece specialist but sadly his all round game is not currently in favour. Maybe he will get a recall after yesterday. However I can also recall a couple of occasions earlier in the season when Holla had the ball snatched from him as he prepared to take a free kick, which reinforces the ongoing issue about arguing over who takes them.

KLL and Elliott Bennett are other obvious candidates. KLL certainly buried a screamer of a free kick at Leeds.

What I find baffling is these are issues that should be very well drilled on the training ground, with no doubts as to who the preferred specialists are. Then instead of arguing the rest of the team can concentrate on making the free kick count. We should be frightening opposition teams and their fans like we did when Spanish Dave stood over free kicks (that precision kick against Palace comes to mind) - instead of making them laugh as our clowns did yesterday.

 

[Taybha]

The Aaron Hughes interview was quite disconcerting when he suggested that Free Kicks were worked on over and over in training , frankly i think he is taking the piss tbh unless wee man takes the training sessions

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