Honest question!

[Hotchilidog]

Suspensions and injuries are continually disrupting our first 11 too. Maybe the transfer of Murray and Bennett have made a bigger impact than we'll admit.

For me the biggest problem has been the suspensions and injuries, we simply have been unable to put a stable team out all season. I would say we are not a team yet. The way that Gus wants us to play relies on players to have a very good understanding and given the constant changes to the side we have not been able to do this. We have had instability at full back, centre midfield and out wide it has been impossible for us to establish any kind of rhythm within the team at all. Until we stop picking up stupid suspensions and we have some players with a little more muscle strength I cannot see this changing.

It is very difficult to judge exactly how good this current group of players are as Gus has rarely had a full squad to choose from. It would be nice if we could put the same team out for three or four games. Considering the fragility of the squad I think we have actually done pretty well so far.

 

[jevs]

Interesting to hear those comments but arern't you contradicting yourself? We'll stay up comfortably but Poyet is out of his depth? He put this team together so - if we do stay up comfortably - he seems to know what he's doing.

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I think your home form will have a lot to do with your mid table position and particularly the atmosphere at Withdean. Don't get me wrong, I think Poyet has the potential to be a decent manager....maybe nhe just needs a few seasons of experience in the championship to realise he has to make changes to suit the opposition.

 

[Spiros]

I think we all too quickly forget that Gus hasn't managed at this level before so this is a new challenge for him, as much as it is for some of the players. He took a while to adapt in League 1, but he did. I think the same will happen this season. As said before we had a lucky start to the season because we mainly got 'easy' fixtures. I think we were still top when we went to Bristol City who were then bottom and there wasn't that much between the sides.

Regarding the lack of a plan 'B', that was more of a problem last season which Gus solved by bringing in Chris Wood. That enabled him to change our style when we were being closed down too much. This season he seems more ready and able to change things - we must have changed how we were playing about 5 times during the 2nd half of the Burnley game alone.

jevs - your comment re Poyet needing a few seasons of Championship level experience is bang on IMHO

 

[MattBackHome]

The "Gus is too defensive" myth is the latest mantra for the "no plan B" crowd - take a nonsense phrase and repeat endlessly. At Reading, we played 1 holding midfielder, 2 attacking midfielders, 2 wingers and a striker. How is that defensive? Barely a tackler in the team beyond the back 5.

If anything, we're too attacking. Get a grip on the ball in midfield and provide a quality supply up front. When we went 3 at the back (oh look, a plan B) we did better as it allowed us to get more meaningful possession through weight of numbers in midfield.

It also helped that CMS had someone alongside him.. But saying we look better if we have 2 up front is not the same as being "defensive" if there's 1 there... With Buckley and Lua Lua joining up, it would actually be 3 up front in games where we're on top. But I don't think our central midfield is strong enough to play that way yet... No point having 3 attackers if you can't get the ball to them.

Good post

 

[trueblue]

For me the biggest problem has been the suspensions and injuries, we simply have been unable to put a stable team out all season. I would say we are not a team yet. The way that Gus wants us to play relies on players to have a very good understanding and given the constant changes to the side we have not been able to do this. We have had instability at full back, centre midfield and out wide it has been impossible for us to establish any kind of rhythm within the team at all. Until we stop picking up stupid suspensions and we have some players with a little more muscle strength I cannot see this changing.

It is very difficult to judge exactly how good this current group of players are as Gus has rarely had a full squad to choose from. It would be nice if we could put the same team out for three or four games. Considering the fragility of the squad I think we have actually done pretty well so far.

Fully agree. The chopping and changing has been a major problem in my view. I reckon Gus does know his best team (or about 9 of them with a couple interchangeable according to form and opponents) but it's rarely, if ever, been possible to have all of them on the pitch at the same time.

 

[Dominoid]

We've seen comparatively little of a few big name signings. Vicente hasn't been around much, Lua Lua has struggled to find the form we saw last season, Hoskins hasn't been at his best, El Abd is only just getting form back now and add in a lot of suspensions to key players, we're not as consistent as we'd like. I think the calibre of teams has increased too, we played some of the easier matches in the early part of the season and have had some of the more tricky matches now. Not that there are any easy matches in the championship at all. I think overall, we should still be pleased with how things are going. It'll be interesting to see if Tony and Gus dip into the transfer market next month or not. I know they don't like it, but we could possibly be playoff contenders with a few tweaks, so what gets spent (or not as the case may be) could very well reveal our immediate term ambition.