KrolMong

Arsenal were awful with the ball. Bayern are not great, but they were comfortable. City, despite there utter dominance, were let down by all of there attacking players. Haaland, De Bruyne, Foden, Silva. All poor against a Real side who let them have the ball. And Cities unwillingness to want to pull the trigger is just daft.

We’ve got an embarrassment of riches in attacking areas. Conceivably, we could play Rice and Bellingham in a two. And then line up Foden, Palmer and Saka behind Kane. The two players, who at the minute, are most at risk are probably Rashford and Grealish. Bowen and Gordon have really had good seasons in terms of numbers. Maddison will go too.

I think we absolutely need two wins from the last three. We have to win at all costs next weekend at Blackburn - there is no hiding from that. Issue today, not enough quality in the final third. Either with pass or finish. Not really sure why Ihiekwe is flying in for the Stoke equaliser, wrong decision.

I don’t blame Rohl for wanting to play out. The passes we were not making were not due to an aggressive press, but simply due to player mistakes. If Norwich were pressing like animals, and we persisted, you could blame Rohl, but they didn’t. They literally just had to stand still and we gave them the ball back. I cannot accept that any professional footballer in this era cannot find a fellow player from 10 yards away under minimal pressure. If a player can’t, they need to sit in the stand and pack it in. The fact that Rohl had to go ale house in the second half is an indictment of our players inability to do what most 14 year olds can do.

A proper ale house second half led by Callum Paterson. He was outstanding. We were very fortunate in that we absolutely should have been 5-0 down before we scored our first, but, the effort was there even if the quality wasn’t. And when we got the first, you could feel we would get a second, Norwich were creaking physically. Massive point.

First goal. Bambo knocks a simple 10 yard pass, 5 yards short. From the throw, he then gets caught not watching and they score. Immediately after, Famewo knocks a simple 10 yard pass to Bannan 2 yards short. They should score. Then, Beadle knocks a simple 10 yards pass 3 yards wide of his target. They score again. Later, Ihiekwe knocks a pass across his back four 10 yards behind his target and out for a throw in on the edge of our box. Every single pass, most people on here would make them. It is inexcusable for professional footballers to be unable to complete them. And I mean inexcusable. None of the players were facing a press when they gave it away.

Deserved it today. Better side, went a bit longer today and picked up the seconds. I thought, despite the miss, Windass was decent, Bannan and Palmer did well. But, Gassama gets MOM today, although I thought Bambo and Smith were good too. Aside from them hitting the bar, they’ve not created a lot. And we’ve had decent possession all day. 7 points from a possible 15 will do it.

Wasn’t a pen for the foul on Gassama. Outside. We’ve been the better side, horror miss from Windass. Clear plan to target their left side both with the ball and on the press. Need a goal.

It’s one of the worst misses you will ever see.

Have a listen. Reading between the lines, it sounds like the players have downed tools a little bit due to uncertainty over there own futures.

If we go down, I don’t see any scenario at all where Danny Röhl is coach next year. 1. Chansiri will look to blame the coaching staff for this given that, in his eyes, he’s had 35 games to save us. 2. I can’t see that Rohl will want the fun of League One, and his stock will be high enough to get a second division club in the UK or in Germany. He’s largely going to come out of this blameless unless he doesn’t pick up another win this season.

There are several things we need to do away from home… 1. No more 3-4-3. 2. Ugbo has to play down the middle and not wide. 3. One of the back three has to be Liam Palmer if Bernard isn’t fit. 4. If Vaulks is fit, the base of our midfield has to be Palmer and Vaulks. You can then mix the three ahead of them, but Poveda has to be always playing. I’d even be tempted to go with a 3-4-2-1 and have Bannan and Poveda behind Ugbo. 5. Gassama and Musaba are late subs away from home when we get penned in. But you can’t start either of them. We don’t have the ball which means they are passengers. 6. I want to see evidence of set piece work from the training ground. Röhl has not addressed it, no plan for defending corners and no plan to attacking them. You put the ball in the right area in our box, and you will get a chance.

I can accept teams just being better than us. I can accept opposition players being largely better than ours. I can even accept being rolled over because we’ve tried to have a go. What I can’t accept is teams doing the basic running bits better than us, I can’t accept us not attempting to put a body on someone, I can’t accept us winning the ball back and not one player wanting to make a forward run. I can’t accept players not being WILLING to get back into defensive shape. I am not willing to accept players jogging instead of sprinting to get back behind the ball. And I can’t accept a coach literally not doing a minutes work on trying to both defend and attack set pieces. That was a side a today who is thinking of its future away from S6. When you are in trouble, you have to work hard. We did not today against a very average Boro side with half a team missing. There were some truly abysmal displays today. Vaulks, Bannan, Johnson, Ugbo, Musaba, Famewo. Dire. That was as half hearted as I have ever seen.

They’ve been the better side by quite a distance. If their final ball was better we’d be 4 down now. There is a horrifying lack of urgency when we get the ball, and we clearly aren’t working on defending set pieces. Its an awful display against a very average side.

Interestingly enough, Adam Azeem and Ben Shalom are doing their level best to avoid Dalton. Him and Harlem Eubank had a head to head last night and Shalom made a comment about Smith’s age and experience. Azeem potentially is a superstar, but, the avoidance of smith at this stage is not helping his cause.

I sat and watched it. It was an absolutely travesty that Fulham didn’t score 10. They absolutely battered the pigs, Silva was proper pissed off post game. All three pig goals were completely against the run of play.

My argument against Chansiri requesting that I cover some of his losses is that those losses are standard football debt, but it was his job to mitigate them which he didn’t do. So, he needs to accept that and write it off. I’m valuing the ground and training ground at 15 million combined. And that is purely for the land it sits on (and I am being generous). I know that I can literally do nothing with both other than flog the land and move elsewhere. So, that becomes my cost.

I have the value at less than 30 million. Chansiris debts are irrelevant here. And we have no outside debt. Hillsborough is worth 7/8ths of nothing, and the training ground burns money to actually get worse. If you look at it, we generate about 24 million in revenue to make 4 million loss, and is very little value in the playing squad or the academy. So, if we are a Championship club, I’m going in with a lock stock bid of 50 million, DC can recoup some of his losses.. If we are a league one club, I’m taking 20 million off that. My understanding was that Birmingham were bought for about 15 million, but that also picked up a lot of debt and a ground in a mess but, and outstanding training set up and academy. Hudderfield were picked up for less than 30 million including debt write off. We are worth very little. Think back, what did Milan buy us for? It was way less than 20 million right? That value will not have increased much.

What does everyone think a fair price is for us? So, imagine you have a half a billion knocking about. What are you offering for Wednesday?

I like Musaba, I think he’ll be a better player than Gassama long term but I think both will be very good players. Musaba is very good at running into open space. It’s not just about receiving the ball and beating someone, he wants to get behind people. With both Gassama and Musaba, the biggest weakness is the final decision. That’s what has to improve and will come with more experience in this league.

Oddly, I thought we improved when Johnson and Valentin got up the pitch, but, both players final decisions were really bad. I thought Valentin was very close to man of the match today. Vaulks pipped him just. In fairness, I don’t think there were any bad displays with the exception of Malik Wilks who was atrocious again. But… every goal we concede is avoidable. And whilst we create a lot. We miss a lot. Outside of Ugbo and maybe Cadamarteri, we dont have a hang your hat poacher. And goals are not coming from other areas, beyond the odd one or two from a Musaba or Gassama. Quite an incredible stat this is that not one central defender has found the net this season. The centre of our midfield has amassed a total of 5 goals this season. Those two stats alone are atrocious.

We were not marking from set pieces earlier. But this time we let their best header of a ball stand 7 yards out completely unmarked. Abysmal.

Our season in a nutshell. 5 or 6 absolute sitters missed. Absolutely embarrassing defending leading to an equaliser, and teams around us winning games against the form book. Absolute win at all costs on Monday now. 13 points from 7 needed to stay up.

Awful goal to concede. Free header from five yards. We’ve created and missed the better chances but we’ve been poor today. Just not kept the ball.

If we were to move, it would need to be out Meadowhall way or south east of the city.