New Sheriff, but he's still a villain - Forest (A) 21/02/15

[danardif1]

Pratley being back ASAP is a must, and with Cravies at least we have a bit more hustle and bustle in order to make use of the long balls the others keep firing up for no reason.

Our system is still built around high pressure and intensity, but when you don't have either of those due to fatigue and/or can't-be-arsedness it leaves the kind of holes in the team we're seeing now. The style needs to be adapted to what players are available and what they can do. There are definitely players reverting to type in the team which we can't do much about, but we can still do something about the shape and style as a whole.

The defence does need a complete reshuffle in the summer... it's just about getting to the summer and being in the same division.

[jaffka]

Someone on another site has made a great point - why bring Heskey on to play Centre Half when we had Wheater on the bench

This must have been done to make a point ?

I also suspect he's gone absolutely mad after the game, and seriously ripped into the players - he won't tolerate many more shambolic performances like this -very damaging result today IMO

Did you watch the game?

Heskey came on at half time for twadzik, the sending off occurred whilst hesky was already on and we were 2-1 down, chasing an equaliser.

You could have found that out by lookin at the bbc

[jaffka]

Standard for someone with a suspected head injury. If he hadn't gone down, we were down to nine men, the ref had already reached for his card and was sending him off for denying a goal scoring opportunity.

Lonnergan is on his way to hospital with a head/chest injury. All part of the cunning plan, right?

No, just my opinion. Watch the ref tonight, if he hadn't been carried off, we were down to 9 men.

Come on bob, it's getting a bit far fetched now, he went down flat and didn't move.

Going to hospital as well would be taking his acting to a totally unacceptable level.

Fair enough with your initial opinion, I too at the time thought he was kidding as the ref was going to bin him. Being stretchered off though and I changed my mind.

[Bijou Bob]

I stand to be corrected, if I got it wrong with the challenge or lack of one fair enough, I dont claim to be perfect. The ref however, was sending him off. No 2 ways about it.

[Jonah]

Those injuries looked worrying to me. Lonergan didnt move after he went down and Ream looked like he jarred his back while in a twisted position.Regardless of the result, and it was an awful performance, you have to hope those injuries arent as bad as they looked.
As for the performance there does seem to be a number of things going wrong. The success we initially had under Lennon was based on hard work and a compact 442 with cover infrontof the back four which stopped teams get a run at our slow central defenders or getting behind our fullbacks.We also look better with a big man up front. It gives us an out ball and a foothold. We are conceeding due to space where a full back should be and space infront of the central defenders where a midfield player should be.
The two small guys up top all the opposition need to do is press our midfield so they cant pick a pass ,it goes back to a defender then it goes long and we lose it.
The only outfield player to come out of today with any real credit is Feeney as he still ran his heart out and did whatever was asked. The axis of danns and Vela looks jaded(maybe fatigue, maybe playing their hearts out and seeing the manager bring in a bunch of midfielders(ironically),they look shorn of confidence. Bannan is a lightweight poseur,all show and little substance and I suspect no real bottle. It may be that Lennon believed he had signed a right back in Janko but he clearly doesnt want to play there and his attitude in the previous game looked suspect.
So it looks like back to basics now,hopefully. He wont have three centre halves available against Boro so it will have to be Wheater and Dervite(who also looks shorn of confidence after so many changes of system and partner)McNaughton and Moxey will at least mark the space that teams have been exploiting recently.
If as someone mentioned earlier he uses Feeney left and Janko right we can carry a decent threat going forward, We need Heskey or Davies up top because there isnt enough talent in the midfield to go past a man or just keep it all on the deck.I suspect he'd use Le Fondre initially with Clough replacing him to save the game or in the unlikely event we get the lead to use the space created by the opposition pushing forward. Im not sure Danns and Vela need or deserve a rollicking but Bannan we can do without and if he bring in Slavchev Danns or Vela should partner him.
I rate Lennon but really when things get as messy as they are at present it is time to simplify.

[HMX]

Missed most of that second half - went out to the cinema (thank feck) - but still can't get over the referee not booking Blackstock for his karate takedown on the touchdown. That shitness summed up what I saw. Shit ref, shit players, and the poor fans.

[officer_dibble]

Someone on another site has made a great point - why bring Heskey on to play Centre Half when we had Wheater on the bench

This must have been done to make a point ?

I also suspect he's gone absolutely mad after the game, and seriously ripped into the players - he won't tolerate many more shambolic performances like this -very damaging result today IMO

Did you watch the game?

Heskey came on at half time for twadzik, the sending off occurred whilst hesky was already on and we were 2-1 down, chasing an equaliser.

You could have found that out by lookin at the bbc

Imagine if he'd of subbed on wheats after the sending off...amos couldnt of come on then!

[Enoch]

he won't tolerate many more shambolic performances like this

I should say so. He'll be sending them to bed with no dinner.

[TANGODANCER]

That Blackstock is one dirty fecker innee..

In a word, yes, and soft and a cheat. Howling to the ref for every touch, going down like a popped balloon, pretend injury...name it. That said, their whole back line were cloggers and got away with blatant murder at times.

What a fiasco. Utterley gutted. Lose while trying your bollocks off (like last week), fine. Lose being made to look like soft amateurs, not fine. First, usually when you've been injured you play your way back into the team . What did Wheater do wrong to be immediately dropped for Mills? Second, part one: , Laws of gravity. A ball in the air is no danger until it lands. That doesn't mean stand and wait for it to do that whilst looking up backwards. Knowing the opposition are playing dam-busters might suggest a couple of defenders a bit deeper who can have a chance of facing the ball, especially when they're getting left for dead by even the linesman. Part two: (as already mentioned) sending aeriel hopefuls at the two smallest men in the team is just a bit naff. Add to that our defence looked like a map of the Sahara except it had more open space. Playing with ten men is always hard, even harder when you're already three down. One of their goals was an excellent solo effort granted, but five defenders unable to get a tackle in? The penalty was a joke. If the attacker is allowed to go for the ball, so is the keeper. He did, finished up on a stretcher and the ref gave a penalty. Great.

Feeney wasn't half as resourceful as last week and Vela had a mare. Young Zach kept trying hard but had little or no real help and Bannan is already in line for the Cows Arse of the year trophy. Dougie needn't be too smug about that either. He got the points but 4-1 up had to try to show ten men up by bringing on two strikers. Bottom line, we showed little or no fight, were brushed aside like a bunch of feathers and paid a dear price for it. Two days in Alicante didn't quite have the desired effect. Oh, and I didn't think Moxey the worst on show by some margin.
He did keep trying and didn't part with the ball like a lit thunderflash every time an opposition player came near him.

[officer_dibble]

Lonergan out for a while, lennons comments up. I've never known a team as unlucky with injuries as us. We are absolutely in the shit now.

[jaffka]

I stand to be corrected, if I got it wrong with the challenge or lack of one fair enough, I dont claim to be perfect. The ref however, was sending him off. No 2 ways about it.

Which if he did would have been wrong, the ball was going wide to the touch line.

I thought the ref was poor today, how Blackstock evaded a booking was farcical and their fullback who obstructed Clough in the second half was also lucky especially with the dissent after the foul had been given.

I didn't paticulary like how he was like a vulture hanging around lonners waiting for him to get up so he could dish out his punishment.

Shit ref today but still no excuse for our well below par performance.

Twadzik doesn't seem to be ready for first team football yet.

[Jonah]

"I don't know why but we've become a soft touch and it's got to change."
That will only happen when there is continuity,players used in their best positions and a system the players understand. I guess Lennon has had a lot of injuries to deal with and now has a lot more options to consider. We should be good enough to stay out of trouble on our home form but until he settles on system that makes us more compact away from home we will continue to get hammered.

[Jonah]

he won't tolerate many more shambolic performances like this

I should say so. He'll be sending them to bed with no dinner.

Not sure how well being Mr Angry Pants works when players lose a bit of confidence and are being asked to switch around as much as they have recently. It's the same players who were full of confidence not long ago. Still Pratley should be back soon, we miss his athletisism and ability to get forward quickly. Hope we get the one who got injured and not the one we had under the previous managers.

[Bijou Bob]

The ref was indeed shocking, that challenge on Le Fondre was cynical and dangerous yet he let it go. He had poor control of the match and at times seemed to struggle keeping up with play. A different ref wouldn't have made any difference though. Personally, I'm just waiting for Lennon's post match comments.

[Bijou Bob]

As if you're still sticking with it . He got smashed on the side of the head.

Chest according to Lennon. Ream not as bad as it looked, so the liner who completely.missed Blackstock dragging him into the post can sleep tonight.

[Tails07]

Another 4 conceded but it could of been so many more the way we were today.

Twardzik at left back or left wing back was an unusual choice as I believe he's a midfielder normally and it didn't work, played like a rabbit in the headlights after the mistake for the goal. Losing Ream and then Mills's stupid sending off, I would have probably brought Wheater on at that point but its a good job he didn't otherwise we would have been without a keeper and as funny as the "Heskey in goal" chant was that would have been a nightmare, well more so than it was with him playing as a centre half.

Moxey and McNaughton (if he's still around somewhere) in for Tuesday, we need proper fullbacks to help settle that defence and hopefully a return to 4-4-2 now we only have 2 centre backs available.

[Peter Thompson]

Someone on another site has made a great point - why bring Heskey on to play Centre Half when we had Wheater on the bench

This must have been done to make a point ?

I also suspect he's gone absolutely mad after the game, and seriously ripped into the players - he won't tolerate many more shambolic performances like this -very damaging result today IMO

Did you watch the game?

Heskey came on at half time for twadzik, the sending off occurred whilst hesky was already on and we were 2-1 down, chasing an equaliser.

You could have found that out by lookin at the bbc

No I didn't watch or listen to the game, just got score updates from sky sports....it was just a point that had been made on another site

[bobo the clown]

Well ..... that wasn't very good, was it !?

[truewhite15]

A decent night's sleep later, I think I've clocked why Lennon made the decisions he did.

Lennon doesn't see Janko as a right back - and from what I've seen of Janko, I agree. He doesn't have the discipline to play there. Problem was, we were up against a pacey bastard yesterday in Antonio. Vela was ripped to shreds last week by Watford's pacey left winger, and even if McNaughton were playing, he's not exactly Usain Bolt. Therefore the only option was to try Ream there, our (at the time) one fit defender with pace. It made sense.

Quite why that didn't result in us playing Moxey at left back, I don't know; but we don't see what happens in training. Lennon can't be held accountable for Twardzik having a shocker, or for Twardzik falling on his arse to kick off the whole sorry rout. But once Ream got injured, the only possible choice he had was Feeney to right back, and Moxey on to left back - again, a decision made to try and pin back Antonio. Disappointing, then, that their second goal came through our centre backs simply backing off too much, and not throwing in a proper tackle.

Heskey came on at half time to play up front, and provide the long out ball we so desperately needed. But after Mills's moment of madness, Lennon decided, instead of taking off Clough, or Le Fondre, or even Heskey immediately, for Wheater, to play Heskey at centre back. Why? Well, we've already seen that Lennon doesn't like making substitutions if he can help it, if he has an option on the pitch to change it. And I'm not saying Lennon's some sort of soothsayer, but it's possible that he DIDN'T make the Wheater substitution because he was wary of something happening to Lonergan, and us being stuck without a keeper.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Lennon's blameless for the horror show; but there was logic to his decisions.

[twilight]

I'm going to do a "no comment" on this match.....well I can't comment if after the 1st goal (after only 8 minutes)I thought, oh not not one of those days again, turned the radio down, and started doing my housework!!!! Must have sensed something eh?