Heading to the Riverside for Pulisball. Middlesbrough (a) 19/9/18 745pm

[nicholaldo]

Not calling for PP to be sacked. He's always struck me as a manager who can spot failings and rectify for them. I just wish him and his staff could have a bit more confidence at home to take games to teams. Not to ALL teams, of course - I expect Derby to be rampant next week - but for me QPR should have been there to be attacked from the off.

We did try to. It's not the case that there were instructions to sit back and invite them onto us or to fall back and soak up pressure.

What exactly do phrases like “attack on the front foot” mean anyway? I presume I'm correct to interpret it as simply another way of meaning more effort or desire? I only ask because QPR scored their first goal by hitting us on the counter from quite deep inside their own half. It's surely difficult to concede a goal like that if we're playing within ourselves and attempting to keep it tight?

I'd probably have been tempted to start Oztumer behind the one up top last weekend, hoping that between him, Williams, Noone and Ameobi we'd have enough to create them problems through the middle as well as from out wide, so I definitely don't think that Parky got it spot on. But neither do I think that there wasn't an intention to go forward among the players that he did pick. A lack of ideas, yes, but not intent.

If what you mean is that you want us to play an, on paper, more "creative" starting eleven, then I agree with you. I just don't if you mean that we haven't thus far been making an effort to attack (mid-week being the obvious exception). As you say, Parky is usually pretty good at spotting failings and rectifying them and, assuming that Wheater and Beevers were both fit to play, today's team selection suggests that this is at least something Parky's thinking about.

[Jugs]

Not calling for PP to be sacked. He's always struck me as a manager who can spot failings and rectify for them. I just wish him and his staff could have a bit more confidence at home to take games to teams. Not to ALL teams, of course - I expect Derby to be rampant next week - but for me QPR should have been there to be attacked from the off.

We did try to. It's not the case that there were instructions to sit back and invite them onto us or to fall back and soak up pressure.

What exactly do phrases like “attack on the front foot” mean anyway? I presume I'm correct to interpret it as simply another way of meaning more effort or desire? I only ask because QPR scored their first goal by hitting us on the counter from quite deep inside their own half. It's surely difficult to concede a goal like that if we're playing within ourselves and attempting to keep it tight?

I'd probably have been tempted to start Oztumer behind the one up top last weekend, hoping that between him, Williams, Noone and Ameobi we'd have enough to create them problems through the middle as well as from out wide, so I definitely don't think that Parky got it spot on. But neither do I think that there wasn't an intention to go forward among the players that he did pick. A lack of ideas, yes, but not intent.

If what you mean is that you want us to play an, on paper, more "creative" starting eleven, then I agree with you. I just don't if you mean that we haven't thus far been making an effort to attack (mid-week being the obvious exception). As you say, Parky is usually pretty good at spotting failings and rectifying them and, assuming that Wheater and Beevers were both fit to play, today's team selection suggests that this is at least something Parky's thinking about.

Well, I look at the midfield 3 that started against the Blades - Vela, Murphy and Lowe - and they were flat. Sideways passing and no real desire to get forward and create anything. Chuck in limited ability and imagination and you're hamstringing yourselves.

The midfield 3 that started v QPR were just as flat, even though we know they can do better.

Add "urgency", "aggression" and "taking responsibility" to your desire and that's a good way of defining "front foot." That and a willingness to move forward with the ball. Vela, for me - as the one who's been here the longest and who sees himself as a box-to-box CM - should be the one who takes a game by the scruff of the neck and drive the team forward but he doesn't.

It starts with Alnwick, however. When it's 0-0, he takes an age to take a goal kick. Is that PP's instructions or his own doing? And when he boots it, it's straight to the opposition and we're on the back foot again. That's how the first half v Birmingham played out, where we again lacked urgency. Once we got the goal, it all changed - we were on the front foot and genuinely looked good to watch.

So we can do it - we just don't most of the time. For me, that's the biggest frustration. The ability IS there.