Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by The_Gun » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:36 pm

Very little talk about today’s game in the last few pages.

Personally I thought it was a very encouraging performance after Wednesday. No lack of commitment, generally solid defending, and plenty of chances created. Wycombe couldn’t have complained if they’d only got a point out of that one.

Yes, the double of whammy of MJ and Sheehan is a shitter, but we showed spirit and some quality today.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by Bruce Rioja » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:37 pm

How's Crawford doing? Do we have a recall clause?
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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by officer_dibble » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:40 pm

We can’t recall anyone until January. I think Darcy comes back sooner cos the Norwegian season finishes soon.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by GhostoftheBok » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:40 pm

Just to point out the painfully obvious. There's no "style" of football that works without a midfield.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by BWFC_Insane » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:44 pm

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:40 pm
Just to point out the painfully obvious. There's no "style" of football that works without a midfield.
Given we can’t afford to lose until January what’s the answer?

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by officer_dibble » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:49 pm

Donny at home
Cheltenham at home
Fleetwood away (plus home in pizza cup)
Acrington away
Wycombe home
Morecambe home
Burton away

Assuming MJ is out 6 weeks - all games we have with just Lee and Thomason available as fit central midfielders to us.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by jimbo » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:49 pm

BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:44 pm
GhostoftheBok wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:40 pm
Just to point out the painfully obvious. There's no "style" of football that works without a midfield.
Given we can’t afford to lose until January what’s the answer?
I guess in theory you’d bypass the midfield in possession and pack it with bodies who can make a nuisance of themselves and break up the opposition. Problem is we’ve no one who can do the holding up and physical stuff up top, and no one who can really be those disrupters in the middle. I’m not really sure how we can arrange the deckchairs in a way that stops us sinking for the next few weeks.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by Dave Sutton's barnet » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:52 pm

Well, that was better. Just still not good enough. Not yet.

I said they were beatable before the game, and I said at half-time it was winnable. Sadly, that didn't happen, and I'm not exactly gobsmacked by that turn of events, but it's not like we were awful.

Getting the team news as we neared the ground, we assumed a back three, but Baptiste was pressed into service as a right-back and a major intended recipient of Dixon's goal-kicks (I say major because they almost all went rapidly out of play, either via Baps' head or directly). Barring Rochdale in the half-speed Sherpa Sh!tshow it was probably the old fella's best game of the season, right up to the point where he let Vokes head in at the back post without even getting his own heels off the ground. Hmm.

Aimson and Santos didn't look so bad as a pairing, best option we have IMO. Johnston looked less likely to cost us a goal in midfield, and with MJ out we may have to pray he can grow into the role, because at the moment we're running out of bodies. Sheehan's ACL is a sickener, even if you're one of those people who doesn't rate him and says so in every post.

I don't think Tommo is nearly as bad as some say, even if I'd rather he not be first choice by default, but we have soooo many issues he's near the bottom of the list for me. At the other end of his career, Lee was alright but he's fading, and BWFCi's right that he's in the red zone - I can hear his muscles preparing to tear. Then what?

Speaking of injuries (of which there are of course only three) – up front, we looked like a team with its two strikers missing. Dapo is very good in many ways but an unreliable finisher, and Kachunga is intelligent but too damn polite and unconfident. There was a late chance that he was getting pelters for not shooting - but IMO he was right, the angle was far too acute. Instead, he pulled it cleverly back, but we had nobody there who even looked remotely like finishing. And I don't mean at that moment: I mean all day.

I said two months ago that not being able to score was a serious problem, and after a brief purple patch of correcting that (if not other problemns), the big ol' bagel returned today. Hopefully Doyle will be fit Tuesday because we're in danger of becoming a team like Peter Kay's taxi, forever promising to turn the corner.

I can't see any free-agent white knight clip-clopping into town. What we have is what we have to go with. It's getting painfully thin now. We're 9pts behind the playoffs and 8pts above the drop zone, but I know which way I'm looking now.

Last time we came to Wycombe we had four senior players available. It's not quite that bad but this is bad, and getting worse by the game. Not necessarily the performances - this was much much better than Stockport - but the situation.

We have three enormous league games in the next fortnight – Donny (23rd) at home Tuesday, Cheltenham (11th) home Saturday, and then (after a Sherpa game we might have to play the kids in) Fleetwood (22nd) away – and we simply have to get behind the team, even if we don't like the manager.

I don't know if the other teams down there are as bad as Crewe, but I hope so. If we can win those, it should be enough to keep us above the dots until we can regroup in January. Big if, and plenty distance to fall yet, but I didn't see a club in crisis out there - just a rump of players that need help.
Last edited by Dave Sutton's barnet on Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by GhostoftheBok » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:56 pm

BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:44 pm
Given we can’t afford to lose until January what’s the answer?
I can think of a few, none of which fill me with unadulterated joy.

Baptiste has played in midfield in the past for QPR and Mansfield. He was actually a midfielder as a youth player. He could play in that holding role. Johnston, likewise, has played there for Liverpool in their U23s.

Three at the back with a high line compacting midfield. Vulnerable over the top, but allows a player to step out and relies on the press more than blood and thunder.

The others are all equally grim.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by GhostoftheBok » Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:58 pm

jimbo wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:49 pm
I guess in theory you’d bypass the midfield in possession and pack it with bodies who can make a nuisance of themselves and break up the opposition. Problem is we’ve no one who can do the holding up and physical stuff up top, and no one who can really be those disrupters in the middle. I’m not really sure how we can arrange the deckchairs in a way that stops us sinking for the next few weeks.
In addition to having no target man and very little pace up top with Baka out, it needs physicality and runners in midfield. We don't have them.

If a football manager looked at this squad and said "I want to play Phil Parkinson style football" you'd have them sectioned.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by BWFC_Insane » Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:13 pm

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:56 pm
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 7:44 pm
Given we can’t afford to lose until January what’s the answer?
I can think of a few, none of which fill me with unadulterated joy.

Baptiste has played in midfield in the past for QPR and Mansfield. He was actually a midfielder as a youth player. He could play in that holding role. Johnston, likewise, has played there for Liverpool in their U23s.

Three at the back with a high line compacting midfield. Vulnerable over the top, but allows a player to step out and relies on the press more than blood and thunder.

The others are all equally grim.
We have to setup to sit deep concede possession and hit teams on the counter. We have that ability. But I think we need to find a way to somehow just grind out 0’s with little of the ball. It’s possible if the manager can organise the team and the team can show the fight and bottle required.

On the break Dapo, Kachunga, Isgrove even John are all useful. But we won’t go toe to toe with anyone as it stands.

I’d be looking for a Karl Henry type signing.

We can hit channels and play off a more mobile front three rather than a target man. It’s far from ideal and no doubt will lead to some drubbings. But we might eek out some results.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by GhostoftheBok » Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:18 pm

BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:13 pm
We have to setup to sit deep concede possession and hit teams on the counter. We have that ability. But I think we need to find a way to somehow just grind out 0’s with little of the ball. It’s possible if the manager can organise the team and the team can show the fight and bottle required.

On the break Dapo, Kachunga, Isgrove even John are all useful. But we won’t go toe to toe with anyone as it stands.

I’d be looking for a Karl Henry type signing.

We can hit channels and play off a more mobile front three rather than a target man. It’s far from ideal and no doubt will lead to some drubbings. But we might eek out some results.
I don't buy it. Dapo isn't quick and neither is Izzy, they can shift over 10 yards but they're not going to outrun many. Dapo especially cannot maintain his sprints. This isn't a Leicester style front line. It's not happening.

In the summer everyone agreed that we lacked pace in attack. It was the main thing we were all talking about, that this forward line specifically couldn't play on the counter. Now suddenly we definitely can?

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by BWFC_Insane » Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:24 pm

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:18 pm
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:13 pm
We have to setup to sit deep concede possession and hit teams on the counter. We have that ability. But I think we need to find a way to somehow just grind out 0’s with little of the ball. It’s possible if the manager can organise the team and the team can show the fight and bottle required.

On the break Dapo, Kachunga, Isgrove even John are all useful. But we won’t go toe to toe with anyone as it stands.

I’d be looking for a Karl Henry type signing.

We can hit channels and play off a more mobile front three rather than a target man. It’s far from ideal and no doubt will lead to some drubbings. But we might eek out some results.
I don't buy it. Dapo isn't quick and neither is Izzy, they can shift over 10 yards but they're not going to outrun many. Dapo especially cannot maintain his sprints. This isn't a Leicester style front line. It's not happening.

In the summer everyone agreed that we lacked pace in attack. It was the main thing we were all talking about, that this forward line specifically couldn't play on the counter. Now suddenly we definitely can?
I mean for about ten minutes against Stockport we did that and looked dangerous. They can all run at players if we can isolate them one on one.

But there is a lot of modern coaching nonsense being used to explain why Wycombe can lump a big cross in to the far post their striker head in a very soft goal yet we never score goals like that yet concede them frequently.

You cannot get anywhere until as a side you stop conceding goals. A string of 0-0’s till January will do. I have no idea why we continually concede such soft goals. But perhaps sitting deeper and absorbing pressure will help the psychology of the team rather than being on top or even but always knowing a goal against is round the corner.

If you want my analysis we have to be firing on all cylinders and playing brilliantly to win any game of football other than perhaps against a deadbeat like Crewe. But reality is that you can’t always be firing and at the top of your game. Wycombe today without being brilliant won a game in a way we can’t. And that’s hugely problematic. If they hadn’t scored Wycombe would have had something from the game still.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by TANGODANCER » Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:30 pm

Takes quite a bit to mist over the rose tinters, but I'm at odds with a lot of things right now. Feel free to disagree. :

A,, In this league we're playing teams comprising muscular aggressive battlers who constantly push us back and keep us in our own half. Our Mister tap-toe plan never got off the drawing board today. The oppositions play like they want to win, we play like penalty areas are the entrance to ghost trains. Past here be dragons...

B. I commented earlier that Nixon never go to roll/pass the ball out and was forced into long ball every time he got the ball, very few of which hit a white shirt. . Given the width of the field you might also expect a few to land in it and not in row z. His penalty save means nothing at all when we lost to a very soft goal .Whickham's front men and wingers were all over our defence most of the game.

Shooting practise. We couldn't hit a coconut with a beach ball. Not one decent shot on goal the whole game. Granted, the ref allowed a ridiculous amount of blatant fouls, shirt pulling, jumping all over our lot and massive time wasting. Oh, and yardage theft on every throw in.

Pace. We're not the fastest are we? I lost count way back of the amount of crosses that found a way into our box.

Whatever it takes (and allowing for our lousy injury luck) we'd better get it pretty soon or relegation looms far quicker than promotion. That's about it.. ae:)

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by nicholaldo » Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:44 pm

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:18 pm
BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:13 pm
We have to setup to sit deep concede possession and hit teams on the counter. We have that ability. But I think we need to find a way to somehow just grind out 0’s with little of the ball. It’s possible if the manager can organise the team and the team can show the fight and bottle required.

On the break Dapo, Kachunga, Isgrove even John are all useful. But we won’t go toe to toe with anyone as it stands.

I’d be looking for a Karl Henry type signing.

We can hit channels and play off a more mobile front three rather than a target man. It’s far from ideal and no doubt will lead to some drubbings. But we might eek out some results.
I don't buy it. Dapo isn't quick and neither is Izzy, they can shift over 10 yards but they're not going to outrun many. Dapo especially cannot maintain his sprints. This isn't a Leicester style front line. It's not happening.

In the summer everyone agreed that we lacked pace in attack. It was the main thing we were all talking about, that this forward line specifically couldn't play on the counter. Now suddenly we definitely can?

It's not suddenly we definitely can. It's suddenly we're just about as desperate as can be.

We aren't blessed with an abundance of pace but I assumed the post you replied to was taking as red that we can no longer afford to try to dominate posession and attempting to arrive at a set-up that most suits us given that context.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by GhostoftheBok » Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:03 pm

nicholaldo wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:44 pm
It's not suddenly we definitely can. It's suddenly we're just about as desperate as can be.

We aren't blessed with an abundance of pace but I assumed the post you replied to was taking as red that we can no longer afford to try to dominate posession and attempting to arrive at a set-up that most suits us given that context.
It's all bullshit spitballing.

I'll defend Evatt's transfer record given the resources we have, but ultimately this squad is built to play one brand of football. That isn't doing us much good at the minute, but shifting us from something we're not doing well to something we clearly can't do at all isn't a solution - it's frying pan into fire stuff.

We cannot play on the counter with this lot. The defenders can't deal with the bombardment it brings and we don't have the pace or runners in midfield. "Sign free players to make it work" is the cry, but obviously if Evatt could sign freebies to make a style work it'd be his own.

It doesn't matter, though. Evatt's going to do things his way and people can bloviate on what he "must do", but it'll either happen or it (almost certainly) won't. Nothing any of us say here will make a difference.

If we want to talk about what Evatt, in the real world, could do to win games as Ian Evatt - that's something. Insane and some others basically just want Parky back and that's not where we are.

It may be that Evatt loses loads of games before Jan and gets sacked. If we don't win either of the next two the knives will be out from enough of the crowd for it to be felt keenly. Not many managers come back from a crowd turning. Personally, I think he'll do just enough to keep it together and make it to January - even if we drop a few league places. I don't think the higher ups have any intention of sacking him unless there's a massive deterioration of his support amongst fans.

For what it is worth, I think we will beat Doncaster on Tuesday.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by nicholaldo » Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:14 pm

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:03 pm
nicholaldo wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 8:44 pm
It's not suddenly we definitely can. It's suddenly we're just about as desperate as can be.

We aren't blessed with an abundance of pace but I assumed the post you replied to was taking as red that we can no longer afford to try to dominate posession and attempting to arrive at a set-up that most suits us given that context.
It's all bullshit spitballing.

Oh right, okay. Here's me thinking it's just a difference of opinion. :roll:

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by GhostoftheBok » Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:18 pm

nicholaldo wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:14 pm
Oh right, okay. Here's me thinking it's just a difference of opinion. :roll:
We can all have different opinions about what we would do if we were in Evatt's position. That's all well and good.

The questions here have been "what must Evatt do" and it isn't going to play out. If people are really hoping for it they will be disappointed.

Evatt will do what he says. Stick to his principals, back his players etc. He talks a lot of guff sometimes, but ultimately he's always done that much.

I'm always happy to talk theoretically about football. "If Parky had this side what would be do?", "What would Rioch do with this lot?" etc....any "we need to do this before Jan" stuff has to be realistic about the fact that we have Evatt as manager and nobody else.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by BWFC_Insane » Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:30 pm

GhostoftheBok wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:18 pm
nicholaldo wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:14 pm
Oh right, okay. Here's me thinking it's just a difference of opinion. :roll:
We can all have different opinions about what we would do if we were in Evatt's position. That's all well and good.

The questions here have been "what must Evatt do" and it isn't going to play out. If people are really hoping for it they will be disappointed.

Evatt will do what he says. Stick to his principals, back his players etc. He talks a lot of guff sometimes, but ultimately he's always done that much.

I'm always happy to talk theoretically about football. "If Parky had this side what would be do?", "What would Rioch do with this lot?" etc....any "we need to do this before Jan" stuff has to be realistic about the fact that we have Evatt as manager and nobody else.
And Evatt is being judged on results. And is currently failing. Miserably. So pointing out why his approach has failed is fair game.

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Re: Not the only Wanderers..v Wycombe away 20-Nov 3-O clock.

Post by GhostoftheBok » Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:54 pm

BWFC_Insane wrote:
Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:30 pm
And Evatt is being judged on results. And is currently failing. Miserably. So pointing out why his approach has failed is fair game.
Yup, though his approach hasn't failed. He's on a bad run, but the suggestion during a bad run last season was the same stuff and he stuck to his guns and took us up.

His approach has failed when he's sacked.

We are all at liberty to have a go at him. I take issue with a lot of what he does and says. It's one of the reasons we are on forums.

What you don't want is a feedback loop, where you write stuff, read back what you wrote and the replies that agree with you and take it in again as gospel. People who said all this last season were wrong then and are back saying it now; without having learnt anything from last time.

Evatt has succeeded playing his football and he has done so at two clubs - after bad runs, during which fans claimed he had to abandon his principles. This time we have a major injury crisis to deal with, which makes it more likely he will actually fail; but you're premature just now.

I have no doubt that if he turns this around and has a strong finish to the season we will be back here next bad run with people saying the same "abandon your principles" stuff again.

The fact you and others seem to have a "told you so" attitude when they were so wrong previously is odd, but not exactly unexpected. The confidence is to be admired, I suppose.

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