Muff away , Thursday night F.A.Cup tie .

[ivoralljack]

I hope that Cullen was only subbed to be saved for the Leicester game. If there was any other reason other than injury then I'm saying here and now that I'm done with Luke Williams. He's on thin ice anyway with me for a number of reasons. Why on earth keep Yates on? The man is as useful as a perforated condom. After that first half why not put on our stronger bench players immediately? Okay, we drew the second half but Muff had obviously decided to go through the motions after that with the game well and truly won.

I'm now having grave doubts about Williams. The last two first halves of football have been diabolical and he doesn't seem to have learned the lessons that are so evident to the rest of us. At least as I type, in his post match interview, he's admitted that he got his tactics wrong but he also did against Soton, so it proved he learned NOTHING from that defeat.

Leicester will already be rubbing their hands in anticipation of getting 3 points and improving their GD out of sight. So where does Williams go from here? After tonight I suggest straight to the training ground with a very early start for the next four days. His admin should involve getting rid of Fisher and Yates; sending Humphries back to Chelsea; telling Joe Allen that he's not here just to top up his pension; have strong words with Fulton about upping his game to its previous level; tell Woods to stop sulking about missing his move to Soton, or wherever: send Patino back to Arsenal because, based on his performances with us he's been grossly over-hyped and inform Grimes that he is allowed to pass forwards rather than backwards and sideways. I could go on.......

As for training, the accent should be on pass and move then pass and move again and again. Then he should be drilling the team in playing with a back 4 because we're totally incapable of playing any other system with the players we have. I'll stop there for now but, predictably, I'm saying yet again that he MUST play Cullen at the centre up top if he wants goals. It's his strength and he's being mis-used in a criminal fashion.

 

[CroJack]

His admin should involve getting rid of Fisher and Yates; sending Humphries back to Chelsea; telling Joe Allen that he's not here just to top up his pension; have strong words with Fulton about upping his game to its previous level; tell Woods to stop sulking about missing his move to Soton, or wherever: send Patino back to Arsenal because, based on his performances with us he's been grossly over-hyped

And send Ashby back to Newcastle.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

@CroJack ... I'm with you on Williams. With Sheehan having done such solid job, hyped yet again this evening by the Sky commentators, I had grave misgivings about Williams. Too much Madness, too little top level experience. And, having given the bastard 3.5 years on a contract, we're now saddled with another "rookie" learning top flight football on our dime, putting philosophy before pragmatism ... I refer you all to the Mawbray interview I posted before that game on that match thread ... Mawbray may be old school but he knows how to rescue and rebuild, putting squad needs before personal "religion". How much transfer money do we have to piss away on managers that can't, trying to get players who can play but in the wrong places on the field.

In general, I think Ashby is a strong RB in a back 4. Tonight he was playing some messed up RW/RM role - not his forte and at least I can say that he stuck to his instructions, and as a result often found himself too far up field to be defensively effective. Cullen had a similar remit on the left. Given the choice between Key and Ashby, I would select Key purely because he's ours, but although carrying different stripes I like them both.

Tonight Allen was playing much higher up the field than normal. At his age, not his best position / role ... IMHO Cooper would have been better. And we can go down the line-up. And, Naughton as a CCB ... can we bury this fiction along with Fisher as a keeper.

Williams needs to sort his shit out and fast ... and then the team will sort out itself. God forbid we have to go through another 18 months of nonsense before we burn money to fire and replace. You get what you pay for ... and we always seem to.

 

[CroJack]

I think the problem with Williams is that he is trying to play the same style of football that Martin played in his first 18 months with us. It doesn't work. And it won't work even with better players. It's naive to play passing football with such a high and wide back line. Look at Martin's Southampton now, they play a four at the back, they don't concede stupid goals (we conceded 3 tonight) and they're not as vulnerable on the counter-attack. Yes, Martin's got better players there, but even with our squad he played good football and was unbeaten in his last 9 games with us.

 

[jackodiamonds]

I expressed concern over Williams's defensive frailty back in December, before he was announced: The Professor Speaks

He had a great attacking record in League 2, but an almost equally terrible defensive one. Stepping up two divisions in class has blunted the attacking potency and exacerbated the defensive problems, which stands to reason when you consider the players and coaches at this level are more sophisticated. And tonight, against Prem opposition, it was so much worse.

I tried hard to be positive about the appointment by concentrating on the attacking possibilities, but 1 win in 4 games and 5 scored against 10 conceded is not a good start, especially when the lone win was against League 2 opposition. The second half against Saints showed promise, but to see the same first-half mistakes come back in this game was maddening. He can't seriously think that high-line, split centre-back bullcrap would work against 2023 Premier League opposition? And then, after going 2 goals down inside 10 minutes, do nothing to change it. There's conceit and there's absolute self-delusion.

It's clear now why Notts County had such a terrible defensive record. Williams has no defensive strategy. Actually none. That high line nonsense isn't defense, it's his starting position for building possession from the back, but it's so easily countered it ends up giving the opposition an easy attack of their own. Bournemouth's goalscorers were completely unmarked tonight. It's unbelievable to see that at this level.

The team selection and refusal to use certain players in certain positions and drop others is another problem. He's picked up all the bad habits of his predecessors when I thought he would clear the slate and give everyone a fresh chance.

Others have said the board should have targeted a manager who has proven himself at a similar level. You know I wanted Thelin and I read he interviewed for the post. The sticking point perhaps was financial (isn't it always?), but at what ultimate cost? I hope Williams can learn quickly because the next four games would not be easy even if the team was playing well. If he changes nothing, then Leicester and Leeds will put another 5 each past this lot.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

You can go back through the decades: 1968: 0-1 v Arsenal at the Vetch, 1971: 1-2 v Leeds United at Elland Road after Nurse was sent off, 2019: 2-3 v Man City at the Liberty. And, I’m sure there were other valiant performances scattered before and in between against opposition far superior to Bournemouth … no disrespect but a top table team they are not. In The examples cited, all of the teams were at the very top end of great. We lost, but there was nothing but pride and honor in those defeats.

Tonight was a joke, a poor imitation of professional football by a team impersonating a team at the lowest level of the professional game. At half time against Soton, I quipped that it can’t possibly get any worse. And so it was in this match. But there is nothing but shame and dishonor in what happened tonight.

And the personalities involved offer nothing convincing that anything better is likely to come. I haven’t even listened to William's’ post-mortem yet. Not sure if I have the patience and self-control to listen to it and not throw something through the tv screen. We are in a fight to avoid relegation. Not sure that’s a fight we can win.

 

[ivoralljack]

And send Ashby back to Newcastle.

Where I said, "I could go on......." in my post I was including Ashby along with others, so I agree with you vis a vis tonight's performance. When he's good he's good but when he's off it he's awful and he was fucking awful tonight. If the players can't deliver what Williams wants, or they're unhappy with it, then they should ask for a collective meeting with him and I suggest that should happen pdq!!

 

[CroJack]

When he's good he's good but when he's off it he's awful and he was fucking awful tonight.

He was awful against Saints as well. Zero discipline.

 

[CroJack]

Luke Williams appologised:

"I got the balance wrong, too many players in advanced positions and in the turnover too few players to stem the attack and the opposition were very good."

 

[jackodiamonds]

Ashby is victimised by the evolution of wing backs in contemporary football. There's a lot of managers like Williams who favour a back three because they can see the potential for allowing more bodies further forward, but wing back is a fantastically difficult position to play properly. It's two positions at once, so you need players who can actually boss two positions in the first place, and then ask them to do both at the same time. If your team is playing a wing back system and the two wing backs aren't among the teams best three players, you've got a problem.

What's worse is that because wing back requires so many skills, managers tend to toss anyone into the role to see what sticks (and if they're taking that approach, then nothing will). Nominally they'll use full backs - like Ashby - because full back is a position that at least fulfils half the skillset, but last night Cullen was more or less playing wing back on the left. Even then, Ashby was further forward than Cullen a lot of the time.

Managers see they have no-one actually qualified to play such a demanding role, and so use anyone that they can't fit elsewhere but are still good enough to be on the field. You want to play wing backs, you need a Marcelo or Trent Alexander-Arnold or Fabio Coentrão, not your third-choice striker or a raw loanee full-back.

Williams needs to stop asking so much of Championship level players.

 

[ivoralljack]

Luke Williams appologised:

"I got the balance wrong, too many players in advanced positions and in the turnover too few players to stem the attack and the opposition were very good."

At least he admitted it. The thing is, is he now going to do something about it?

 

[jackodiamonds]

Luke Williams appologised:

"I got the balance wrong, too many players in advanced positions and in the turnover too few players to stem the attack and the opposition were very good."

He asked his slow back three to sit 5 yards off the centre line

As for too few players - there were plenty of white shirts standing around during most of the goals, they just weren't marking anyone at all. It's not just about numbers, it's what those numbers are doing, and I believe Williams has no idea what defenders are actually supposed to do. In NFL terms, Williams is purely an offensive co-ordinator. He needs a defensive co-ordinator. Sheehan?

 

[ivoralljack]

Ashby was further forward than Cullen a lot of the time.

The WOL ratings nevertheless rated Culls as our MOM commenting that he was being let down by those around him. Fair point.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Cullen's miss-use seems to have no bounds. Last night was the most egregious example to date with the felony compounded by Williams' prematch admission that Cullen is playing out of position. This makes it a willful miss-use not one of incompetence or ignorance. It's remarkable that Cullen can be so abused yet he still manages to get the best shot on goal and considered MOM. And, why Williams has to get is own shit together PDQ or the locker room is going to move against him. Many of these players have been through Martin's Madness, Duffer and now Williams and at some point they have to say FFS, let's just play real football on a real field and not fantasy football in the delusion of the coach. They showed under Sheehan that they can play real football - not perfectly but well enough to harvest over 50% of the points in an away balanced series of fixtures.

I would have to add that today's Club highlight video is 1:39 minutes in length and omits Cullen's shot; one of our few legitimate match highlights.