by Hound »
07 Oct 2019 10:22
URZZZZ Old Man Andrews Hendo
It isn't quite that black and white though, if we play the poorer teams earlier, the team gets a bit of confidence and momentum and then might not do so bad against the 'stronger' teams.
But in the Championship there is a very fine line between the two on any given week. Look at the Stoke and Huddersfield squads for example, are they poor on paper? Arguably not. Preston are riding high with what is a very average squad on paper as are a much changed Swansea team.
The Championship isn't all about the talent in the squads it is about building momentum and grinding out a home 1-0 win or a 0-0 draw away from home. Other teams are much, much better than we are at that because they play systems and players to get results when they need them. What worries me about Gomes is that he cannot seems to address our soft centre and leakiness.
This really. How many times do we come away against a team high up in the table and say “I have no idea how they’re so high, they’re not even very good”. Bristol, Swansea are two examples of that in the last two weeks. It’s because they’ve got a system they’re accustomed to and they’re well drilled. Gomes is overcomplicating his tactics for a division of this nature
very much so. And as has been mentioned, he found a style last year that brought some success - and very much a case of scrapping for home wins and away draws, and seems to have moved away from it to an idealistic system he has dreamed up on the training ground
Sad thing is, I think we have the players to be a very disciplined and relatively successful team if we picked the right style and stuck with it. Experienced in the division and strikers who on paper can score goals. I think for example if Alex Neil had this lot at PNE, we'd at least be matching their position