1.Why false hopes? Are you suggesting it can't happen?
2.We are desperate.
3.Training them hard so we can suffer more hamstring issues?
4.In life some get it all laid out on a plate, others work extremely hard damaging their mind and/or body for a pittance and no thanks at all. This is what I have found.
Most on here seem to be pointing the finger at the players so play some different ones. The manager has to send out a message and we should be giving some youth a chance as he suggested he would do when he took over. Progressive move and something different. The same ingredients mixed and cooked in the same way will give you the same outcome.
There's a saying that you are only as good as you're worst player. There are 2-3 clear weak links in the team IMO. This is costing us simple goals and has massively undermined the confidence of the team as a whole. I don't doubt their work-rate or attitude but it's seems pretty clear that Buchs and Cornell are not good enough. Almost every game it's the same: Lincoln, Morecambe, Cheltenham, Port Vale.
On the face of it Buchs and Cornell may not be making obvious errors for certain goals but I feel it's as much what they're not doing as to what they are.
For example, Buchs contributes little to nothing defending set-pieces. I suspect this is partly down to where he's told to position himself, likely as his lack of height in these scenarios is too easily exposed. All well and good, except this is asking the centre-backs to do all of the work in these scenarios. Pierre is often picking up the back-post because of this. If he doesn't win the first header the defence is then left too exposed in the middle. There are only so many set-pieces you can defend with one of the back-four contributing so little until you get caught out.
I mentioned this in a post last week on my previous username, but I'll say it again, as I think it bears repeating.
Since the promotion season we have played 100 league games. Buchs is the player who has started by far the most of those matches, in 85 of the 100. In those 85 we have conceded 142 goals, an average of 1.7 a game. This is quite simply a terrible goals conceded average.
In the 15 Buchanan hasn't played in total we have conceded 21, a 1.4 average.
In the 14 league matches he didn't play
last season we conceded 18, a
1.3 average.
These are pretty startling stats IMO.
Hasselbaink attempted to change the obvious problem at LB in January by bringing in Bunney and (rightly IMO) dropping Buchs. However Bunney made some early errors and his confidence seemingly got shot to bits. This wasn't helped by the fans getting on his back and chanting for Buchs, despite the massive overall defensive improvement during Bunney's run in the side.
Regarding Cornell, he simply does not dominate his area enough. Too many times balls are lofted in to the box and he doesn't come for them. There are times when a keeper has got to grab the bull by the horns and rush out to claim a ball into the box. There's also a lack of communication from him to the back four I feel. This causes indecision in defence and creates further uncertainty at set plays.
As to how many times Cornell has been beaten, so far this season we have conceded 13 goals from 31 opposition attempts on target. One of those attempts was saved by the head of Pierre, so it's fair to say that Cornell is letting in a goal close to every 2 attempts on target. Further, 6 of the 13 he has conceded have been from outside the area. While 2-3 of these 6 goals have been great strikes, surely even a keeper at this level should be saving some of the others? The first on Saturday was a case in point.
All these issues ultimately help to undermine the confidence of the other defenders, not that they are blameless themselves of course, (Taylor and Pierre's drop off in form for example), with both making goal costly errors this season. I'm convinced both are much better however and that their confidence has been somewhat shot (Taylor's drop in form as been discussed but Pierre for example, made the L2 team of the season in 15-16, so must surely be 'good enough'. I certainly remember him as a much more dominant and confident player during the first half of last season, who would also storm forward with the ball and regularly cause havoc and a serious threat in the opposition box. Now he often looks exasperated with what is going on around him. What has happened to the standard of play from these two players?).
As has been said on here, it's a case of trying to change the current 'losing' mentality, starting with getting back to basics.
It's difficult enough to 'get back to basics' however and turn a losing mentality into a winning one when, IMO, there are such glaring weak areas contributing to us shipping goals despite said players (Buchs and Cornell)
not showing any signs of suffering a drop of in form.It's not Buchs and Cornell who I 'blame' though, as I believe they are committed players doing their best which is all you can ask.
Management on the other hand
is at fault as they persist with picking them both even though they do not look up to it and the signing of Ward aside, did not strengthen these areas over the summer. Both positions were significantly weakened with the sale of O'Donnell and the loaning out of Bunney and the priority should have been to revamp these positions.
As an aside, Bunney is currently only out of Blackpool's side due to injury. However the first three matches he started for them ended in Blackpool clean-sheets. We playing at a lower level
are yet to keep one clean-sheet. This is quite simply a ridiculous situation.
We're beginning to pay the price for this lack of foresight over the summer now. At the very least I would have thought Ward and Turnbull deserve a run in the side in their place to see if they can do any better. If Ward isn't capable of doing better than Cornell then he may as well go back to Reading. Turnbull has spent most of his career so far playing in L1, and was part of the improved back 4 early this year, so is well worth a start at LB IMO.