View From The Findus

Welcome Billy ...

 

With out the cookie monster ,we have no goal threat , he scored most of our goals last season .

 

Nah, with Mark Hughes we have no goal threat.

 

No Cook (last season's top scorer), no Pattison (this season's top scorer), no McDonald (who got the assist against Crewe), I think we have an excuse for not scoring in one of the toughest away fixtures we'll face all season.

 

We've failed to score in 3/6 league games so I'm not sure injuries are our problem.

 

Cook has a side injury likely to keep him out for a couple of weeks (assume that means including next Saturday). But, he’s looked a bit out of shape, out of touch and that has clearly affected his confidence.

That said, he only fills one place on the team sheet, and as a team we’re just not threatening enough.
A negative set up tactically, and as a team not performing with any level of intensity and energy means we’re just not creating many chances.
The front line are all stretched and isolated from each other.
I don’t see our scoring problems going away without significant to how we approach games

 

Hasn't Cook been injured in one of those games (post-Accrington I mean), and we had 10 men in the other?

It's not all of our problems, and we need to get scoring more, but there are a few things like excessive numbers of tough away trips etc counting against us.

Nobody likes excuses, but we actually have a couple.

 

What was the excuse at Morcambe and Crawley?

 

100% this.

The football we play under Hughes is as dull as I can recall under anyone else, including Bowyer and Taylor.

 

It's all about the final third and at the moment we don't have one

 

Morning

Firstly we don't score a lot because of the way our manager wants us to play. It's primarily safety first pragmatic football. You only have to look at our playoff performance where we defended a one goal lead for the best part of two games.
And this simply answers your other two questions. Andy Cook hasn't scored this season mainly due to the fact we create bugger all chance wise because our manager has decided to completely change the way we play. Should have scored at Stockport but that's the only game.
And all this feeds itself into the general malaise felt toward Hughes, comes across as a decent bloke but generally his football is quite turgid to watch and that failure in the playoffs last season will probably come back to haunt him.

 

Happy to contribute.

We finished last season disappointingly losing out in the play offs.

We had a decent nucleus of a team and a formation that allowed us to attack quite freely.

So us muggings on here thought we would add a few quality signings over the summer to build on that framework and really build a promotion team/squad.

How wrong we were. MH has completely dismantled the formation from a flat back 4 to a 3-5-2 ish formation with players being shoe horned into positions they aren't renowned for. We had a comedy moment at our last home game of our CH Stubbs with the ball at his feet and no one knew where they were supposed to be and he had no pass on.

That coupled with some injuries to players who would be in the starting 11 and a transfer window that has delivered a bunch of relatively inexperienced and unproven players and we are all feeling just a tad bemused as to what is going on at our club.

Indeed we have brought in two out and out wingers-Good you might think but when you are playing a back 3 with wing backs where do wingers fit in? It seems MH is planning to change the formation in games where the back 5 isn't working and can change to a 4-4-2 ish and bring on the wingers. That will then limit game time for a chunk of the first 11.

So its as clear as mud as to what formation/style we will play against you.

Having supported City since 1979 all the teams we have had success with have by and large played the same formation/style throughout the season and I genuinely fear that all this chopping and changing of formations will be our ultimate undoing this season.

UTFC

 

Well put

 

Agreed.

And I’d further add that every single one of our rare successful seasons has been with a 4-4-2 formation.
I’ve never in 40 years of watching this club seen us succeed with anything else.

 

They usually are mate (not that I would have kept him) but Eoin Doyle, James Vaughan, and this season Jake Young at Swindon, Bradford City the club that just keeps giving.

 

Can anybody think of an example where we have been loaned a player from a rival club in our division and they’ve been a massive success?
Andy Cook maybe but he wasn’t great for us whilst on loan from Mansfield.

 

I believe in the Andy Cook case it was Nigel Clough (and maybe the fans) who wanted him out rather than in Doyle and Vaughans case they wanted out of the club for their own personal reasons.
I'm sure someone will name someone but at the moment I can't think of one, there have been a few who did well for us after we signed them but not on loan.

 

Wasn't great? He still ended up our top scorer that season, despite only joining in January.