Bradford 1-1 Bolton

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Yes I can say we did, because it wasn’t just possession. We got in behind them numerous times only for the final ball to let us down. I genuinely don’t know what game you were watching if you think we created nothing, and the statistics support that.

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I’m sure City and Liverpool fans will be saying something similar today Troy. They both had lots of the ball for long periods - city 66% and lpool 63% compared to our 58% - and yet they both lost.
The point I’m making is that we shouldn’t get carried away with talk of promotion especially as all our possession resulted in just 3 shots on target and 1 goal in the whole game and our inability to convert possession into goals has become a bit of a theme recently.
That has to be rectified without sacrificing other aspects of our play which is the tricky part of the equation to resolve.
Glos makes a good point about Doyler not getting the right kind of service for his particular talents - would he get it if we sacrificed his work rate outside the box or would it affect our possession? We just don’t know but something has to change, or rather be added to what we already have before we can consider promotion.
I’m happy that we’re much improved and that we are an exciting watch but it ain’t all there yet.

If you're saying the final ball/finishing wasn't good enough then i completely agree with you.

But if you're saying all we do is pass it round at the back and go nowhere, then you're demonstrably wrong.

For me, Doyle let us down on Saturday his movement in the box wasn't good enough and he needed to be hitting the front post when we got in behind (as we did numerous times). People keep claiming we don't play to his strengths, i think we did on Saturday.

I'm not claiming we're the finished article either, but we went away to the league's other form side and dominated them for large periods of the game. This criticism that all we do is sideways pass aimlessly is bollocks im afraid.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:If you're saying the final ball/finishing wasn't good enough then i completely agree with you.

But if you're saying all we do is pass it round at the back and go nowhere, then you're demonstrably wrong.

For me, Doyle let us down on Saturday his movement in the box wasn't good enough and he needed to be hitting the front post when we got in behind (as we did numerous times). People keep claiming we don't play to his strengths, i think we did on Saturday.

I'm not claiming we're the finished article either, but we went away to the league's other form side and dominated them for large periods of the game. This criticism that all we do is sideways pass aimlessly is bollocks im afraid.

Yes I'm saying that the final ball isn't good enough but the reasons why are more complex than simple bad passing (although that's part of it) and they include:
 - Doyler spending more time dropping into midfield to help retain possession than he does on the shoulder or running across the box - and when he does that, nobody else is running into the space he's vacated to receive it in a shooting position so we end up going sideways. TBF Sarcevic was trying a few clever forward passes which didn't come off but at least he was trying.
- slow transition on turnover - we tend to put it wide and then wait for support instead of piling forward quickly before the defence has time to get into shape
- very little threaded directly through the lines. We have decent wide men but we need to mix it up a bit.

And I never said that all we do is pass it sideways. Sometimes we pass it backwards