st albans fox

fair point and Moore has had European games to prove himself we haven’t used league cup fixtures to give alves a proper runout. but it’s been well known in football that Moore was potentially a generational talent. Alves hasn’t seemed to come back from his ACL with the same levels that he was showing. Could be that in two or three years that things have changed around but for now, that’s where we are. Haven’t seen much to show that any other of our 17/19 y o should be pushing for a game day squad place.

He’s exceptional none of ours are at his level

The early goal in the second period certainly knocked the stuffing out of them but we’d gone behind in the first half and kept going. the period between goals 2 and 3 wasn’t recognisable from the first half when we were behind. in the first half, nuno pushed four up to press our defence in possession - wood, the two wingers and one of the midfielders. That made it tricky to find winks or Ricky because the passing lanes were quite blocked. But we generally managed to work it out. Can’t recall many passes into the midfield in the second half - not only did they continue to press 4 across but they also pushed another midfielder into the space that Ricky and winks occupied. that should have led us to work out where the spaces had then been left and to utilise them. The point is that our coaching team didn’t appear to manage that.

Both teams weakened by England players unable to play them more than us we were comfortable and then made a right mess of the last fifteen mins and almost blew it

Their squad looks too strong for them to go down - mind you ……………

And they conceded twice in the second half to lose 2-1

Shame for Ipswich But they needn’t worry about their first win - it’s coming

Lateral thinking If he’s committed to getting a couple of players out to release funds and he doesn’t manage it then he’s very much in control of some of the budget

I was a bit over dramatic - true but pitches where you open with spinners in the first innings are not prepared for five days. This one barely made it to day 3 and yes - we batted dreadfully through the match imo. teams can decide to play ‘one day cricket’ in tests which will accelerate the result but the pitches should surely be prepared to allow for seamers on day 1 at least.

That final test strip should be reported that’s not prepared for a five day game - horrific however, our application with the bat was sadly lacking (‘that's who we are mate’) and our tactics with the ball after they were 7 down was strange

No probs we rode our luck last season on the basis that the opponents weren’t good enough to take those big chances - that’s a reasonable approach in the championship. But we were the best team in the division with many of the best players we need a coach in the prem who is going to make the most of a fairly weak squad - imo cooper just doesn’t have the tactical nouse to be that man.

I think Cooper can be best summed up as follows he makes big nige look like a tactical genius at PL level he is not the answer - we need a coach that makes us better as a team than the individual parts and that’s not him

You said we won on xg i was just pointing out that we didn’t (plus the reality of the game as a whole rather what might have happened if their player didn’t get a concussion)

Was it? they battered us for an hour - they just decided to try and walk the ball in rather than shooting. We had a really strong twenty minutes in the second period when they mentally fell apart.

They weren’t properly set to defend our structure in the first half - we needed to make more of that they made tactcial changes at HT which effectively nullified us and our coach was impotent thereafter ……

Perhaps my memory isn’t what it once was but did Ricky really have a starting position next to winks last season when mads had the ball/ first pass was made from mads to a CB ? I seem to think that he moved up into midfield as we worked the ball around - hence it wasn’t so easy to cut off passing lanes to him as it was for forest yesterday. He just looked way too static compared to how we played last season ????

Players must have eaten a few at half time judging by the pile of crap they produced in the second half …..

the second goal wasn’t great from okoli - needed to be tighter the third goal wasn’t great from faes - needed to make a decision I’d say our CB pairing was light years behind theirs

Their second goal wasn’t faes’ fault ? very strange to bring Ricky in and play an inverted full back - has cooper ever done that before ? It was almost as if he said to the players - ‘ok, you’ve moaned about not being allowed to play enzo’s formation from last season so go ahead and show me’. whilst we looked competent in the first half, they created marginally the better openings. to play an inverted full back against such a decent winger was odd indeed. Last season we’d play the settled full back on the side where the opposition had their best winger. Problem tonight is that forest have two v good wingers.

Chasing the game and they’ve looked way more likely to get a fourth

Fats has proved that he’s still as inconsistent as we expect probs better as an impact sub for now

Bomb scare this evening it happens from time to time with him when he seems to think he’s better than he is How any of our defenders can think that with our goals against is ridiculous but that wout for you

Winner of most disingenuous post of the evening 😄

Fair to say that we won’t see this enzo formation again this season would think the players have been asking to play this way and cooper possibly allowed it on the basis that we’ve won two the consequences may not be down to the formation but no one can argue a negative

It does make it a little easier to find winks but they have definitely got another midfielder pushed up into that press position than would be expected