Chelmofox

Starting line up was our strongest 11. Subs were a product of going narrow / low block. Think we were in a lose / lose regarding the subs.

Kasey was the gamble. I presume the thinking was that he he was a bit more adaptable to playing in midfield as we narrowed, being able to track back and moving forward if needed. Mavididi has been good at that though, but i presume some of the thinking was protecting him for the future games where we won't have Fatawu. Agree with Dahnsouff though that the only other glaring change was bringing on Hamza. Noone else offered much else. There is part of me that thought that Faes was doing too much of the running for Vesty. Maybe Coady for Vestergaard to freshen up the defence might have been an option, as Vestergaard was looking very leggy towards the end. But when you look at the rest that would have been likely to be used (Praet, Sharky and Yunus), i don't think much offered anything different.

We never come out firing - its not the strategy. Agree about Doyle in this game though, but Kasey concerns me. After his injury Mavadidi and Fatawu progressed leaps and bounds, and in his recent cameos we've seen nothing that shows hes back to his previous level. Fingers crossed for him.

Just donated. Cant wait

The poster was directly referencing this match. I am not pretending everything has been perfect, but so far the evidence suggests more has been done right vs wrong.

So we lost one of our wingers, and we have one fit (and relatively Junior) striker who is going to have to last us through the entire afcon period, and the plan was to park the bus. What would the better subs have been?

Its a no win situation. If the red card happens in the 70th minute its much more likely we hang on, especially if we continued to have a bit more control of the game. But at half time. If he 'goes for it' and we lose 3-1 then everyone says he should have parked the bus. We parked the bus, so everyone says he should have done something else. Trying to see out the result in hindsight was likely the best call. I dont think anything else would have worked either.

Err, hang on. The poster said exactly this: Now, amusingly putting aside a 10 game winning run leading up to this game, and the context of what happened in the game, what evidence is there to suggest that Enzo is not learning from anything? Its an absolutely nonsense statement. Yes, Enzo has his vision and philosophy, and i would have thought we are all clear on that by now. But he has shown he is more than capable of tweaking to suite tactical scenarios and (up until this point) we had only met our match with deflected shots and worldies. Its a very impressive record. I would say this is the first game where it went largely horribly wrong (other than Liverpool). Yet, leading up to that 'moment' we were winning it the way we usually do. Enzo made a call and changed the tactic - it didn't work. Has it occured to most people there was probably no right answer in that situation. Next time this happens we maybe already chasing a game and he will approach it differently. We were poor this game, and Coventry deserved the win. Pains me to say it but they are one of the few who have actually deserved it. In this league teams teams who get promoted lose games. We are going to lose more before the season is over. Anyone who doesnt get that needs to give their heads a wobble. We all know where this statement really means. I've had to listen to dick***s at the KP saying 'this style was always going to get us in trouble', and of course 'foooooorrrrwarrds'.......

So the deal is the manager has to win every match, otherwise he is shite?

Last seasons arrogance happened over the course of 2 seasons, but capitulated over a very long period last season where even when we were getting battered consistently, there was this general air of 'its all just gonna be ok'. We need to give this team the benefit of the doubt that we are nowhere near that.

Do you watch many games these days? He has been consistently good for quite a while now - he's our joint top scorer ( i think ). He also suits our strategy (control the game 1st half, grow into it in the 2nd), and the red card yesterday meant we change strategy and didn't do our 'thing'. I thought Cov handled both wingers well in the 1st half, but if we went into the 2nd half with 11 it would have been a different story. Think your comment is pretty naive, as even the most elite of whingers have games where they can be contained, but come alive and take their chances later in games. Mavididi didn't really do much wrong yesterday, and personally i would have preferred to have kept him on for the 2nd half regardless.

91% manager confidence. Unbelievable.

Nonsense. Rodgers was doing this will 1 men on the pitch, this was Enzo trying to deal with 45 minutes of 10 vs 11. It didn't work, but it wasn't textbook Rodgers.

Everything went wrong from the moment the magic spray bottle exploded.

Disagree. This is the worst the manager and the players have performed all season. Enzo foolish to get a yellow card as well which means he can't be on the pitch against 2nd in the table. Poor all round. It happens. What matters now is how we respond.

So many names in this thread i've not seen for a while Those of you comparing Enzo to Brendan need to give your heads a wobble.

We lost a game, so this thread will go to 20 pages pretty quickly. Red card changed the game and i think Enzo showed his inexperience with it. Went to shut up shop and we resorted to parking the bus. Its a harsh reminder what football is about. Coventry are in a purple patch and we didn't turn up. Crap to lose 3 goals. They deserve it. We just have to do our job to stay at the top of the table. I'm a bit confused by the subs as we had no attacking intent in the 2nd half. We've had enough good times this year to not let a defeat bother me.

He's done it a few times. Could have seen red in his first game for us with a very similar challenge. He's young - part of the learning experience. But now its happened he will be watched more and opposition players will wind him up and try and get him to be reckless.

Effing @Ric Flair 's fault that as he predicted a red! Fatawu has had that coming. Its the sort of challenge that if the ref is in 'that' frame of mind and the angle makes it look worse then its going to be given. He's got away with a few before. A few mins before half time he simply doesn't need to do that.

I would think by now people would know the system. Don't expect to have this won by 60 mins.

Justin the right call. That's our current strongest starting 11. COYF!

Enzo is far from an idiot. He knew full well we were a club who was paying large wages for players and relegation meant that incomings and outgoings was going to be a challenge. Like anyone who wants something from their business owners, he will behave in a way where he will try and get what he wants or try and prove a point (fair game imho), but he would have reconciled in his head the realism of the situation. Unless someone is willing to take those fringe players or those with 6 months left on their deals, they aren't magically going anywhere.

Oh im not saying there isn't an issue. I just don't buy into this assertion that every other DOF is dumping out final year contract deadwood as if its easy. I'm not buying into the Saudi argument. Those who did that largely used big names and business relationships. We are already seeing Henderson and Fabinho want out because its naff (to name just 2), which will deter others doing the same. We do have big issues with those brought in that 2021 window. Soumare and Daka came with large (relative to Leicester) fees and haven't performed to a level where we are going to recoup costs, and Vesty will go on a free. There could be hope for Daka in the medium term - we will see. Longer term there should be promise though. I think we are sat on a few players who could command a very good fee if we pushed. Mads, Fatawu (when we sign of course ) KDH, Cannon and then long more term Alves, Sammy and Nelson could well get decent fees if we develop correctly and sell when the time is right. I like to think we have this potentially back on track with the next generation.

We are still talking about it as if every other team just disposes of dead wood in the last x months of their contract willy nilly. Its not an uncommon place we find ourselves with here. And the fans are bloody fickle with this shit. Back in the summer, i was pleading for the club to dump Nacho when there we rumours of interest. Lots of fans saying he was 'going to score for fun', 'he just needs a run of games', and the money it would cost to keep him outweighs the financial benefit of him running his contract down. Now look at where we are - he is running his contract down, playing appalling, and injured in the January window. Unless someone comes in completely desperate, how do you get rid? Saudi was littered with big name signings - Nacho doesn't fit the bill, and we can see the wheels is already falling off the Saudi bandwagon. Praet isn't a current Belgian international btw. Sat on the bench a few times on early 2023 but hasn't featured properly for a long time. The only way we are disposing of him is a loan where some of the wages are covered.

How long does it take a traffic police officer to drive to that bridge and remove it. It's hardly a massive use of resource.