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Post by winsumluzsum on Nov 22, 2023 11:25:29 GMT
I don't want to hear that Page was responsible for that. The players produced the 50 min performance. Then a manager needs to manage things. He watches and reacts too late all the time. James must be unfit? The amount of times Broadhead lost the ball for all his energy - you can't lose it 6+ times with limited pressure when you can easily pass it on. That would cost us against a top team That's nonsense. There are momentum swings in every football game, you can't make substitutions every time that happens. Some times you have to trust the guys on the pitch to ride it out. Turkey were applying some pressure, but how many meaningful chances did they create at the beginning of the second half? They only got back in due to a terrible refereeing decision. It's a nonsense to say that Page never makes early changes in an attempt to change the momentum. You only need to go back to the Armenia game where he brought Johnson on for Brooks at 48mins - how much good did that do? He was getting pelters for making that change after the game. He also brought DJ quite early in that game, with him playing some of it at LWB, so he obviously doesn't mind making big changes to personnel and the system. Feel slightly irritated with all these things being said with hindsight, and the constant contradictions in it all. Sometimes in football things go against you and you don't get what you deserve. Last night was one of those occasions. I think the performance was very good and we deserved the win as others have said, so Page deserves credit for that. Equally, the performance in Armenia wasn't good enough - we couldn't seem to hit the levels we know we're capable of and, for some bizarre reason, failed to show more fight in that game. Some of that could potentially be attributed to Page, so fair enough he gets criticized for that. But if we look at things in the round over the course of the campaign, I would say there have been: - two excellent performances (Croatia and Turkey home) - one good performance (Latvia away) - two average performances (Latvia home and Croatia away) - two poor performances (Armenia and Turkey away) - one shocking performance (Armenia home) So a real mixed bag, but on the whole just about on par with what we could expect (maybe slightly below) in terms of performances and points tally. We ended with 12pts when a fair expectation would have been 14. Given that we've played well in 5 of the last 6 games, I really don't see the case for sacking Page at this point. I agree pretty much entirely with that. As frustrating as Page's difficulties in making effective changes during games has been he's done just about enough to keep his job for now. Listening to Osian Roberts call out many of the issues during the matches it is a bit frustrating that he hasn't been in charge. But we where we are. |
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Post by fiveattheback on Nov 22, 2023 11:41:46 GMT
In the cold light of day we as the 2nd seeds picked up 2 points from a possible 12 against the 3rd and 4th seeds. That's not a good campaign. We played well last night, but left ourselves with far too much to do after June and Saturday's performances.
Roll on the playoffs, hopefully we avoid Ukraine.
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Post by saturn9 on Nov 22, 2023 11:51:10 GMT
In the cold light of day we as the 2nd seeds picked up 2 points from a possible 12 against the 3rd and 4th seeds. That's not a good campaign. We played well last night, but left ourselves with far too much to do after June and Saturday's performances. Roll on the playoffs, hopefully we avoid Ukraine. What makes Ukraine so intimidating to forum members? |
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Post by winsumluzsum on Nov 22, 2023 11:53:27 GMT
In the cold light of day we as the 2nd seeds picked up 2 points from a possible 12 against the 3rd and 4th seeds. That's not a good campaign. We played well last night, but left ourselves with far too much to do after June and Saturday's performances. Roll on the playoffs, hopefully we avoid Ukraine. What makes Ukraine so intimidating to forum members? Well they deserved to beat us in the WC playoff for a start and have a much stronger squad than either Iceland or Finland. |
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Post by allezlesrouges on Nov 22, 2023 11:54:14 GMT
It's a funny world. People kicking off on here that Page started with Broadhead but in the stadium there's blokes kicking off behind me screaming you don't know what you're doing at Broadhead being subbed off 😂 Page definitely correct with the decision to sub Broadhead. Blokes behind you must have been on an all dayer... Yeah I thought he played well but was clearly told to just give 100% energy with the view to coming off early. Makes sense |
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Post by bale-droed on Nov 22, 2023 11:57:08 GMT
What makes Ukraine so intimidating to forum members? Well they deserved to beat us in the WC playoff for a start and have a much stronger squad than either Iceland or Finland. Yeah being in the stadium that day was probably the best moment I've experienced watching live sport but it was absolute daylight robbery that we won 😆 |
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Post by saturn9 on Nov 22, 2023 12:02:39 GMT
What makes Ukraine so intimidating to forum members? Well they deserved to beat us in the WC playoff for a start and have a much stronger squad than either Iceland or Finland. Deserved yes, but they didn't. Looking at Iceland's campaign, they conceded late to the Portuguese, put 3 past B&H. I wouldn't discard them or the Finns against us, unless something drastically changes between now and mid March. |
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Post by allezlesrouges on Nov 22, 2023 12:02:44 GMT
In the cold light of day we as the 2nd seeds picked up 2 points from a possible 12 against the 3rd and 4th seeds. That's not a good campaign. We played well last night, but left ourselves with far too much to do after June and Saturday's performances. Roll on the playoffs, hopefully we avoid Ukraine. What makes Ukraine so intimidating to forum members? Zinchenko one of the better midfielders in Europe in my opinion. Best player on the pitch when we beat them in the playoff. They've got a host of players playing in top European leagues (Mykolenko, Zabarnyi, Malinovskyi, Tsygankov, Mudryk, Yaremchuk), they performed well in their group, almost qualifying ahead of Italy, and they're obviously still quite motivated and unified by the Russian invasion too Compare that to Iceland who don't really have anyone who is a regular in a top European league anymore (Aron Gunnarsson is still their captain!), and Finland who are in a similar position with their best player being their GK Hradecky - it's much more favourable that we avoid Ukraine. |
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Post by winsumluzsum on Nov 22, 2023 12:03:46 GMT
The other thing is that UEFA will want Ukraine to be in the finals, whereas they won't be that bothered with regards to Finland and Iceland.
Interesting appointment of Jug as the referee, given he's Slovenian, next door neighbours of Croatia.
I'd like to know the nationality of the VAR officials, because whereas Jug has the excuse of only having one view of each incident the VAR officials have no such excuse.
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Post by fiveattheback on Nov 22, 2023 12:05:11 GMT
In the cold light of day we as the 2nd seeds picked up 2 points from a possible 12 against the 3rd and 4th seeds. That's not a good campaign. We played well last night, but left ourselves with far too much to do after June and Saturday's performances. Roll on the playoffs, hopefully we avoid Ukraine. What makes Ukraine so intimidating to forum members? Highest ranked team in the playoff, far better than Iceland & Finland and the whole revenge angle |
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Post by fiveattheback on Nov 22, 2023 12:07:09 GMT
Well they deserved to beat us in the WC playoff for a start and have a much stronger squad than either Iceland or Finland. Deserved yes, but they didn't. Looking at Iceland's campaign, they conceded late to the Portuguese, put 3 past B&H. I wouldn't discard them or the Finns against us, unless something drastically changes between now and mid March. They lost 3-0 to Bosnia, they beat them 1-0 at home. They're nowhere near as good as Ukraine. Finland are probably better than Iceland but still not on Ukraine's level |
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Post by saturn9 on Nov 22, 2023 12:13:44 GMT
Deserved yes, but they didn't. Looking at Iceland's campaign, they conceded late to the Portuguese, put 3 past B&H. I wouldn't discard them or the Finns against us, unless something drastically changes between now and mid March. They lost 3-0 to Bosnia, they beat them 1-0 at home. They're nowhere near as good as Ukraine. Finland are probably better than Iceland but still not on Ukraine's level How would you compare UkR to Turkey and the Croats?? Not paid any attention to their group to be honest. And I think we've handled ourselves REASONABLY well against T&C at home. |
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Post by fiveattheback on Nov 22, 2023 12:18:23 GMT
They lost 3-0 to Bosnia, they beat them 1-0 at home. They're nowhere near as good as Ukraine. Finland are probably better than Iceland but still not on Ukraine's level How would you compare UkR to Turkey and the Croats?? Not paid any attention to their group to be honest. And I think we've handled ourselves REASONABLY well against T&C at home. They drew at home to Italy & England, lost away to both. Finished 3rd tied on points with Italy. They're probably on a par with Turkey and Croatia? Finland struggled past San Marino the other day, lost at home to Kazakhstan and lost comfortably out in Denmark and Slovenia. Iceland finished a distant 4th 7 points off Luxembourg and lost every away game bar Liechtenstein. Ukraine are a step up on both. |
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Post by iot on Nov 22, 2023 12:20:00 GMT
In the cold light of day we as the 2nd seeds picked up 2 points from a possible 12 against the 3rd and 4th seeds. That's not a good campaign. We played well last night, but left ourselves with far too much to do after June and Saturday's performances. Roll on the playoffs, hopefully we avoid Ukraine. Everyone accepts the results / performances against Turkey and particularly Armenia were not good enough, but you must also accept the results / performances against Croatia were excellent and good against Latvia too. If you're not looking at it in the round, you're not looking at it fairly. We can all take away a particular set of results to match our agenda. But in my view if we judge the campaign overall, we pretty much matched reasonable expectations, perhaps falling a little short. As others have said, a reasonable prediction of results beforehand would have given us 14 points. I think we deserved that given the ref robbed us last night, but either way we've been there or thereabouts. Reading a lot of the commentary, you would think it's been an entirely disastrous campaign, but it hasn't. And crucially, we're in a good spell of form and momentum, although difficult to say how much that will mean by playoff time in March. |
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Post by conwy10 on Nov 22, 2023 12:56:00 GMT
In the cold light of day we as the 2nd seeds picked up 2 points from a possible 12 against the 3rd and 4th seeds. That's not a good campaign. We played well last night, but left ourselves with far too much to do after June and Saturday's performances. Roll on the playoffs, hopefully we avoid Ukraine. What makes Ukraine so intimidating to forum members? They were in a group with England and Italy and ran them close. We talk about Armenia being no mugs but North Macedonia have qualified for a tournament. |
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Post by winsumluzsum on Nov 22, 2023 12:57:56 GMT
I know I should let it go, but the thing that bugs me the most about the penalty decisions is the complete lack of transparency in the whole process. At the very least we should get a similar situation as the one in the Premier League where incorrect decisions are acknowledged and apologised for.
Last night left a bad taste in the mouth. If UEFA care for their reputation for competence and fairness they would get their house in order.
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Post by pclaude on Nov 22, 2023 13:48:06 GMT
Well they deserved to beat us in the WC playoff for a start and have a much stronger squad than either Iceland or Finland. Yeah being in the stadium that day was probably the best moment I've experienced watching live sport but it was absolute daylight robbery that we won 😆 We hit the post, and Ramsey missed a sitter. Bale probably should have scored as well. We were excellent in the second half. In that second half they only had a mad goal mouth scramble, and the header that forced a decent save. I should add I think they would be our strongest play off opponents by some way. |
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Post by winsumluzsum on Nov 22, 2023 14:12:04 GMT
Congrats to Page by the way for taking my advice re a 3-4-2-1. He should come on here more often...
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Post by jbt95 on Nov 22, 2023 14:48:12 GMT
Yeah being in the stadium that day was probably the best moment I've experienced watching live sport but it was absolute daylight robbery that we won 😆 We hit the post, and Ramsey missed a sitter. Bale probably should have scored as well. We were excellent in the second half. In that second they only had a mad goal mouth scramble, and the header that forced a decent save. I should add I think they would be our strongest play off opponents by some way. I agree, I recently watched the highlights back and we should’ve made it 2-0. |
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Post by fiveattheback on Nov 22, 2023 17:32:18 GMT
In the cold light of day we as the 2nd seeds picked up 2 points from a possible 12 against the 3rd and 4th seeds. That's not a good campaign. We played well last night, but left ourselves with far too much to do after June and Saturday's performances. Roll on the playoffs, hopefully we avoid Ukraine. Everyone accepts the results / performances against Turkey and particularly Armenia were not good enough, but you must also accept the results / performances against Croatia were excellent and good against Latvia too. If you're not looking at it in the round, you're not looking at it fairly. We can all take away a particular set of results to match our agenda. But in my view if we judge the campaign overall, we pretty much matched reasonable expectations, perhaps falling a little short. As others have said, a reasonable prediction of results beforehand would have given us 14 points. I think we deserved that given the ref robbed us last night, but either way we've been there or thereabouts. Reading a lot of the commentary, you would think it's been an entirely disastrous campaign, but it hasn't. And crucially, we're in a good spell of form and momentum, although difficult to say how much that will mean by playoff time in March. Results were good against Croatia & Latvia, I agree. If you look at it in the round, we didn't qualify despite beings second seeds. That's not a good campaign. Campaigns are founded on beating the sides from the pots below you, Latvia aside we didn't do that. I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to expect us to pick up more than 2 points from the 12 on offer from Turkey & Armenia. It isn't cherry picking for an agenda to point that out. That's poor, there's nothing else to be said about it and our failure to pick up even 1 win against them left us with far too much to do. It was unfortunate to get Turkey from pot 4, but we were quite lucky with who we drew from the other pots, this is a group we should have been looking to qualify from automatically. |
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Post by iot on Nov 22, 2023 20:30:18 GMT
Everyone accepts the results / performances against Turkey and particularly Armenia were not good enough, but you must also accept the results / performances against Croatia were excellent and good against Latvia too. If you're not looking at it in the round, you're not looking at it fairly. We can all take away a particular set of results to match our agenda. But in my view if we judge the campaign overall, we pretty much matched reasonable expectations, perhaps falling a little short. As others have said, a reasonable prediction of results beforehand would have given us 14 points. I think we deserved that given the ref robbed us last night, but either way we've been there or thereabouts. Reading a lot of the commentary, you would think it's been an entirely disastrous campaign, but it hasn't. And crucially, we're in a good spell of form and momentum, although difficult to say how much that will mean by playoff time in March. Results were good against Croatia & Latvia, I agree. If you look at it in the round, we didn't qualify despite beings second seeds. That's not a good campaign. Campaigns are founded on beating the sides from the pots below you, Latvia aside we didn't do that. I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to expect us to pick up more than 2 points from the 12 on offer from Turkey & Armenia. It isn't cherry picking for an agenda to point that out. That's poor, there's nothing else to be said about it and our failure to pick up even 1 win against them left us with far too much to do. It was unfortunate to get Turkey from pot 4, but we were quite lucky with who we drew from the other pots, this is a group we should have been looking to qualify from automatically. True we were second seeds and we didn't qualify, but surely you'll agree that's an imperfect way of judging our performance? Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I always thought it was going to be difficult to top Turkey. If you were to forecast our results beforehand, can you honestly say you expected us to get more than 14 points? If so, I personally think you have an overly optimistic view of how good we are. I haven't said it was a good campaign. What I, and others, have said is that around 14points would have been par for the course - anything above that would have been a good campaign. We're slightly below it, although I do think we deserved 14. "I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to expect us to pick up more than 2 points from the 12 on offer from Turkey & Armenia. It isn't cherry picking for an agenda to point that out." I'm sorry, but you're twisting things slightly there - you're building a strawman. I don't think anyone's said that it would be unreasonable to expect us to pick up more than 2pts against Turkey and Armenia - on the contrary, but if you only focus on that then it very obviously is cherry picking. And if you're only focusing on that, I think it quite clearly is to suit an agenda, otherwise you would be looking at things in the round to form a more balanced view |
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Post by winsumluzsum on Nov 22, 2023 22:42:13 GMT
The real frustration is that we deserved to get 3 points against both Turkiye and Croatia, and so we proved to be their equals. And yet we deserved to get 0 points against Armenia (they created 3 good goalscoring chances second half, the one against the underside of the bar, the curled effort which Ward saved where a low effort would probably have resulted in a goal plus the late effort skewed wide after an intricate passing move in our box), the 4th best team in the group.
So, in terms of the quality we've manifested on two occasions in the group we should have finished with a similar number of points to Turkiye and Croatia - which is what a win and a draw would have delivered.
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