Second half performance

I’m not sure what people are expecting. Coventry had almost no injury concerns, i think they had one player unavailable from their whole squad, whereas we have been playing for at least half of the season so far with an entire team of regulars missing - that is going to have an effect in terms of fatigue on those that are playing every game. Looking at the bench it was clear from the start that we had no one on there that could turn the game for us. It’s where we are at and we just have to tough it out till we do have these players back
 
No team in the league could handle the injuries and player unavailability we have at the moment. it's good work for us to be keeping in touch with the top 6. I thought we looked knackered today in that 2nd half and we had zero options on the bench.
Robbins has done us 3 times now and it's simple to see how. Any team that man marks or presses hard on our centre halfs and centre mids when the keeper has the ball get results. This has happened a few times lately and we can't seem to get through it. The teams that do this to always get results. The centre press is exposing the quality of the full backs and they are our weakness in this situation , as they offer no direct plan b alternative to getting the ball out through the centre from the goalie. RVDB at right back limits our play going forward to much, Engle is very hesitant to attack the least man when one on one and still seems to get caught the wrong side or doesn't close down quickly enough.


I hate to say we have been sussed out, but more teams this year have got a result out of us by pressing the central 4 than last year, Ipswich did us by playing a better version of our 4231 .. with 2 defensive players in front of the back 4 ( Al-a Karanka model) maybe we need to use this approach as an alternative?, but it still falls down at the attacking quality of the full backs we have currently.

Work needed in the transfer windows to address this, in my opinion we are building up to giving it a good go next season, when the league will be appreciably weaker than this year.
 
Quicksilvera said:
It was clear to see that there was a big element of fatigue amongst the players.

Barlaser and Greenwood looked exhausted.
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So the half time break done for us then? Full of energy in the first half to completely knackered in the second half? We conceded 3 goals again through defensive errors.
 
The Clarke engel Greenwood triangle was exploited time after time. Coventry started virtually every attack on our left after running through non existent tracking
 
LessoftheLip said:
We played a good first half certainly. But the tiredness excuse annoys me. No Boro supporter at half time would have said "great first half but I bet we'll be knackered from the 46th minute onwards, play poorly and get battered for most of the second half".

That was a representative starting 11 we put out today and we should have competed much better in the second half.
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I don't know about 'get battered' but 'great first half but I bet we will be knackered in the 2nd half' is exactly what I said at half time.
 
BoroPhil said:
I don't know about 'get battered' but 'great first half but I bet we will be knackered in the 2nd half' is exactly what I said at half time.
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I said in the first 5 minutes we need to win the game inside 60 minutes.

It was obvious given the state of the squad and how tired those that are playing are.

Some proper moaners in our fan base.

Masterclass from Robbins, right oh.
 
Diego said:
There were a few who had stinkers in the second half, namely Barlaser, Greenwood and Engel.

We aren’t going to win games if we are carrying players. Which is what we were today.

I felt for Carrick today having to look at that bench to try and change things. We desperately need some new signings and a few back fit.

Villa game is one I’m not fussed about now due to the state of the squad, all eyes on Chelsea.
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Agree.

The atmosphere was terrible today.

Full of one game a season moaning fans. I can’t get my head around leaving a game 25-30mins early and booing.

Semi finalists of a cup and 4 points off 6th.
 
Redlips said:
Agree.

The atmosphere was terrible today.

Full of one game a season moaning fans. I can’t get my head around leaving a game 25-30mins early and booing.

Semi finalists of a cup and 4 points off 6th.
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Yep we’re still in a good position, i feel we need to get luckier with injuries and to recruit well this month though to have a chance of kicking on again otherwise I think we will be a bit inconsistent
 
First half we were class. I said after about half hour that we needed to take some of our chances as Coventry would be better second half.

Josh duly obliged but giving away the equaliser straight after was the turning point.

That gave Coventry a shot in the arm. We had a couple of great openings at the start of the second half but through balls were misplaced (complete opposite to first half). After that you could slowly see us dropping off the pace.

Coventry were bringing on subs who started most of last season. That was the difference. In the final half hour they just looked a lot fresher and energetic than we did.

One game too far against a half decent side. Let’s hope we have some returning senior players over the next fortnight and some new signings. Desperately need it!
 
On The Bob said:
First half we were class. I said after about half hour that we needed to take some of our chances as Coventry would be better second half.

Josh duly obliged but giving away the equaliser straight after was the turning point.

That gave Coventry a shot in the arm. We had a couple of great openings at the start of the second half but through balls were misplaced (complete opposite to first half). After that you could slowly see us dropping off the pace.

Coventry were bringing on subs who started most of last season. That was the difference. In the final half hour they just looked a lot fresher and energetic than we did.

One game too far against a half decent side. Let’s hope we have some returning senior players over the next fortnight and some new signings. Desperately need it!
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I hate playing Coventry. Never confident of a win
 
It was obvious that the players were knackered in the second half. Carrick and Their manager said as much in their post match interviews.

I don't think you can make judgements about the team when we've pretty much got a first 11 injured or away. I think the players deserve some credit for keeping in touch with the playoffs.
 
indeedido said:
If you can't see that Robbins turned the match and exploited our clear weaknesses then I'm not sure where you were looking.
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Not really what I said though is it.

In the two play off games last year Coventry had 1 shot on target in 2 games. It wasn't a tactical Masterclass. It depended on a marginal offside decision against Jones and us hitting the woodwork.

Today he could make changes, we couldn't. Again not a Masterclass in tactics.

If Coventry hadn't won that game he would have some serious questions to answer.
 
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