I've just watched the penalty incident several times and can't see any contact prior to the Lincoln player going down. I'll stand by my dive claim.
Balham_Green":kpfahtgz said:Its a pity a large part of post match debate is about a penalty decision which masks the inadequacies of Argyle's performance and asks questions about their potential this season. That after 2 easy home matches which seemed to convince many we were going to challenge at the top. :funny: There are fundamental flaws to this squad. Hope Lowe knows what he's doing.
jimsing":5ora2l9m said:Balham_Green":5ora2l9m said:Its a pity a large part of post match debate is about a penalty decision which masks the inadequacies of Argyle's performance and asks questions about their potential this season. That after 2 easy home matches which seemed to convince many we were going to challenge at the top. :funny: There are fundamental flaws to this squad. Hope Lowe knows what he's doing.
ALL teams have flaws, Balham, even in the Premiership.
Especially ones who have just moved into the division.
Especially ones that have been affected by covid.
We haven't played ten games yet and you are questioning the manager?
Do you expect perfection always?
Constructive criticism required at this stage of the season, Balham, rather than bland phrases of criticism, without any thought put into them, just because a game was lost?
We will lose more games as the season unfolds. Will that mean the manager has lost it again?? Will that mean we will still be flawed? Will we ever become perfect, and is perfection your objective for the team because you are going to be well disappointed?
We lost an away match, it won't be the last, we move on to the next one, hoping covid doesn't interfere too much with our match squad, but we will be willing to adapt if required, knowing that we may not be able to put out a full strength side, but that the side that we do put out will be battling as best as it can under the circumstances.
They may not meet your standards of perfection but they will be trying hard to get the three points on offer, which is all we, as supporters, can expect.
At least I'll be happy with that.
Balham_Green":pzgzkhbt said:jimsing":pzgzkhbt said:Balham_Green":pzgzkhbt said:Its a pity a large part of post match debate is about a penalty decision which masks the inadequacies of Argyle's performance and asks questions about their potential this season. That after 2 easy home matches which seemed to convince many we were going to challenge at the top. :funny: There are fundamental flaws to this squad. Hope Lowe knows what he's doing.
ALL teams have flaws, Balham, even in the Premiership.
Especially ones who have just moved into the division.
Especially ones that have been affected by covid.
We haven't played ten games yet and you are questioning the manager?
Do you expect perfection always?
Constructive criticism required at this stage of the season, Balham, rather than bland phrases of criticism, without any thought put into them, just because a game was lost?
We will lose more games as the season unfolds. Will that mean the manager has lost it again?? Will that mean we will still be flawed? Will we ever become perfect, and is perfection your objective for the team because you are going to be well disappointed?
We lost an away match, it won't be the last, we move on to the next one, hoping covid doesn't interfere too much with our match squad, but we will be willing to adapt if required, knowing that we may not be able to put out a full strength side, but that the side that we do put out will be battling as best as it can under the circumstances.
They may not meet your standards of perfection but they will be trying hard to get the three points on offer, which is all we, as supporters, can expect.
At least I'll be happy with that.
ha hilarious. Where' s the criticism of Lowe?? I said 'I hope he know what he's doing'.
There is a big difference between seeking perfection and fundamental flaws. And a big difference between flaws(which we know every team has) and FUNDAMENTAL thaws. Get the distinction? By the way we have a BIG squad in case you haven't noticed.
philevs":1q79y8uu said:I shall be interested to hear Balham Green’s reply and expert explanation of what exactly are the (quote) “fundamental flaws to this squad” which he referred to.
Accurate assessment, Nobby.Nobby":lvtb7isp said:philevs":lvtb7isp said:I shall be interested to hear Balham Green’s reply and expert explanation of what exactly are the (quote) “fundamental flaws to this squad” which he referred to.
I'm not BG, and often take a more positive outlook than he does, but I think he's right to say we have some fundamental flaws. How fundamental they are may differ depending on your opinion, however the ones I see:
- Tactically not very diverse
- Don't have an effective target man
- Defenders are not good enough on the ball.
- Unproven strikers at this level.
- Too reliant on Mayor for creativity.
The obvious fundamental problem is the Defence, but I think the Defence is better defensively and structurally than we saw in the opening couple of games. I think we still push the full backs slightly too high and that's going to lead to us conceding chances. Jorge Grant had particular fun down our wings on Tuesday. The biggest problem defensively for me is the ability of our Defenders to play out from the back. Canavan is good at it, Watts is comfortable with it, the rest not so much. Aimson has really disappointed me so far this season. I possibly expected too much based on limited appearances last year, but he has looked wasteful in possession (particularly long balls are bad) and he doesn't read the game particularly well. Opoku I like the look of defensively, but on the ball feel he has been sloppy so far, but that is based on limited minutes and as we are seeing with Kell Watts, he may sharpen up with more game time. Wootton, we all know his deficiencies. Prone to mistake and slow. However, he is confident stepping into midfield with the ball and if we are going to play a 3 at the back, it's important one of the outside centre backs does this well. It gets us up the pitch and creates space for the midfield players. Sheffield United are a particularly good example of it.
Tactically, I would like to see us consider playing a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, as I feel this really would suit our personnel. Regardless of the formation, I would like to see us focus our play through the middle more. I think our midfield is our strength and often we either a) go over it, or b) go around it. The more Mayor is on the ball, the better we will be. When we're chasing late on, sacrificing a defender for a forward seems sensible. Whilst I respect Lowe's commitment to our "brand of football", i think he could be more flexible and apply it in a different formation. Changing to 4-3-3 doesn't mean we'll immediately turn into Wycombe (thank the lord).
In attack, I remain unconvinced by all of the options. Hardie has the most quality, but has made a slow start. Nouble, I don't quite see what others do, doesn't look particularly potent and hold up play seems pretty average to me. Telford is a cameo player. Abraham, yet to be determined. Jephcott has had injury problems but is amongst the goals. Probably the first choice for me, however. None of them have a record of scoring at L1 level and admittedly our chance creation has been limited, but lack of intelligent movement can be part of the reason for that. I would go with Hardie and Jephcott, personally, as they're the only pairing where I see evidence of chemistry. We are currently playing quite direct and need the forwards to retain possession better to bring the midfielders into play higher up. It's not happening and that's why as I've said above, I'd prefer us to play through the thirds more and get the midfield with the ball at their feet.
Creativity is the biggest issue, I think. Spamming crosses of mixed quality into the box appears to be our main avenue of attacking, but I don't think any of our forwards are particularly good in the air (Jephcott again probably best). We created one really good chance on Tuesday where Mayor slipped it through for Jephcott. That was a chance we created quite a few times last year and i'd like to see it more. Our final ball needs to improve. Mayor, Moore and Cooper have the quality to put it on a plate for the forwards, we've seen them do it, but right now it's to inconsistent.
Despite all of the above, there are also plenty of positives and generally our performances have been 'good', if not spectacular. The other thing is that a lot of other teams will also have 'fundamental flaws', if they didn't, they wouldn't be in League One. I don't think any of our flaws are fatal to our chances. They require a tweak in style (less direct and play through the middle more) and a tweak in structure (drop the wing backs a little deeper). Plenty to be positive about and as someone says above, so far our opening fixtures show we are a competitive side at this level. The aim this year will have been consolidation and we look capable of that on the evidence so far.