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Post by El Goodo on Nov 12, 2023 15:20:13 GMT
We survived last season by the skin of our teeth. mainly by a person that knew how to score goals. OK, I know it helps if the striker gets good service, but at the moment I can't see any body doing the same this season Smith had 4 goals in all competitions by this point last season (3 of which were in the same game) & hadn't scored since August. Okenabirhie currently has 8 in 2 fewer appearances (& considerably fewer starts than Smith). 15 goals shouldn't be beyond him from here if we can make chances for him. We're singularly failing to do at the minute.
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lesj
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Post by lesj on Nov 12, 2023 15:29:26 GMT
As I said it does help if the striker gets good service, and do we have to rely on just one person to get these goals ?
What happens if he gets injured ?
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Post by steelr on Nov 12, 2023 15:32:02 GMT
If anyone thinks Cambridge United should be freescoring and blowing teams away in this division... I'm sorry, but you're deluded. This division is hard and we're a small club here. Disappointed and angry about yesterday? Yes, understandable. Calling for the manager to be sacked? A huge overreaction. Since the start of last season we’ve scored more than twice in a game on two occasions. Burton Albion, a club that I think most people would agree we might be able to compete with, have managed to do it on 11 occasions. If Dino Maamria can manage it, I’m sure it’s not beyond Bonner to get a little more attacking threat into our game and stay in this division.
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Post by El Goodo on Nov 12, 2023 15:34:32 GMT
As I said it does help if the striker gets good service, and do we have to rely on just one person to get these goals ? What happens if he gets injured ? Well quite. Reinforcement needed in January for sure, & we need other players to step up & spread the goals. But you said you couldn't see anyone doing what Smith did. We have someone that already is.
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Post by flouncingarburyboy on Nov 12, 2023 15:39:26 GMT
Having spent time reflecting on yesterday's game and, hopefully, now seeing the bigger picture, I've decided I'm not voting in the poll right now. I want to get further into the season, see Bonner's reaction to yesterday and then, longer term, see how he deals with those consistent inconsistencies, see the team implementing Bonner's plan and see what happens come the January window. Not sure I'll vote at all tbh but, right now, it would feel like voting for a political party when you haven't heard any politicians speak and haven't read the manifesto. Plus I still believe Bonner has credit in the bank and should be given time to consolidate our place in the league.
As others have said, a 5-0 defeat is always painful; a 5-0 defeat at London Road is unimaginably painful and I think has resulted in some of the reactions on this thread and the Peterborough United (A) thread.
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Post by The Abbey Stalker on Nov 12, 2023 15:55:11 GMT
Regular attendance of 7000 and the football is conservative at best. Imagine what it would be if we were exciting!
I’ve come to terms with the “never too up, never too down” approach of Bonner and the coaching team. If it’s acceptable for every other game in the season, no reason for it not to be for the derby games either. I just truly hope the dressing room sees a completely different version of his character from time to time.
Can’t buy all the bs about bigging up the opposition though. We’ve earned the right to play in this league, it’s a competition and it’s totally unacceptable for us not to be competitive in terms of commitment, fitness and on field aggression. If we can’t produce that in a derby game then we really should be worried.
We are once again seemingly playing in the public persona of our manager: nice but dull!
C’mon Mark, show us a bit of bite!
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Dylan
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Post by Dylan on Nov 12, 2023 16:10:21 GMT
Wrong - last season we had 19 points after seventeen games (the seventeenth game also being Peterborough away) 6 wins, 1 draw, 10 defeats. GD was -11. This season we have 20 points after 5 wins, 5 draws and 7 defeats. GD is -7. There were eight teams strongly favoured by both bookies and pundits to be fighting relegation - of those eight only Stevenage are above us; the other six make up six of the bottom seven: Cheltenham, Carlisle, Northampton, Exeter, Fleetwood and Shrewsbury. Although the gap behind the really big teams has closed a bit, we still have the fourth or fifth smallest budget in this division. We are not in the bottom four or five. Yesterday's performance was woeful, it was unacceptable. We need to see a genuine, positive reaction to that from the manager and players. Fans are justifiably pissed off after that game. However by any objective measure we are continuing to overperform under Mark Bonner. People need to get a grip... Totally agree with Nick. Just to highlight to everyone, we went into yesterday's game in a higher league position than we have finished since 1994. Yesterday was a disaster, but the big picture is still pretty decent. Does no one remember the really bad times? It wasn't losing 5-0 at Posh, it was losing 5-0 at f**king Histon. Imagine if, on the day Calderwood was sacked, someone had said "under his replacement you will secure your league status with four straight wins, win promotion the next season, win away at Newcastle in the FA Cup and stay up the season after, beat Boro in the league and pull off a miracle great escape the season after that, then sit 15th in League One in November 2023, but the price is a mauling at London Road".... I think we'd all have taken that? If anyone thinks Cambridge United should be freescoring and blowing teams away in this division... I'm sorry, but you're deluded. This division is hard and we're a small club here. Disappointed and angry about yesterday? Yes, understandable. Calling for the manager to be sacked? A huge overreaction. Pretty much where I'm at, but, without doubt, results like yesterday and that damning 'can't win from behind' stat do give rise to more doubts about Bonz than before. He's still young in managerial terms so hopefully he can develop further to improve. I do wonder sometimes whether simply not having a player of Wes' creativity is the crux of our problems. We need to sort out what to do with Digby. I don't think Bonner would never not pick him if he's fit. Two huge games coming up.
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Post by martinjohn on Nov 12, 2023 16:29:38 GMT
Pretty much where I'm at, but, without doubt, results like yesterday and that damning 'can't win from behind' stat do give rise to more doubts about Bonz than before. He's still young in managerial terms so hopefully he can develop further to improve. I do wonder sometimes whether simply not having a player of Wes' creativity is the crux of our problems.We need to sort out what to do with Digby. I don't think Bonner would never not pick him if he's fit. Two huge games coming up. I'm beginning to revise the promotion season in terms of what made us successful. I'm now shifting to believing that it was waaaaay more about Wes and Mullin than it was about Bonner. For some that might be obvious, but I previously attributed a lot of our success to Bonner's man management, dedication and drive etc. On reflection, we were actually incredibly one dimensional in the promotion season. For defence and midfield the tactic was "Get the ball to Wes" in all situations. The tactic paid off because Wes was a flipping magician, but it was the only tactic we had. As a result, I'm beginning to think that the promotion season gave us a much elevated view of Bonner's abilities, when perhaps it was more down to having two of the best players outside of the Championship.
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Post by zx10racer22 on Nov 12, 2023 16:49:47 GMT
Pretty much where I'm at, but, without doubt, results like yesterday and that damning 'can't win from behind' stat do give rise to more doubts about Bonz than before. He's still young in managerial terms so hopefully he can develop further to improve. I do wonder sometimes whether simply not having a player of Wes' creativity is the crux of our problems.We need to sort out what to do with Digby. I don't think Bonner would never not pick him if he's fit. Two huge games coming up. I'm beginning to revise the promotion season in terms of what made us successful. I'm now shifting to believing that it was waaaaay more about Wes and Mullin than it was about Bonner. For some that might be obvious, but I previously attributed a lot of our success to Bonner's man management, dedication and drive etc. On reflection, we were actually incredibly one dimensional in the promotion season. For defence and midfield the tactic was "Get the ball to Wes" in all situations. The tactic paid off because Wes was a flipping magician, but it was the only tactic we had. As a result, I'm beginning to think that the promotion season gave us a much elevated view of Bonner's abilities, when perhaps it was more down to having two of the best players outside of the Championship. Both of those players have very publicly praised Mark Bonner, what he did for them individually, and what he did for the squad. The thing that baffles me most is how some people seem to think we're currently failing? We're currently 59th in the football league. Since we got relegated from the second tier in 1993, our two best finishes in the league are 56th (1994) and 58th (2022). Yes, individual results can hurt. But overall, we're hardly having a shocker by the usual standards of our club.
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Post by zx10racer22 on Nov 12, 2023 16:53:03 GMT
‘If anyone thinks Cambridge United should be freescoring and blowing teams away in this division... I'm sorry, but you're deluded. This division is hard and we're a small club here’. I don’t think anyone has said anything about free scoring and blowing teams away. Most people want a more positive approach. Other teams have taken points off Pish this year. Salford nearly beat them at London Road last week. I don’t think its unreasonable to expect a better standard than yesterday (and what we’ve seen for large parts of the season). And people calling for Bonner to go isn’t solely based on yesterday’s shlt show. You must recognise that? If not based on yesterday, what is it based on? To repeat, since being relegated from the second tier in 1993, our two best league finishes are 56th and 58th. We're currently 59th. Where's the bigger disaster I'm missing?
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Post by whiteswan on Nov 12, 2023 17:02:10 GMT
‘The thing that baffles me most is how some people seem to think we're currently failing? We're currently 59th in the football league. Since we got relegated from the second tier in 1993, our two best finishes in the league are 56th (1994) and 58th (2022)’.
It depends how you look at it. Your point above is true and reasonable, but recent trends suggest we’re not progressing; 1 win in 11, 1 goal in 5 league games, have only won from a losing position once in 34 attempts over the last 12 months (?), passively allowing Cheltenham their first win of the season, getting ripped apart by our rivals without any real fight…the list goes on.
So, yes things could be much worse, but there are legitimate concerns that go way beyond yesterday’s horror show.
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Andrewlang
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Post by Andrewlang on Nov 12, 2023 17:14:47 GMT
Things could be better, things could be worse. If we're not progressing and we're not exactly regressing are we...consolidating? I think we're consolidating...it's perhaps slightly more edgy than we'd like though.
That there's concerns and lots to work on and improve upon seems to be the only hill the MB can climb together.
Andrew
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Post by zx10racer22 on Nov 12, 2023 18:17:15 GMT
‘The thing that baffles me most is how some people seem to think we're currently failing? We're currently 59th in the football league. Since we got relegated from the second tier in 1993, our two best finishes in the league are 56th (1994) and 58th (2022)’. It depends how you look at it. Your point above is true and reasonable, but recent trends suggest we’re not progressing; 1 win in 11, 1 goal in 5 league games, have only won from a losing position once in 34 attempts over the last 12 months (?), passively allowing Cheltenham their first win of the season, getting ripped apart by our rivals without any real fight…the list goes on. So, yes things could be much worse, but there are legitimate concerns that go way beyond yesterday’s horror show. I can understand concerns around form, of course, but people remember things with rose-tinted glasses sometimes. We lost home and away to both Stevenage and Exeter in our promotion season. We lost both games and conceded 9-goals on the road to Salford and Harrogate that season. In our first season back L1, we lost home and away to Gillingham, who got relegated. In fact, we accounted for a quarter of their league wins that season. A lack of progress is not a disaster when the club is already performing at a high level, provided the club isn't going backwards. Our record after 17 games in League One is: 21-22 = 22 points 22-23 = 19 points 23-24 = 20 points So we're being pretty stable. Interestingly, in both previous seasons, we started a bit of a bad run at this point, so our records at the half-way point of each season (23 games) then became: 21-22 = 26 points 22-23 = 24 points So 7 points from our next 6 games actually gives us our best first half of the season since we came up, and that's very achievable. Yesterday was horrible but I still don't see anything close to a crisis at the club. We've still only lost back to back games once all season and yesterday was only the second time we've been absolutely blown away.
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Post by amberandy22 on Nov 12, 2023 18:27:27 GMT
Players you would reasonably expect to score goals on a reasonably regular basis excluding Feriji;
Brophy Adhame Andrew Lankester Kai Kai May Gordon Janneh Morrison Digby Thomas
I can’t be bothered to add up the ridiculously small number these players have scored between them in the league. The players have to bare their share of the responsibility given the awful converted chance ratio we must have?
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Post by El Goodo on Nov 12, 2023 18:32:44 GMT
Players you would reasonably expect to score goals on a reasonably regular basis excluding Feriji; Brophy Adhame Andrew Lankester Kai Kai May Gordon Janneh Morrison Digby Thomas I can’t be bothered to add up the ridiculously small number these players have scored between them in the league. The players have to bare their share of the responsibility given the awful converted chance ratio we must have? 7 league goals between those players I think. Not sure chance conversion is the biggest problem though. We're barely creating. While there have definitely been a couple of occasions where someone "has to finish that", often the precise reason they "have" to is because it's 1 of maybe 2 properly presentable chances we manage to forge in a game. Pressure on that conversion is massive & I'm not sure it's that reasonable or realistic to expect a L1 midfielder, for instance, to have a chance conversion rate of close to 100%. So yeah we absolutely should expect more goals from those players and do need them to step up, but I'm inclined to cut them a little slack given how rare opportunities to do so have actually been.
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