There has been a lot of factors in why our season has been so bad. The start was obviously atrocious and then we started getting significant injuries.
The start was bad, but we didn't have a striker un LL arrived, and he took some time to bed in, which is understandable.
The jury is still out for me, he persisted on playing out from the back and it cost us dearly too many times to count this season.
You can lose the ball playing out from the back, or play it long to a striker not geared up for that, and he'll lose it instead, sure you're losing the ball in a better starting position, but you you get zero chance to build up play and pen them back in, so they're back in your half in no time. The end result is similar. People only tend to notice players losing the ball in their own half, yet a punt up field to nobody or clearing a ball out when you should be able to retain possession is almost as bad.
If we launch it forward, it would get picked off by the oppo, for the same reasons as above, we're not geared up for it, so we would score less. If we play out from the back and break the first line then we should have a significant advantage.
16 or so out of the 23 in the squad or whatever should be good enough to break the first line, if they can't do this it means we either have or have bought players who are not good enough. If we bought poor long ball merchants too, the result would be similar.
His subs in many games have either bewildered or killed our flow when doing well, Sunderland and Preston away spring to mind. Silvera on up top and Forss out wide! I really hope we can strengthen and push on next year and I hope Carrick in the man to do it. I still struggle to see the adulation for him considering the season we've had but I think anybody would be held in the same high regard succeeding Wilder. The Championship should be a more level playing field assuming the 3 promoted teams from last year come straight back down so who knows. We need a starting RB, CM, LW, RW and another striker, not too much to ask for.
You have to make subs though, every team has to. Lots of time we've done well is because intensity has been high, but this comes at a cost of having to sub players earlier, sometimes when you really don't want to. We beat Sunderland away 4-0, scored 2 made 2 subs, scored again, made another three subs and then scored again? OR do you mean the home game? That should have been put to bed before we made any subs, and probably would have been if we had a striker. Preston away we were 2-1 down before we made any subs. We should have beat Preston if we put our chances away, but a lack of a Striker hurt us. The problem is the quality of the subs, less so that we make subs when we don't need to.
Forss isn't a lone striker, and is good at chipping in goals from the right, or if we play two up top, but he needs a partner for that.
If playing two up top we need another striker, possibly one who is better than both Latte Lathe and Forss, but equal and them all staying fit would be ok. Jones is fine right wing, he was in great form before he got injured and helps out getting back too.
Most crucial position we need though is a ball winning centre midfielder, and one who is already good enough, and going to get better over the next few years. Good luck finding that though, they're exceptionally rare. I love Johnny, but he's not the answer for 46 games, it's not possible. His game isn't fully ball winning though, he's better going forward/ in possession than that, but it's the destroyer type player we need in the middle to compliment hackney in a 2, or to play the hold role behind Hackney and Barlaser.
We need a RB, I don't mind Ayling or Smith but neither are a long term answer and probably not good enough for a promotion team without some superstars elsewhere making up the shortfall. Happy for Bangura and Engel to fight it out on the LH side. I think Engel is dangerous in his own half (to us), but he puts some good balls in the box and chips in enough on goals, so happy to prioritise other positions first.
