That was a really poor performance and stunk of demotivated players with not much idea of what they’re trying to do. And having no confidence when they do get on the ball so make stupid mistakes or treat the ball like a hot potato.
The midfield is a shambles. Totally overrun, leaves the defence isolated all the time. Clarke was trying to compensate by wandering out of position all the time, Gyokeres embarrassed Fry.
Thing is, I’m not sure what any new manager or new system could do with that midfield. It’s not like we can play more of them, we’re already playing them all. Wilder sort of tried to shore it up first half by dropping the wing backs (which was insane), but Bola and Smith were league one quality.
To be fair to him Crooks didn’t hide and Howson is a good footballer who has no dynamism and is less and less mobile with each game, and he wasn’t exactly Vieira to start with. Mowatt is a black hole, a defensive midfielder who doesn’t really defend, a proper waste of space. McGree has technical quality and plays with his head up but I don’t really rate him, bit tippy tappy and leaves us even more exposed. Luongo hasn’t played for months and was out of contract in league one.
That’s it, that’s all our options. I can’t see any manager in world football being able to fix that.
Wilder is doing a rank job at the minute, we look a million miles away from how dynamic we were last January. But there’s no combination of those players that’s going to get us purring, recruitment have seriously dropped the ball there.