Most of this young team is new to the championship as is the head coach and his assistants. They are bound to take time to get to grips with this league. Make errors in league 1 and 2 and you can get away with it but not in the championship. Time is a luxury we don't have but I have confidence in DStendel to find a winning formula sooner (hopefully) rather than later.We need a strike partner for Woodrow so I hope Schmidt or Wilks steps up to the plate. IMO it is taking far too long to get the ball up the pitch giving the opposition defence too much time . Our defence is being closed down,put under pressure and being forced into errors as a result. However although I like DS ,I do think his choice of personnel and formation for tonight was wrong . Thiam struggled last time at this level and will do so again. Why we played Williams and Sibbick if Pinnillos and Cavare are available is beyond me. However perhaps we all learn from this defeat including DS. It was never gonna be easy this season and so to fortress Oakwell.COYReds!!
My biggest concern is that Fulham aside we've played three teams who I think will be in the bottom third of the table at the end of the season and only taken one point. We play another team likely to be in the bottom third on Saturday so hopefully we can put right some of our problem areas and get back to winning ways. There's a long way to go but we need to improve and we must learn quickly.
My concern is our lack of goals for , especially away from home. We were never at the races today in creating goalscoring positions. For the BIrmingham second goal the lad was given the freedom of st Andrews and took his chance well. Sold Wood rows strike partner to Wigan and replacement not up to speed yet.
Perhaps I predicted it more in hope than expectation but I'm sticking to it, for now at least. PS. I also have Reading for a bottom eight spot.
I genuinely hope that you're wrong and I'm right but my history with predicting anything football related isn't great.
I don't particularly like them obviously but saying that I'd rather have more Yorkshire teams in the top tier than Lancashire or London clubs.
From memory they were not a million miles off last season and they are top after four games... I'm not seeing anything that would suggest otherwise.
They've played They've played us and Luton to get 6 of the points. Wouldnt get too excited for the Dee dars yet!
By "fortress" you're obviously referring to Daniel's long run of unbeaten home league games, but at the moment I'm not seeing a fortress. We gave Carlysle two of their three goals and Charlton both of theirs. Looking more like a gift shop than a fortress at the moment. We need to prove that Fulham wasn't a one-off by giving Luton a thrashing on Saturday. My biggest concern is that we may be re-enacting our last Championship season. Last time we were here we suffered from a weak forward line (until McBurnie arrived) and a sub-standard midfield. Exactly the problems that have popped up again (Fulham aside). Granted it's early days, so I'm not panicking, but the writing is on the wall unless the players can develop quickly and get organised into a solid unit.
