Part of the reason Wycombe have made a slow start is down to them not replacing David Stockdale. They've been reliant on a young inexperienced keeper until signing Stryjek on Thursday. He pulled off a few great saves and did the basics well. Had we faced Dickinson, who has come in for some criticism this season, and got the first goal, the game could have been different. No arguments though, we were bettered by a stronger team. Duff's still got a lot of work to do, and we're clearly still a few players short. No need to panic just yet.
I keep thinking of Wilder when he took over at sheff united (was it 2016?). He couldn't buy a win or a point and in this division for the early games. There are things that don't look right at the moment but Duff looks very capable of turning us into a much better team....its going to take time.
You’re both right and if we had their young keeper to beat it could have been a different game. Bottom line though is that they played like they wanted it more, and we rolled over and gifted them the points.
To be fair to Duff , he has been in charge for 6 games of which we have won 3 ,so a 50% win record so far , pretty good me thinks.
With a team in transition too. The 3 sides we've been beaten by are fancied to be challenging the top 6. I just hope that faith is kept with Duff throughout our next 3 league games too, which are absolute doozies. The Leeds and Lincoln Cup games allow us to play with nothing to lose, but I can see people getting restless if we struggle against Wednesday, Ipswich and Portsmouth. After that, we've got a really favourable run leading up to the world cup break.
Imho managing our expectations for some will be tough.. I try to look at things like our next 3 games (league) and think i will be made up points wise if we get 2 points (it may be none). That doesn't mean I don't passionately want 9 points ...of course we all do. I just believe we are playing arguably the best 3 teams in the league who are now seasoned pros at this level. Our coach knows he needs players to improve us...but is unlikely to do so. He also needs time ....there have been signs (benson) that he can do just this. Some of these players are not ready for what he us trying to do. My dad was highly critical of Williams and Kitchen yesterday but at the moment there isnt much on the bench to improve anything.
I’m generally fan of Williams but no idea what happened to him yesterday as that’s probably the worst I’ve seen him play. Nothing worked but he has shown enough even at Championship level that he is good enough. Hopefully it was just a one off I’m generally not a fan of Kitching but defensively he did ok and he got into some good positions going forwards and one great run when he carried the ball up to the edge of the area then wasted it. My only criticism is his final ball is woeful either the wrong option or overhit. If he can improve that he may make a decent L1 player yet. He certainly wasn’t our worst player
Do you find though that the knives come out for Williams as soon as he makes one error? He made a mistake in the first half yesterday, and the groans began, and I think that makes him nervous. He seems to be given less slack than most for some reason, and rarely comes in for praise when he does have a good game. Just my observation like, and I know many will disagree.
As I've said before I prefer Williams as one of the back three because of his pace and he's not good enough going forward to play wing back but to single anyone out yesterday would be unfair individually and collectively they weren't good enough. That's when you need a strong bench so you can make changes and hope it lifts the team let's see if the squad looks stronger by the end of the week.
Williams was getting dog's abuse from very early on and he was clearly affected by it. The new Nicky Eaden.
I was just about to post this. I distinctly remember Eaden doing an interview at one point and saying he felt that because he was a product of the youth side and because he played wide, near the stands that he was an easy target for the boo brigade.
