Poya style

From what i saw of us under Schopp, we started pretty much every game with the same formation, and conceded goals / clear chances in the same manner every time. A punt behind our wing backs, with three centre backs staying narrow and then giving their winger a clear run on goal. It was like watching the same game over and over again. And he persisted with playing 3-4-3, despite being overrun in midfield and not having 3 decent forwards.

Nothing improved. We just got worse and worse. In that 7 game losing run before he was sacked, we scored 4 goals, 2 of which came when we were already 3-0 down, and a player interview after the game suggested that the players just went away from what the coach was saying. The squad Schopp had available was weak, no doubt about it. But he actually made things worse in my opinion, and the players' confidence were shot as a result.

Poya has undoubtedly made mistakes, but he was willing to take some short term pain to try and solve some fundamental issues caused by Conway and Schopp. We lost two games in December, one because the team switched off at a set piece, and another because we lost Helik when playing against one of the league's top scorers. Then January was a car crash, with Covid and injuries in the camp.

Wolfe, Bassi and Quina have obviously helped, but I don't think it would've made any difference under Schopp, unless he solved some issues that he wasn't able to solve in his time here.

 

Thought I'd read somewhere, that he wasn't far away from coming back.

 

Two more weeks.

 

All i've seen is some clips on social media of him in the gym. If he's not out on the training pitch in the next 2-3 weeks, then he's unlikely to play again this season I'd say.

 

Personally I felt Poya pre-January with Morris & Anderson available was worse than Schopp earlier in the season with a much weaker squad & the games in between them both without a manager were even worse.

Normally if it’s the managers fault that the teams struggling then you see some kind of improvement when he’s sacked which we didn’t get, we went the other way.

I just don’t see anything tactically that he’s done or doing to turn us around. I believe it’s the individual quality of players like Morris, Quina & Bassi & the general level of fitness improving through lots of games that’s made the difference. I think we’re also getting incredibly lucky. We should’ve lost both the Stoke & Fulham games were it not for a dodgy penalty & poor finishing on their part & we could’ve thrown it away last night with the amount of free headers they had second half.

In terms of formations earlier in the season I wondered if we’d be better 5-3-2 than 5-2-3 but Poya himself seemed to agree with Schopp as after a few games trying to play a back 4 he reverted back to Schopp’s system. I think both realised how far off it Benson & Palmer are which left us short of options in the middle.

Others may disagree but I believe we regularly had 4 or 5 players starting earlier in the season who either weren’t good enough or weren’t fit enough where as now we’re able to put out out a solid championship side most weeks. People are moaning about the lack of options off the bench but the main thing these ‘weak’ options off the bench aren’t having to start regularly.

 

Two weeks Woodrow!

 

If he goes back to performing like he did after the wait when he first signed I'll be happy!

 

Absolutely!

 

I think the general issue of teams being able to play an aimless ball down the channel and then find themselves clean through on goal isn't as apparent under Poya as it was under Schopp. I didn't see anything from Schopp to suggest that he would do well with better players, because the team were simply setup in a way that was going to fail. Even if the quality isn't there, you'd expect the organisation and motivation to be there. We had no organisation, and the players had no faith in him.

As for last night. We could also have won 3 or 4 nil.

But, it's all about opinions, If everyone's was the same, forums like these would be threadbare.