Fix Up Look Sharp

I'll have one stars for breakfast! nom-nom-nom!

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Spherical, I always find your blog very difficult to comment on for some reason. I think it's because it's hard to know where to start, and also that one can't disagree entirely with the points you make without looking like a loon.

Still, I would pick you up on this one over the "old guard" or, as they're better known, the midfield. You say you'd like a rotation policy, but is there any team in this division that has a squad packed full of such quality that they can do this? The likes of Man United can get away with it, because they're at the top of the top division. I don't see many clubs around the bottom of the Premiership using a rotation policy because the only way they can get the best out of their players is to have them familiar with each other and playing week in, week out. On the contrary, we've had too many players rotating around over the last year or so and could do with the same(-ish) team getting a run of matches and taking responsibility for it.

Unfortunately, there are always going to be games or periods where the team are not at their best and this is one of them. Several of our players are underperforming. Beckford, while looking far more interested now and at times quite threatening yesterday (and we should applaud him for that at this time) is not scoring the number of goals he'd want to. Nugent had a poor game, Dyer and Gallagher were good only in flashes and Bamba seems to have lost his confidence a little. Wellens, meanwhile, has been atrocious for two matches running now and is one change I might be tempted to make for Doncaster. But I'd keep the rest in and tell them simply to step up their game. the likes of Abe, Fernandes and Danns have not done enough to demand a permanent place yet and so should have to put up with waiting. (If they were blowing us away when they played it would be a different story.)

One final thought: I've also noticed that Abe hasn't played much. I quite like Abe as he's quietly determined and has played several good steely games, although he's not the kind who can change a game already in process he can put in a good, solid contribution to it. However, I understand language may still be a problem here and, if Abe is as undemonstrative in training as he is on the pitch, perhaps Pearson is concerned about relying on a player who he can't make respond to him? It may be that they need to time to get to know each other, although it may be that Abe simply doesn't have enough 'fire' for Pearson's liking.

Hi Dunge,

Abe - we could speculate about why he's not getting picked. one could be that he's overlooked by Pearson for those who have worked in his system in the past. This frustrates me, as I think Abe has something to offer.

Rotation - doesn't necessarily mean wholesale changes. For me it means if you are playing rubbish - you hit the bench or don't make the squad, and you get replaced with someone who has a bit of hunger. Fernandes has shown he's keen in the reserves yet he makes the bench over an ineffectual Wellens who at the minute is not doing the do.

Gallagher is injured, don't know how badly so I expect Danns will have to fill in for him, though it can be argued that he hasn't done a great job when he's come on.

It would be great if the players coming off the bench were changing games rather than just coming on for injury/ tiredness, and that you could see the impact straight from the go.

Howard has done this, but he's a player who once you see warming up, that we will all get neck strains from the amount of hoof we'll be witnessing.

I appreciate a stable team should in theory result in stable results, but as I have said, now the first few 'impress the manager' games have past by, we get lacklustre performances.

Pearson should be reading them the riot-act, and telling them you are not guarenteed a place. Sven was't afraid to take out players. Pearson should be less rigid and willing to take risk or two. He's in 'safe-mode' and the minute and the players are on a dull screensaver

Sven wrecked his team by trying to accomodate too many squad players, although he also favoured those who weren't good enough (Vassell/Pantsil) unless it was obvious they weren't doing the job. But I believe patience is the key factor, both for Pearson himself showing patience to his players and also for those waiting on the sidelines.

What Pearson still needs to work on is fitness: Watching the game yesterday, we're still not at the kind of peak levels achieved by Pearson during his previous tenure, and nowhere near where Norwich were last season. I think we've seen an improvement in this however, and a fit side will be able to look a lot better than an unfit one simply because they'll have half a yard on their opponents as the game goes on.

I don't know whether I'd call yesterday's performance 'lacklustre'.

If...we had scored 3 of our chances in the first half and the game had finished 4-1, we would be going on about a fantastic performance.

It wouldn't have taken much for this to be the case. Beckford's shot could've been 2 inches to one side, SSL's header could've snook under the keeper, their keeper could've pulled off one less superb save.

I do wonder about fitness though. After we scored we did switch off. Peterboro have had some remarkable comebacks this season so this was always a bad idea. But did we have any choice? Did the domination in the first half take it out of us and we were running on empty by the time we were defending a 1 goal lead? We have seen in the past how difficult it is to improve fitness once the season has started.

I'm not going to get carried away by this game. We did enough to win the game by a couple of goals but it just would not happen.

We're not seriously criticising Pearson are we? He's basically working with Sven's woefully unbalanced team and picking up more points than Sven did!

Yes things aren't great and we need to find more creativity from re midfield, but hopefully January will see players come in that can do this and add that much needed width and balance.

On my list is a true defensive holding midfielder, and 1 or two pacy wingers.

Get a decent winger in who can take on and beat players and put decent crosses in. Get Waghorn fit and eager and introduce him into the team. You're half way there i think?