22 minutes ago, Snowblind said:

I'm going to say that, if ELL was fit all season, and we were able to keep Rogers for the season, we'd have been well in contention for the Top 6. 

I know it's very much a case of "if my aunty had wheels she'd be a bike" (SFW version), but still. 

Very, very excited to see Latte-Lath next term with a acclimatising season behind him and another year of experience.

Also - Ayling. Sign him. Bring in a young RB to learn from him. Get rid of Dijksteel and Smith. Sorted for many years to come. 

Agree id love to see us bring in a new rb in the same mould as our more recent signings, think someone mentioned on here we were looking at Kessler Hayden, that type of signing.

I think we could keep Smith and sign Ayling since Ayling can do the RCB role also, would cover McNair as he’s probably gonna leave.

47 minutes ago, LinoJo3 said:

Agree id love to see us bring in a new rb in the same mould as our more recent signings, think someone mentioned on here we were looking at Kessler Hayden, that type of signing.

I think we could keep Smith and sign Ayling since Ayling can do the RCB role also, would cover McNair as he’s probably gonna leave.

Good call on Ayling as the McNair replacement.

 

And aye, I mention Kesler-Hayden. He'd be a top signing - can also play either side of the defence. Reuell Walters in the Arsenal U23s would be a great acquisition too, but I'm doubtful they'd let him leave permanently at this point. He's far too highly thought of there I think. 

1 hour ago, Snowblind said:

I'm going to say that, if ELL was fit all season, and we were able to keep Rogers for the season, we'd have been well in contention for the Top 6. 

I know it's very much a case of "if my aunty had wheels she'd be a bike" (SFW version), but still. 

Very, very excited to see Latte-Lath next term with a acclimatising season behind him and another year of experience.

Also - Ayling. Sign him. Bring in a young RB to learn from him. Get rid of Dijksteel and Smith. Sorted for many years to come. 

If ELL was good all season, and if Rogers was good all season, then we'd have been in contention for the top 6 is probably a more accurate statement.  However, neither was the case so we weren't.  Latte Lath is in a good run of form but he's gone from missing sitters to putting everything in the back of the net, and I'm not sure if either is likely to be an accurate picture of the lad.  I think part of what's happening with him, and with us actually, is a reversion/regression to the mean.  We've gone from conceding more goals than we 'should' have been, to hardly conceding at all, even in a game like Southampton where we should have conceded more, and getting that 'luck' of a man being sent off against us for Norwich when they were completely dominating the game.  Similarly, we've gone from not scoring as many as we 'should' have been, to scoring with relative ease - last week getting an own goal, and a deflected shot by way of an example, or even the first goal today with Latte Lath scoring from a rubbish spilled cross which he then hit with his left foot through a crowd when he couldn't finish a one v one on his left peg earlier in the season.  We're not playing well at the moment but we're getting results.  We'll know when we're properly back on track when we are doing both.  As for Ayling, he's having a purple patch clearly but again I'm not sure if that's any more than that.  He's obviously played better as we've played better, which can be said for several players at the moment, but whether that's something that you can rely on for 40 odd games a season I don't know.  I reckon we'll end up signing him though.

25 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

If ELL was good all season, and if Rogers was good all season, then we'd have been in contention for the top 6 is probably a more accurate statement.  However, neither was the case so we weren't.  Latte Lath is in a good run of form but he's gone from missing sitters to putting everything in the back of the net, and I'm not sure if either is likely to be an accurate picture of the lad.  I think part of what's happening with him, and with us actually, is a reversion/regression to the mean.  We've gone from conceding more goals than we 'should' have been, to hardly conceding at all, even in a game like Southampton where we should have conceded more, and getting that 'luck' of a man being sent off against us for Norwich when they were completely dominating the game.  Similarly, we've gone from not scoring as many as we 'should' have been, to scoring with relative ease - last week getting an own goal, and a deflected shot by way of an example, or even the first goal today with Latte Lath scoring from a rubbish spilled cross which he then hit with his left foot through a crowd when he couldn't finish a one v one on his left peg earlier in the season.  We're not playing well at the moment but we're getting results.  We'll know when we're properly back on track when we are doing both.  As for Ayling, he's having a purple patch clearly but again I'm not sure if that's any more than that.  He's obviously played better as we've played better, which can be said for several players at the moment, but whether that's something that you can rely on for 40 odd games a season I don't know.  I reckon we'll end up signing him though.

Isnt that just the old adage of luck evening out over the course of the season though? Weve been extremely unlucky in some games weve dominated and weve had that slice of luck back recently. You cant just say "all the recent results are down to a slice of good luck" without acknowledging theres points we dropped where it was a case of bad luck.

Also, it's a bit ingenious to say we would be in contention for the top 6 if xyz happened. As it happens, we are in contention for the top 6 this season, albeit marginally, despite our issues.

Worth saying that in terms of where we "should" be, we're 6th in the xPts table. Our xG is higher than the number of goals we've scored, and our xGA is lower than the number of goals we've conceded. Even after this run of 7 games.

On Latte Lath specifically, he was already outscoring his xG prior to this game. I don't know exactly what his xG was for this game, but given our team's entire cumulative xG was 1.35, I'm going to guess that with his two goals he outscored it again. Latte Lath underperforming is not the reason why we're not in the playoffs right now, unless you blame him personally for getting injured.

7 hours ago, Smogzilla said:

Absolute dog's anus of a game. 

 

But a win is a win.

Beautifully put Smogzilla and couldn’t agree more 🙂 

Woeful in first 10 minutes - maybe flat after the Norwich Ipswich result 

3 hours ago, Skinemrippers said:

We’ve had some shocking strikers over the years but I’m so excited by Latte Lath. Imagine how good he could be next year? We are seeing the foundations of a very good team imo. I’m quietly confident about next season if we use the Rogers/Crooks money wisely and keep a hold of our best players. I really can’t see us selling a load and starting from scratch again. 
 

And I’m even a fan of keeping Luke Ayling despite wanting to never see him in a boro shirt again after Stoke. 

yes after being really bad for us, hes picked up, not really being exposed for pace like he was or making the individual errors anymore. really pleased for luke as he seems like a nice guy to. 

1 hour ago, OldManGravz said:

Isnt that just the old adage of luck evening out over the course of the season though? Weve been extremely unlucky in some games weve dominated and weve had that slice of luck back recently. You cant just say "all the recent results are down to a slice of good luck" without acknowledging theres points we dropped where it was a case of bad luck.

Also, it's a bit ingenious to say we would be in contention for the top 6 if xyz happened. As it happens, we are in contention for the top 6 this season, albeit marginally, despite our issues.

I didn't say all recent results are down to a slice of luck, nothing of the sort actually.  The only time I mentioned luck was in regards to Norwich having a man sent off for nowt when they were all over us.  My post wasn't talking about luck, and Snowblind was talking about xyz and being in contention for the top 6, not me.  I just replied to his post.

Edited April 7, 20242 yr by Changing Times

1 hour ago, JCWamma said:

Worth saying that in terms of where we "should" be, we're 6th in the xPts table. Our xG is higher than the number of goals we've scored, and our xGA is lower than the number of goals we've conceded. Even after this run of 7 games.

Yeah, that's akin to what I'm talking about.  Our upturn in form is in part down to our goals for and against getting closer to our xG and XGA figures.  We're not conceding goals from dumb mistakes on this run, and we're getting goals from worse opportunities than we've screwed up earlier in the season.

6 hours ago, Changing Times said:

Yeah, that's akin to what I'm talking about.  Our upturn in form is in part down to our goals for and against getting closer to our xG and XGA figures.  We're not conceding goals from dumb mistakes on this run, and we're getting goals from worse opportunities than we've screwed up earlier in the season.

We managed to get away with a few bits of silly defending yesterday that previously were going in. 

3 hours ago, GrimsbyBoro said:

We managed to get away with a few bits of silly defending yesterday that previously were going in. 

That too.

Think it goes back to my response to Hammy's comment about how few goals we've conceded, pointing out we have mostly played struggling teams in our recent run and the only 2 goals we've conceded were against Norwich & Southampton.

So hard to know if we've really improved a lot as a team, or have just been fortunate to be playing a lot of poor teams. We have Ipswich & Leeds coming up after Hull, so I guess those games will tell us where we really are.

12 hours ago, Changing Times said:

I didn't say all recent results are down to a slice of luck, nothing of the sort actually.  The only time I mentioned luck was in regards to Norwich having a man sent off for nowt when they were all over us.  My post wasn't talking about luck, and Snowblind was talking about xyz and being in contention for the top 6, not me.  I just replied to his post.

Ah I've completely misread your post after a few gins haha. My bad

4 hours ago, AnglianRed said:

That too.

Think it goes back to my response to Hammy's comment about how few goals we've conceded, pointing out we have mostly played struggling teams in our recent run and the only 2 goals we've conceded were against Norwich & Southampton.

So hard to know if we've really improved a lot as a team, or have just been fortunate to be playing a lot of poor teams. We have Ipswich & Leeds coming up after Hull, so I guess those games will tell us where we really are.

With Rav and Hackney back on the bench yesterday, we might have them available to start those games. Which I presume will make a big difference as well. Mind you, Howson has been pretty faultless filling in at the back. 

2 hours ago, OldManGravz said:

Ah I've completely misread your post after a few gins haha. My bad

That's ok, and luck probably does play a part in it all but maybe a relatively small part.  What I was talking about though was the ability of the team, and that the ability was such that we couldn't keep making stupid mistakes that either lead to us conceding goals or not scoring goals.  That at some point it should begin to reverse itself to get back us back towards what it 'should' be.  That part of it isn't really to do with which players are available.  What I was talking about with Latte Lath was, and please bear with me with this example, but let's say that his ability means that on average he should score about 16 goals per season.  Now let's say that in the first half of the season he only scores 3 goals but should have scored more but in the second half of the season he scores 13 goals, and it seemed like every chance he had was either in or on target.  If you watched him in the first half of the season then you'd think he was rubbish, and shouldn't be in the side.  He can't score enough goals to help us be successful.  If you watched him in the second half of the season you'd think he was great, and if he plays like that for a full season he'll be 25/30 goal a season striker.  But, overall, he is still a player who will score about 16 per season.  He'll miss easy chances, and score some good goals.  Do you see what I'm getting at.  Now imagine something like that for the entire squad, we should score X goals and concede Y goals but at different points of the season we may be above or below where we should be.

I was reading a thread over on FMTTM that was about Matt Clarke, and the consensus seemed to be that our better defensive record was because he was in the side.  But Clarke played in both Rotherham games, he played in the 3-1 loss against Coventry, he played against Plymouth and Stoke, at Preston, and obviously the game at Stamford Bridge when he was appalling.  He started the Norwich game when we were all over the place.  So it's daft to think our recent run of results is down to him being in the side otherwise our results would have been better in his previous games as well.  VDB hasn't played the last four games, we've kept 3 clean sheets, are we then going to say we're better without him in the side because that's the same argument.  Thomas started the last two, we kept two clean sheets, should he start every week?  That's not to say that players don't influence results because of course they do but the evidence of our season is that for the most part we've been inconsistent no matter who has been in the side, which points to something beyond just individual players.  And in fact, as I think most people seem to agree, a lot of the goals we've conceded have had nothing to do with who we've played at the back, it's been errors in front of them that have created problems for ourselves.

To bring it back to Snowblind's post, if we'd kept Rogers we'd be closer to the top six now was one of his points.  However, our two best runs of form this season, our two only truly good runs of form this season, came without him in the team.  He was dropped when we won six in a row in Autumn, and he was obviously sold in January long before our recent unbeaten run.  So there's no reason to think we'd be any better with him here now, and that's not a judgement on him as a player, it's simply looking at what happened with him in the team.  I think if he'd still been here our results would have largely gone exactly the same way in that we'd have still had a poor/inconsistent run, but then improved results would have arrived as they have because as a team we'd have stopped making as many stupid mistakes, teams would stop taking advantage of situations quite as easily, we'd have scored some more goals to get us closer to what our goal total 'should' be, and so on.

7 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

That's ok, and luck probably does play a part in it all but maybe a relatively small part.  What I was talking about though was the ability of the team, and that the ability was such that we couldn't keep making stupid mistakes that either lead to us conceding goals or not scoring goals.  That at some point it should begin to reverse itself to get back us back towards what it 'should' be.  That part of it isn't really to do with which players are available.  What I was talking about with Latte Lath was, and please bear with me with this example, but let's say that his ability means that on average he should score about 16 goals per season.  Now let's say that in the first half of the season he only scores 3 goals but should have scored more but in the second half of the season he scores 13 goals, and it seemed like every chance he had was either in or on target.  If you watched him in the first half of the season then you'd think he was rubbish, and shouldn't be in the side.  He can't score enough goals to help us be successful.  If you watched him in the second half of the season you'd think he was great, and if he plays like that for a full season he'll be 25/30 goal a season striker.  But, overall, he is still a player who will score about 16 per season.  He'll miss easy chances, and score some good goals.  Do you see what I'm getting at.  Now imagine something like that for the entire squad, we should score X goals and concede Y goals but at different points of the season we may be above or below where we should be.

I was reading a thread over on FMTTM that was about Matt Clarke, and the consensus seemed to be that our better defensive record was because he was in the side.  But Clarke played in both Rotherham games, he played in the 3-1 loss against Coventry, he played against Plymouth and Stoke, at Preston, and obviously the game at Stamford Bridge when he was appalling.  He started the Norwich game when we were all over the place.  So it's daft to think our recent run of results is down to him being in the side otherwise our results would have been better in his previous games as well.  VDB hasn't played the last four games, we've kept 3 clean sheets, are we then going to say we're better without him in the side because that's the same argument.  Thomas started the last two, we kept two clean sheets, should he start every week?  That's not to say that players don't influence results because of course they do but the evidence of our season is that for the most part we've been inconsistent no matter who has been in the side, which points to something beyond just individual players.  And in fact, as I think most people seem to agree, a lot of the goals we've conceded have had nothing to do with who we've played at the back, it's been errors in front of them that have created problems for ourselves.

To bring it back to Snowblind's post, if we'd kept Rogers we'd be closer to the top six now was one of his points.  However, our two best runs of form this season, our two only truly good runs of form this season, came without him in the team.  He was dropped when we won six in a row in Autumn, and he was obviously sold in January long before our recent unbeaten run.  So there's no reason to think we'd be any better with him here now, and that's not a judgement on him as a player, it's simply looking at what happened with him in the team.  I think if he'd still been here our results would have largely gone exactly the same way in that we'd have still had a poor/inconsistent run, but then improved results would have arrived as they have because as a team we'd have stopped making as many stupid mistakes, teams would stop taking advantage of situations quite as easily, we'd have scored some more goals to get us closer to what our goal total 'should' be, and so on.

I pretty much agree with all that but I get the feeling that there's an Elephant in the room that you are holding back from mentioning or am I reading too much into it?