Simply Put, when you compartmentalise these last 4 games together- it simply hasn't been good enough. This is less about the game itself, Cardiff weren't outstanding and it was a scrappy goal that settled the game- and this blog will be more to do with how we can improve over the next few games which have the potential to really shape our season.
We've won 8 Games this season (in the League), in those 8 games Bryan Ruiz and Lasse Vigen Christensen were involved every time. While I'm not saying we're incapable of winning without them- when they're fit, which to my best knowledge Ruiz is we should play them without a doubt. I touched briefly on it in my Preview blog- but the McCormack Position Debate opened up again today, in the First Half McCormack had 1 Touch in the Box. McCormack has shown what a quality player he is this season, and although his goal tally has been lackluster he has still been involved in a majority of our goals before the start of December. We need to play McCormack as an out and out striker if we are to get the best out of him- end of debate. Hugo's barren run has directly corresponded with McCormack being dropped deeper, coincidence? When we come to the Reading game we need to revert to either a traditional 4-4-2 with McCormack and Rodallega playing up front- or if we are going to persist with the diamond bring Bryan Ruiz back into the side despite the fact we may be holding off on playing him in anticipation of a bid and not wanting him to get injured. With regard to other options, there are of course people calling to recall Matt Smith given his current goal record of scoring 50,000 goals a minute at Bristol City- however I'm not sure how much Smith could do in this current team because we simply aren't going to create enough to give Smith the goalscoring opportunities he gets at Bristol City.
The Midfield is where the most debate will be had both off the back of today and for pretty much the whole month- and I can see the debate going on for pretty much the rest of the season. The Midfield we played today started in a Diamond;
Tunnicliffe, Parker, Fofana
McCormack
and we eventually transitioned into a Flat 4-4-2
Kacaniklic, Tunnicliffe, Parker, Kavanagh
The fact we played Kacaniklic on the right can be seen as a positive, and while I'm on the subject of Right-Sided Midfielders- Matt Ritchie's agent played a blinder this week didn't he? Back to players we do have at the club though- Kacaniklic on the Right and G. Williams on the Left could feasibly work if Williams could refine his game a bit more, however I would still much prefer us signing a Right-Mid with Kacaniklic occupying the Left-Wing. I've seen various players linked that could fulfill that role in the 7 days since the January Window opened- Ritchie being one of, and Ricardo Vaz Te being another. As I said in my January Window Preview as long as they're to a good enough standard I don't really care what Right-Mid we get, I'd still put the emphasis on either Lee Chung Yong or Albert Adomah- but I don't have an extensive scouting network that presumably we do so I won't get hung up if we don't sign either of the two as long as we sign someone.
As I've already said, I'm not necessarily opposed to using the Diamond if we use players that can fulfill the roles required. For Instance in October/November time we were using a Midfield of;
Christensen, Parker, G. Williams
Ruiz
This midfield- although far from perfect, had enough width to it- and enough work ethic from the two outside midfielders that it worked well enough that we picked up points regularly. I said with regard to losing Ruiz in my January Window Preview that we should revert to using a 4-4-2 and now we're without Ruiz, presumably forever now we should do so in my opinion as we simply don't have the players that suit a diamond currently. That isn't to say this dip has been entirely of our own accord, and hopefully Christensen isn't out for much longer because he seems to be the key to the success or failure of the team.
I said in my January Transfer Window Preview that I'm not overly concerned about our defence- and I am still of the position that a Right-Back and we're good defensive wise, at least until the Summer. Its funny considering everything that is the case, Hutchinson was quite shaky today- but in general he's improved lately and although we're conceding goals its not like many of them we could have obviously done better defensive wise for many of them. The same can be said for Bettinelli, in the Summer after we sold Stockdale a Goalkeeper was an area many identified a new signing would be needed for- but instead we kept what we had and (eventually) Marcus Bettinelli has established himself as our Keeper.
We've now not won, and not scored in 4 Games- and coincidentally these 4 games have directly correlated with Christensens injury, however we can't rely on certain players to be fit in order to pick up points. Especially at Championship level where 9 times out of 10 a player who's performing well will be picked up by a Premier League side- and make no mistakes we are AT BEST a Mid-Table Championship team and at the minute the Playoffs are nothing more than a pipe dream- and we'll probably need the window we're in now, and the Summer Window to correctly build a squad we can push for the Top 6 with.
Lets be perfectly honest here, unless a lot of things go catastrophically wrong we won't be relegated- not because we're good, but there are teams much worse than us such as Blackpool, Millwall, Rotherham, Leeds and Wigan and there are some teams I would expect to come around to the level we're currently at such as Charlton, and potentially Nottingham Forest. As such we should use the next 4 (and a bit) months to build for Next Season, and try to put together a good cup run to give confidence to the players and (maybe) a trip to Wembley. We're not going to get near the Playoffs this season, its kind of funny that for the large part of our Premier League life we were the definition of Mid-Table and thats the position we seem to have taken up in the Championship.
Thanks as always for reading, I know this isn't much of a Review- but the game was two pretty average teams facing off against each other and it was settled by a goal as a result of a Long-Throw, end of story. Anyway, thanks for reading- we've got to score eventually, right? RIGHT?!
