Dreadful decision by Malky

sorry if this has already mentioned as i havent read any posts yet, but i couldn't believe malky opted for don cowie ahead of craig conway last night! to me that sends out all the wrong messages. Conway has been superb in pre-season, he looks lean, sharp and hungry yet once again malky opts for steady eddy cowie in a home game we're expected to win. This pretty much says to conway "no matter what you do you wont get a place in the starting line up".
I'm now also very interested to see who makes way when Kimbo comes in. i honestly dont think it will be cowie!

As for the game

it pretty much drained a lot of my pre season optimism. I pray we wont be using turner and hudson as our playmakers for the next 45 games!
I've been dreaming about 50 yard cross field passes all night. Turner must have attempted about 40 of them last night.

oh and why does malky wait until the last 10 minutes to change anything?

I spent a lot of time defending malky last season but if tonight is an indicator of what is to come this season i wont be defending him this season.

rant over!

Conway started against Newcastle, and with another game coming so soon it's plausible he was being rested. But yeah, I was surprised with Cowie proving so inefficient he didnt make a late appearance.

Your long ball fears I agree with, but the season is still young with players growing into it, so we'll see.

But let's try not to get so down on the team after one match, especially since we won. Optimism is what we need

Kimbo sounds like a ball-at-the-feet kinda player. Maybe that will make a difference.

Red614, i was buzzing after going the Cheltenham and Newcastle games in pre-season. Conway was arguably man of the match in both games while don cowie has hardly featured at all, so i was convinced we'd see conway last night.

the way we played in those friendlies was so encouraging. A fluid midfield interchanging and all coming short to receive the ball. No long balls from the center backs, and i was convinced we were gonna see a far betterstyle of play than last season. Then we play our first proper game and everything good goes out of the window! i will calm down but i'm still a bit gutted at what i witnessed last night.

Arkay v2.0 wrote:Kimbo sounds like a ball-at-the-feet kinda player. Maybe that will make a difference.

If we do intend playing long ball last night then i have no idea why malky signed kimbo at all. we should have signed clive platt!

We won last night with arguably some bad tactical decisions by Malky... I didn't get the route 1 lump it forward game, especially with a forward line that appear to live on the yellow brick road, but nothing is set in stone... I'm convinced that Malky will use the squad effectively but being able to change things does mean that bad decisions will be made... If this was the case last night we still took 3 points... I'm with Red614, be optimistic, tolerate the odd mistake and believe that we will start playing the football we saw around Christmas last year and build on the glimpses of the attacking flair we saw against Newcastle

Whittingham's talents were wasted last night. He was playing far too deep, mostly with Gunnarsson in front of him. I think that should be the other way around.....

Furthermore, Taylor & Bellamy didn't work well, but I credit Huddersfield for stifling that. Another reason why more flexible tactics would allow Whitts to move up and link with Bellamy.......the two playing closer together would have been more effective.

Have to agree on Cowie, who is a splendid 100% effort team player, but offered precious little against a well-organised side last night. Conway should have started in any event, but certainly been on for him at half time.

The one thing that worries me about Malky, is the blind faith in Cowie......seems that he must find a place for him at all cost. Last season fine, as we were running on fresh air, but this year the midfield is oozing talent and there is far more creativity available.

Don't be too harsh on Malky with the Cowie decision, as i said earlier. Kim isn't here yet, and we don't know whether Conway was simply too tired or had a minor niggle. Beyond those two, who else is an obvious choice to play that RW role? With Kim, who plays purely right wing coming and also our increasing rumours around QPR's Smith, who also plays RW naturally, its obvious he can't be relying too much on Cowie.

I was disapppointed to see Conway left out because he offers something slightly different. Cowie, Gunnarson and Mutch are all slight variations on the same kind of player

I felt sorry for Helguson in having to play the Miller role of 'frustrated onlooker' for most of the game.

Red614 wrote:Conway started against Newcastle, and with another game coming so soon it's plausible he was being rested. But yeah, I was surprised with Cowie proving so inefficient he didnt make a late appearance.

Your long ball fears I agree with, but the season is still young with players growing into it, so we'll see.

But let's try not to get so down on the team after one match, especially since we won. Optimism is what we need

I agree totally. Conway has been the stand out player pre-season. However, in my opinion the bigger mistake was the shape of the team. We went virtually 90 minutes with 1 up front. They generally weren't looking to attack so we pushed our 2 full backs up leaving Hudson and Turner at the back. The upshot was Hudson saw more ball than any other City player in the 1st half which he lumped forward almost without exception. In my opinion we could have taken off one of the centre backs and brought on another ball player such as Kiss.
We'll have to get used to teams coming here and putting everyone behind the ball and I cant't see that having one up front will be attacking enough to give us the goal return that we'll need to get the correct percentage of home wins. By all means put 5 across the middle away or for home games against better quality sides.

I like Malky but think he has a tendency to be over cautious when it comes to the league. He complained rightly about the lack of depth of the squad last year but overplayed too many players and underplayed others to the point that they were so far short of match sharpness it became a self fulfilling prophecy.

I dont like the 4-5-1 formation at home and i dont like Whitts in such a deep lying role.

Also while im on a rant i might as well air my grievances about McNaughton and to a lesser extent Cowie and Gunnarson. Kev is starting this year as badly as he ended the last and to my mind at least needs to be replaced.

Cowie is neither a creative or a defensive midfielder nor is he a winger so what is he?

Finally i am not sure about whether Gunnarson is quite the star many seem to suggest.

I would give Blake a run at right back. Play Conway wide left and Bellers wide
right and give Kiss a run in the middle alongside Whitts.

Let Etien and Helgar have the chance to form a partnership or maybe Mason and one of them but Malky whatever, be more ambitious please. Last night we were very lucky but maybe thats what the red shirt brings?

The problem with Bellamy playing out wide is that he can be easily isolated and man marked out of the game, like Huddersfield showed last night. If we are going to get the best out of him I think we should play him in a free roaming role in behind Helguson to make sure he is much more difficult to mark.

Marshall

Kev Hudson Turner Taylor


Gunnarsson Mutch


Whitts Bellamy Conway/Kim


Helguson



This is what I'd like to see.

Red614 wrote:Don't be too harsh on Malky with the Cowie decision, as i said earlier. Kim isn't here yet, and we don't know whether Conway was simply too tired or had a minor niggle. Beyond those two, who else is an obvious choice to play that RW role? With Kim, who plays purely right wing coming and also our increasing rumours around QPR's Smith, who also plays RW naturally, its obvious he can't be relying too much on Cowie.

Kim, I am sure, is another left-sided player, but that should release Bellamy to roam.

In the absence of Conway (who I thought was on the bench), I'd have gone with Kiss instead of Cowie last night. However, there do seem to be a number of niggling injuries hanging around and that may be affecting selection to a greater degree than is being admitted.