Nottingham Forest - Reading

[Strawberry Avenger]

McKenna and Arter are available tomorrow but Grabban is still out.

On the bench, I wonder?

Think we're missing Grabban.  But I can understand Chris being careful with him.  We may well need him for the final run in.  Better he be fully fit.

SA.

[Strawberry Avenger]

Which would give us 71 points acroos the season and might even squeeze us into the top 6.

The fact we played Bournemouth, Watford and Swansea also didn't help. I can't stand it when pundits say a team is doing badly because they had a tough run of fixtures.

Yeah, you've got a point there, Wassy.  I like the way you counter balance 'popular' opinions or mythos.  Forest didn't have a great set of fixtures.  Unlucky not to get points out of Swansea and Watford.  And miss the win vs Derby.  Every point counts and Forest capitulated to themselves.

Those teams are way ahead of us in terms of where they are.  Just down from the Premier with Premier squads they've had for years.  Or in Swansea's case, at least they've had continuity of manager for more than half a year and built successively season upon season.

SA.

[Strawberry Avenger]

Interesting interview with Hughton explaining his 'twin pillars' of Consistency and Durability.

"With the two left backs who have played more often, Ribeiro and Bong, they have been tactical changes. Two parts of my game, one is about consistency in the team and the other is about rotation and resting a player, and that has been the case in the left back position when in other positions I have perhaps gone for some more stability.

"If you were to play a settled and consistent back four, then it will be because they are all doing well and results are going how you want. It is difficult to do that in this league with the amount of games we play and the individuals are all different. For one player that can play game after game and have the durability to do that, there are others that have found it more difficult and we have to judge on their physical data, others are picking up injuries.

SA.

[tugger2018]

Hughton is spot on there bong is consistently useless all season

[Sniffer Dog (Admin)]

Hughton is spot on there bong is consistently useless all season

Errr no he's not. He's had one poor league game and that was at Watford up against Sarr a player who cost 30M plus and who is interesting Liverpool to replace Salah. I know you don't like Bong but no need to make stuff up.

[Jasper Scarrott]

Bong has done ok when called upon. It's wrong and uncalled for to suggest that he's been consistently useless all season. It's just not true.

[optimistic_red]

The full backs, Bong Ribeiro and Christie, have been poorly protected by wingers for large parts of the season.
However, that is only partly the reason why we have looked weaker this season.
I'd love us to go 3 at back, but would need to be for rest of season not just 1 game.

[wassy04]

The full backs, Bong Ribeiro and Christie, have been poorly protected by wingers for large parts of the season.
However, that is only partly the reason why we have looked weaker this season.
I'd love us to go 3 at back, but would need to be for rest of season not just 1 game.

Never got this desperation for 3 at the back, it's a rarely used formation at this level. Plus it takes a lot of practise and training to adapt to it.

Whenever we've tried it before we've just looked out of shape. I don't think it's necessary to use it at this level. Also it's a pretty defensive formation generally

[PsychoStanleyStone]

regarding Tuggers comment '' Hughton explaining his 'twin pillars' of Consistency and Durability.''

could translate as sameness, herein lies the problem, herein lies the reason i haven't bothered listening to Chris's pre match stuff this week

i'd completely forget about 'consistency' for a while, maybe play really badly, lazily but come to life for a few key moments and win 3 nil

i'd like to look for differant ways, several in a game, to win the game, yes the foundation would be long durations of resolute defending, maybe ultra defence for 80 minutes

but i'd prefer attacking players to not expend all there energy chasing back, i'd prefer most of our attacking players to not even appear on the pitch for an hour, there has to be times where we create an advantage, overloads and gamble

i want to move on from seeing the team competitive, all over the pitch, all game and lose 1 nil

we have perfected consistency but that doesn't translate to winning games unfortunately, if anything you could argue it has cost us 30 points this season alone

[stirred]

Reading are decent but nothing to be afraid of. They had a great start where everything they hit went in - I think P7 Pts 19 from memory. They weren’t great, but like I said everything they hit went in, a huge outlier compared to xG for the stats fans.

Since then that would make them P28 Pts 41, a little less than 1.5 pts per game. Play-off chasing standard, but not play-off makers. They’ve looked about that level when I’ve watched them too.

We should be at that level if we take the hand-brake off, but I know you won’t all agree on that - note the bookies actually have us as slight favourites though.

I’d like to see 2-1 to Forest, Carvalho with a goal and an assist.

COYR!

[Salvatore Matrecano]

I see what you did there  ;)

[stirred]

regarding Tuggers comment '' Hughton explaining his 'twin pillars' of Consistency and Durability.''

could translate as sameness, herein lies the problem, herein lies the reason i haven't bothered listening to Chris's pre match stuff this week

i'd completely forget about 'consistency' for a while, maybe play really badly, lazily but come to life for a few key moments and win 3 nil

i'd like to look for differant ways, several in a game, to win the game, yes the foundation would be long durations of resolute defending, maybe ultra defence for 80 minutes

but i'd prefer attacking players to not expend all there energy chasing back, i'd prefer most of our attacking players to not even appear on the pitch for an hour, there has to be times where we create an advantage, overloads and gamble

i want to move on from seeing the team competitive, all over the pitch, all game and lose 1 nil

we have perfected consistency but that doesn't translate to winning games unfortunately, if anything you could argue it has cost us 30 points this season alone

‘Consistent’ isn’t the word, we’re predictable, and that’s generally not good in sport, unless you have a big edge.