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Matchday Thread Birmingham v PNE 01/04/24 - KO:3PM - Championship

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Matchday Thread Birmingham v PNE 01/04/24 - KO:3PM - Championship

Portishead said:
Its a lack of club ambition. If the ambition is to stay in the division, the manager sets out as today, and keeps his job with a close defeat rather than a potential 3-0 defeat. If its to get promoted, then he sets out to win at all costs or risks losing his job. Its quite simple. If I was Lowe, Id do the same. As have numerous predecessors
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As far as early - even first half of the season - games are concerned, I'd agree, but Lowe knows his job wouldn't have been in jeopardy if we'd lost 3-0, or even more heavily today, so why not set up to win?
 
Portishead said:
Its a lack of club ambition. If the ambition is to stay in the division, the manager sets out as today, and keeps his job with a close defeat rather than a potential 3-0 defeat. If its to get promoted, then he sets out to win at all costs or risks losing his job. Its quite simple. If I was Lowe, Id do the same. As have numerous predecessors
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Yes, Lowe will have seen that a top half finish was enough to get Grayson and Neil moves to bigger clubs. No need for a top six finish.

The players will have seen the lack of January signings despite our lack of strength in depth. But, I'd wager most will be content to have guaranteed contracts for next season. ("At least")

The ambition, desire and ability to get promoted is ultimately dictated by the hierarchy. Until we see changes at the top, seasons like this one will remain our zenith. Unfulfilling experiences but consistent & predictable.

Read any quote from the Ipswich hierarchy. And compare it to our own. Night and day. That's why they're top after one season at this level. While we are still consolidating after a decade.
 
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Schemer said:
As far as early - even first half of the season - games are concerned, I'd agree, but Lowe knows his job wouldn't have been in jeopardy if we'd lost 3-0, or even more heavily today, so why not set up to win?
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No comprendo. He sees out the season calmly with no heavy returns and his jobs as safe as houses. He gets tonked going all all out for wins against relegation fodder and people start questioning his credentials again. Keep the management happy with safety first approach, he's safe, job done. You can read the excuses in the posts here. Injuries, never beat Rowett, difficult opposition blah blah. Its like a given we end up mid table if thats the stretch goal. Thats how it works
 
Games like today happen when you're missing three of your best players and you start a 19 year old in midfield, it's no coincidence we don't play as good as we can when some of our best players are on the pitch.

An unfortunate two slips and it gives Birmingham the 3 points who are fighting for their lives.

The damage to any top 6 credentials were done long before todays game, you can't have our Christmas period and expect a consistent top 6 push.

I'd rather be chasing the top 6 like we are doing than fighting for our lives or be in the position of teams like Cardiff and Bristol City.

No doubt that if we want to be a consistent top 6 contender we need to upgrade the defence and the bench.

Hopefully the hierarchy do have the appetite for this, the summer of Frokjaer, Mulitin and Millar show that they do. Summers like that need to be the rule not the exception going forward.
 
Doyler said:
Yet another occasion under this manager where we fail to beat relegation fodder. We’re closer to bottom 6 standard than we are top 6.
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The league table doesn’t lie though does it and we are close to the top six which we have been for years. The issue is and always have been we don’t bring in that extra quality when we should.

Saying we are closer ti the bottom six than top six is just factually incorrect. We have also beaten quite a few of the top half sides this season.

It’s the championship. I’m sure Coventry and Norwich fans were raging when they lost to Rothertham. These results happen. We aren’t good enough for the top six but we have a good nucleus of a squad who can compete with a few extra signjngs in the summer.
 
No Danger said:
Mid table quality overall. Can look decent at times but when we are bad we can be appallingly so.
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Always North End that we can put on some very good performances against top sides and look decent but when we are bad we are bad. How many times have we lost by 4 goals this season & past. We do always seem to be up there within last month or so

There are some good players here but we seem to fall away every other season.
 
Morse said:
That sounds familiar?.....
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Indeed, but I think we have the best nucleus of a squad we’ve had in many years.

It won’t take a huge investment to make us a top six team. The question is whether Craig Hemmings will twist, or stick like his dad used to.
 
Just watched Ipswich v Southampton...a class apart from us...both have players we can only dream of....pisses me right off and ruined my weekend seeing their skills and abilities and quality of players....
 
beagleman said:
Just watched Ipswich v Southampton...a class apart from us...both have players we can only dream of....pisses me right off and ruined my weekend seeing their skills and abilities and quality of players....
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And yet we bean Ipswich a few weeks ago and came very close to beating Southampton earlier in the season, on our day, we can compete with the top teams in this division, unfortunately, we have too many days like today
 
LostinSpace said:
I don't believe that the players don't want promotion or can't be arsed. The way I see it is that once we start to depend on strength in depth due to injuries, we simply aren't good enough.

I'm still pissed off that we didn't strengthen in January.
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Exactly right. Of course the players want promotion, why wouldn’t they? All this crap about having the flip flops on or bottling it is just petulant. Injuries crippled us today and the squad depth just isn’t there.
 
Hypnotoad said:
That’s it. All over when Top Mod calls it. 🫤
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Didn't say it was over to be fair, although it has always been unlikley.

Today was a massive opportunity missed - next week is must win now.

The number of times we play sides that need a result and we get results like that has become an annual event.

Frustrated and disappointed today but will look forward to Gentry Day from tomorrow.
 
norky84 said:
But when you're effectively 6 points behind, it's a game less to close the gap.

I've said on another thread, I can't see Norwich getting anything less than 8 points from their remaining games. That would mean we need 14 points from our last 7 games to overtake them. That's a minimum 4 wins and 2 draws or 5 wins best case scenario.
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Agree, people are forgetting the season isn’t infinite.

Ok the gap isn’t any wider, but we’ve just used 12.5% of the games we had to close it.
 
northender2 said:
And yet we bean Ipswich a few weeks ago and came very close to beating Southampton earlier in the season, on our day, we can compete with the top teams in this division, unfortunately, we have too many days like today
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I’m just coming back to simmer from boil and am willing to write off today as a bad day all around.
Lets get at least Millar and Browne back to full fitness and concentrate on Gentry Day.
 
This is our 9th season back in the Championship, and only once have we had something to play for on the final day. This looking no different.

The closest we finished to the play off spots are 2 and 4 points off. It's quite likely we finish no nearer this season. A lot needs to change on and off the pitch, but it won't.
 
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