Re: Davies: 'I'm my own worst critic'
TamKrobluesIf anybody who’d been at the club pre 2024 was surprised by the championship being physical they need sacking. It’s hardly like it changed drastically in the year we missed.
I suspect they potentially thought they could do this season what we did last season by negating physical disadvantages by being technically better. That only works when your budget is 10x the league average though.
I've thought (and said) before that I think the technical superiority and the way that we, to be honest, strolled the league may have given the management the idea that we were better than we actually are. One thing that was a cause for concern at times last season, was that when we were harassed and put under pressure physically (think Mansfield away, Stockport away, Charlton away, Bolton away, Shrewsbury away) we weren't as in control as we'd have liked to have been.
To me, and I know bugger all quite honestly, this was something that we'd address for the Championship. And I thought that we'd have more than one left back as well!
Possibly worth pointing out there that you’ve just mentioned roughly 1/4 of our L1 away games as us being physically outplayed (and probably lucky to get away with a draw in the first two). You could also add the first half of Northampton away and the second half of Wrexham away.
We didn’t play great in most of our away games last season, just scraped through a lot by being better players, or with great goals (Huddersfield, Stevenage, Barnsley), or penalties (Exeter), or both (Bristol Rovers).
It’s concerning that that’s a pattern that’s repeated this season but without the players far too good for the level to bail us out every week.
I know it sounds revisionist but how many times last season away from home did it feel like we’d just produced that one moment of quality to win against a crap team, and how many times did we actually just outplay someone.