Batley Blade

I thought our poor first half was largely down to Villa's work ethic. As soon as one of our players got the ball they were closed down. Plenty of our lads struggle with time on the ball, so when closed down straight away they resorted to "getting rid". There was no way Villa could keep that up for the whole match though, and this showed in the second half. Petrov apart I thought there wasn't much between the teams. Another good point

True. Maybe I'm getting carried away with Warnock playing the extra striker, but if we're gonna continue playing 2 defensive-minded midfielders then we need our wingers/wide-midfielders to be attack-minded.

I'd start Nade as well. He was awesome last night. Just needs a bit of composure and get his head up a bit more. Warnock needs to get him to one side today cos his confidence looked shot when he came off. One-on-one practice required... I'd bring Webber in to replace Quinn. I've always stuck up for Quinn as he's the one player in the MF that can provide a spark and he takes risks instead of playing safe square balls...he's providing absolutely nothing lately, gets knocked off the ball easily and is taking up space in a team where we can't afford to carry players.

Maybe we could get Dani Behr on the backroom staff - she's always been able to attract top quality Premiership players

Why's that?

England play Holland in a friendly around the middle of November, but it's just one game on a Wednesday so can't see there being much of a break

Not a BAD player but his lack of match practice and the fact he can't get in Charlton's team despite them being riddled with injuries and bottom of the league may be a concern! Hopefully by then we'll know if Li Tie is up to the job or not.....

The only thing about Downing's performance that was international-class was the dive that led to Bromby's booking. 10/10 for that one - the Portugese will be looking on enviously.

Looks like Lucketti's on his way after being told he can leave (apparently). Also, has anyone seen the front page of the SUFC website? "Attack Attack Attack" sez Warnock Let's hope so

I actually thought the front two did okay against Reading. It was the rest of the team that was awful. Ade had one of his better games in terms of controlling the ball, holding it up and laying it off. You'll always get 100% when it comes to chasing lost causes but when we're under the cosh (which we will be a lot this season) we really need the ball to stick up front more often than not, and Ade can't always help us out there. I sit on the kop and agree that he does get a lot of grief, but from where I'm sat Unsworth usually gets the most.

I'm finding a lot of what he does strange at the moment. I remember listening to the radio on the way back from Cardiff when we'd been beaten by Wolves, and they were saying how the Premiership would be missing out on one of the game's characters in Neil Warnock. I can't help feel as though this has all gone to his head. Starting with the comment "I was top of the Premiership for 20 minutes or so" after the Liverpool match, and since then he has been changing his tactics every game as if he believes he's some master tactician and that we need to play different systems against every team. Surely continuity would improve the performances? Let's just do the talking on the pitch please Neil, and get some points on the board. Another winnable game on Saturday so let's make sure we get our team right so we don't end up putting in another "Reading performance".

Jags plays well as a holding midfielder - he did the job well towards the start of last season - break up the opposition attack, then play a simple ball - but when it comes to actively making the play he struggles to make an impact against half-decent midfields. It's either centre-half or sub for me.

No, on my previous post I said I do think that Warnock had a "master plan" and must've thought that the long ball would cause Reading more trouble. Why he thought that we can only wonder...

Er...so you agree then?? That's what I said

But the question is, has Warnock learnt anything from that?? I wouldn't say we looked that great - we were still hoofing it - but we didn't look as disorganised. I do think that the long balls were part of some sort of master plan from the manager rather than our players just wantnig to get rid of it - get ball to Hulse's head, Ade runs off him and scores every time... Maybe he'd spotted a weakness in Sonko's ability to deal with the high ball......