Playing well and still losing

[GrahamHyde]

Seems like it has happened to us a lot this season, whether that be due to poor refereeing decisions, dreadful finishing, brilliant defending from the opposition or ill discipline.

We played well today, but the downsides were evident. It took us until they were 1-0 up to actually start running around and putting some decent moves together. Looks like we were poorly prepared from the get go. Say what you want about Mannone, but better finishes from Shawcross, Cameron or Crouch would have put us on level terms.

Beyond that, ill discipline, again. He got goal side, could have easily been caught and even if he got his shot away, it would have had to have been a solid accurate one to beat Begovic from there. Seem to be getting too many red cards recently. Teams in this league will seldom pick up points with 10 men.

What happened to playing shit and winning? We need points and fast, I don't care how we get them - Mark Hughes himself can come on the pitch and score with his arse for all I care, as long as we win the f**king game.

This weekend would be a good start.

[mrrburgundy]

We've got a tough run of games coming up. All our games left against the teams around us are must wins to reach the magic 40.

[GrahamHyde]

Our general play is pretty good at times, don't get me wrong, but if you make mistakes like we do, get players sent off as frequently as we do and lack the killer instinct in front of goal that we do, then you ain't gonna win many games of football.

What worries me most is that I can't think of anyone much worse to go into a relegation battle with than Mark Hughes. I hope he's up for the fight.

[GrahamHyde]

And, for the record, I thought we played well tonight and were well deserving of a point. I thought we were deserving of a point against Palace as well, but we lost both 1-0.

I notice a pattern emerging. We need to start getting the better of these tight games.

[wearestoke80]

Jan 29, 2014 21:54:22 GMT GrahamHyde said:

And, for the record, I thought we played well tonight and were well deserving of a point. I thought we were deserving of a point against Palace as well, but we lost both 1-0.

I notice a pattern emerging. We need to start getting the better of these tight games.

I agree about tonight but not Palace we didn't do enough to deserve anything

[dwr17477]

This is the whole point...playing well and still getting nothing. I think Hughes is too nice for this management malarkey. Isn't there a bloke managing in London who knows what's needed? And I hear he's getting pissed off already...go get him, Coates.

[fca47]

Depends what you mean by playing well, we are making very few worked chances, things could have gone for us with a bit of luck, but all our passing is at the back, I bet this is what the WBA message board was full of.

[davejohnno1]

This is my main worry. We aren't playing that badly on the whole though granted we have churned out a couple of shockers but regardless of whether we play badly or well, we keep losing and we still don't look like we will score a goal.

I've (we've) seen it all before and we know how it ends.

My prediction some time ago (the day Pulis took the Palace job actually) was that we will go into the last game of the season needing to beat WBA to stay out of the bottom 3. We will lose there for the first time since Noah filled the arc and Palace will stay up at our expense.

You can just see it. When we need a result at WBA, we will lose and they will be able to laud it over us when it matters the most.

[johnnysoul60]

Problem is in this league it's the mistakes , missing chances , lack of quality from set plays that are the difference and these things are costing us at the moment , the bits of pretty football sadly just paper over some pretty serious cracks , two days to get pace power and finishing into the team or we are in big trouble