Hod did Marti get it wrong?

[70sQPR]

Aside from another poor goal from a set piece, I think the writing was on the wall the minute they scored. They knew they did not have the quality to risk playing openly in the second half, they also gambled we di not have the quality to open them up. The second half was so poor to watch, we had nothing.

Marti got it wrong by playing Sinclair solo upfront. Stoke had his number and he did not have the skill, patience or nouse to overcome man larking by himself. We were restricted to payling the ball amongst each other waiting for someone to do something, then resorting to hopeful long balls. For a team with now, a good quality midfield it was really poor.

We also got Smyth doing what he does, looking dangerous and getting in behind teams, but against fresh legs, he's not that good or dangerous, he's an impact sub. Our best chances came when Stoke were opened up and the best of them fell to Smyth, the other to Sinclair. Both lacked the quality to finish it.

We should have;
A) Started with Lyndon or Frey with Sinclair, at the expense of Smyth
B) Started with Willock or Andersen instead of Smyth and given Frey a run up front alone, he looked ok when he came on
C) What do you think?

I'm not sure he got it all that wrong last night, we just started with the wrong 11 and the wrong plan, had we not conceded i think we had goals in us even with that plan, Stoke defended hard against a team that don't know how to open up 11 men behind the ball. Had we taken some attacking risks with team selection, we would have done it i think, Stoke were very beatable.

Absolutly. My thoughts as well

[Jeffqpr]

So bloody annoyed with last nights performance & result especially after playing well against Norwich, table could’ve looked so much better for us but instead we’ve gone backwards, that was against a average poor Stoke side & that’s how bad we were

[pauly]

Another awful watch. I think Marti is taking a long time to understand this league. That might take us down but we really should have wnough to avoid that.

Needs to see that SA has much promise, but starting with him is leading us nowhere, as the big strong Championship defenders can generally deal with him fairly comfortably. Isn't Frey capable of playing 90 minutes?? Should have removed SA much earlier than he did last night. It was obvious.

The Smyth enigma is a strange one. Start/not start. For the second time recently MC took him off and brought on someone who would have benefitted most from his crossing. MC needs to be learning faster than this.

The static nature of our players is indeed a big problem. I think the lack of confidence that they have in each other, doesn't help. Whilst not comparing us to Arsenal, anyone who saw them beat West Ham can't fail to have been impressed by their movement. It was dazzling. Our players are at the other end of that spectrum.

Don't think Smyth can play 90 mins due to fitness, probably are sports science people tell marti that's the case because he starts then is sub next game , willock is another who can't manage 90 ! Me personally in the championship every game is different the teams have so many different ways of playing, we play one way only and that is to try and play good football, you've gotta mix it up and even try players in different positions like I've said in other posts on here