Perfect ending.

[BillyStubbsTears]

2 goals in the last 30 minutes. What an apt ending to the season.

Priority number 1 this summer: 3 or 4 players who are fit enough to battle for 90 minutes rather than 60.

[DonnyOsmond]

I think I read on here that SOD starts the season with a football where as other clubs focus on fitness to begin with. Why don't we simply focus more on fitness at the beginning of the season?

[DonnyNoel]

Either way its a worry. Its been happening all season and given the ages/experience of most of our players its unacceptable. We're not a team of kids. When we went on that amazing run in 08/09 we were solid as a rock from front to back when defending a lead but its been downhill since then. With the odd exception we don't defend well enough individiually or collectively, and I don't just mean the defence.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

SOD's comments demonstrate there will be lots of changes this summer.

[hoolahoop]

It was a complete and utter balls up.....VERY depressing. We need a clear out before next season and a complete overhaul of how we train, play and all our fitness regimes/diets etc. should be assessed as a matter of urgency.
It's simply not good enough to keep blaming the pitch for all our injuries, I'm more worried about our complete lack of action in the transfer/loan markets when these problems were patently obvious to all and sundry, for the first time for many years I feel that the Board and management lacked any plans as to how to react to what was unfolding in front of their own and our eyes.
In the end we were very very lucky that there were 3 teams that played appallingly badly in the early part of the season. Do we take that chance again or do we plan properly for next season........I wonder ?

[DonnyNoel]

It was a complete and utter balls up.....VERY depressing. We need a clear out before next season and a complete overhaul of how we train, play and all our fitness regimes/diets etc. should be assessed as a matter of urgency.
It's simply not good enough to keep blaming the pitch for all our injuries, I'm more worried about our complete lack of action in the transfer/loan markets when these problems were patently obvious to all and sundry, for the first time for many years I feel that the Board and management lacked any plans as to how to react to what was unfolding in front of their own and our eyes.
In the end we were very very lucky that there were 3 teams that played appallingly badly in the early part of the season. Do we take that chance again or do we plan properly for next season........I wonder ?

Its far too early to speculate about where teams will be next season but I'm going to anyway! I don't see Brighton or Southampton struggling next season. Palace have got away with it for two seasons so maybe they will be down there next year again. There's always the odd surprise in terms of relegation (Sheff Utd, Norwich, Southampton) but I see this being a very strong division next season.

[CusworthRovers]

That free kick was the perfect fitting end. Last minute of the half. Wall set and goalie set.....or so we thought, and bushta, he just boots it in the net from a shot that never got above arse height.

[goalkick]

went to match today,very obvious that of the players  on show today are just not good enough hope sod does get rid of the dead wood, thought oster mom,

[RedJ]

Oster actually made a number of tackles today don't normally see that happen

[VikingJames]

Oster put a good shift in today. I don't think he's one of the players SOD is talking about.

I thought we really missed Copps today, and Mason to some extent. We lacked creativity without those 2. Moussa can have a run at them, but his decision making in the final third is atrocious.

[Kenny_Senior]

SOD's comments demonstrate there will be lots of changes this summer.

There needs to be lots o changes too. We need to start next season with a squad that is big enough in terms of numbers and physical enough to compete.

As an alternative view to the \"injury crisis\" does anyone else believe that the physical strength of some of our players could be called into question? Would beefy, harder, physically stronger players get non-impact injuries as often as much as powderpuff strength players such as Ryan Mason, etc?

The pitch doesn't help our cause one little bit, but that's a problem we're going to have to live with because it won't change anytime soon no matter how much anyone moans about it.

[RobTheRover]

On the issue of the pitch, I was kicking a ball about on it on Tuesday night and it felt quite springy, not at all as hard as I'd imagined.  Certainly much better, as you would expect, than any park pitch I've ever played on and you don't hear of many amateur players bemoaning the hard pitches they play on.

[I-was-there1976]

i thought taking Swansea and Boro was like printing money today


thankyou

[I-was-there1976]

Oster put a good shift in today. I don't think he's one of the players SOD is talking about.

I thought we really missed Copps today, and Mason to some extent. We lacked creativity without those 2. Moussa can have a run at them, but his decision making in the final third is atrocious.

As long as SOD is in charge we could lack creativity with Messi in a hooped shirt

[jonnydog]

I dunno, but to me it seems its 'Plan A'. Then when it looks shakey revert to 'Plan B' = Try and shut up shop...

... There doesn't seem to be any other plans, no variations. IM(mignion)O, In Pre-Season, SOD could do with looking at offering alternative roles for a couple of players in order to give more options when its a 'draw-or-bust' game. I've seen alot of matches this year where (when drawing) we could have gone on for all 3 points, but the options weren't there!!

... I love and respect SOD for all he's done for us, but do feel he needs to 'branch out' with tactical alterations/switches when the points are there for the taking (e.g. coventry, Preston, Palace to name just a few recent fixtures).

Plus, it helps if players are fit enough to play a full 90 minutes for a game, and not looking fcuked after 70. Something else which MUST be addressed in pre-season.

... All IMO, of course!!

[bobjimwilly]

I know its a sporting cliche, but I got the feeling yesterday that most of the players were already on the plane on the way to their jollies. If any of you follow the players that are on twitter, all week they have been couting down the minutes to the end of the last training session, and then most of them saying things like \"90 mins to go\". I don't think we can take any sort of analysis for yesterdays match seriously, which is also why I think Sean wasn't very happy it his post-match interview.

Onwards and upwards for next season!
We certainly can't do any worse than this year, or we will get relegated