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Root Cause


Silvio Dante

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I like to think I’m a fairly rational poster on here. In view of that I’ve given myself a couple of hours to gather my thoughts.

The advance caveat here is that I’ve backed LJ and been a supporter. 

However...

Today, I wasn’t angry.

I wasn’t frustrated.

I was bored.

I don’t think PNE played well. I don’t think we played well. It was an atrocious game of football. And it was boring. We didn’t do anything to raise the excitement and that was unforgivable.

So, why?

The why is that there were bad performances across the pitch, but more pertinently, a ridiculous number of bad decisions by LJ. Like...

- Playing a 5-3-2 and having 2 of 3 midfielders deep leaving the forwards isolated

- Playing a hopelessly out of form Pack

- Playing a Fam/Weimann combination that hasn’t worked

We had no threat, other than maybe Jack Hunt first half. I cynically thought that LJ May have been doing it to prove 5-3-2 didn’t work, but we were equally as bad at 4-4-2.

The biggest issue of all though, is we set up how we did to match Preston. We worried about them, and didn’t make them worry about us. This is LJs biggest failing, it’s the root cause, and he’s not learning (see Cardiff last year).

So, after 3 years - I know what our identity is meant to be. But unless LJ stops throwing that out to match opponents, we’ll have more dire football and he’ll fail. I’m not sure that even me, as a prior supporter, can keep giving him the chance to stop f****** overthinking. It seems too much of a character trait now. For the first time therefore, I think a change may be justified. Not from today’s performance. But from the lack of learning.

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1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

I like to think I’m a fairly rational poster on here. In view of that I’ve given myself a couple of hours to gather my thoughts.

The advance caveat here is that I’ve backed LJ and been a supporter. 

However...

Today, I wasn’t angry.

I wasn’t frustrated.

I was bored.

I don’t think PNE played well. I don’t think we played well. It was an atrocious game of football. And it was boring. We didn’t do anything to raise the excitement and that was unforgivable.

So, why?

The why is that there were bad performances across the pitch, but more pertinently, a ridiculous number of bad decisions by LJ. Like...

- Playing a 5-3-2 and having 2 of 3 midfielders deep leaving the forwards isolated

- Playing a hopelessly out of form Pack

- Playing a Fam/Weimann combination that hasn’t worked

We had no threat, other than maybe Jack Hunt first half. I cynically thought that LJ May have been doing it to prove 5-3-2 didn’t work, but we were equally as bad at 4-4-2.

The biggest issue of all though, is we set up how we did to match Preston. We worried about them, and didn’t make them worry about us. This is LJs biggest failing, it’s the root cause, and he’s not learning (see Cardiff last year).

So, after 3 years - I know what our identity is meant to be. But unless LJ stops throwing that out to match opponents, we’ll have more dire football and he’ll fail. I’m not sure that even me, as a prior supporter, can keep giving him the chance to stop f****** overthinking. It seems too much of a character trait now. For the first time therefore, I think a change may be justified. Not from today’s performance. But from the lack of learning.

Is it overthinking or simply not being good enough at the job.

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Good post. This pretty much sums up my feelings about today's game. Bored.

I could have posted my thoughts on a number of threads as the vast majority saw today as what it was, a disaster.

It reminded me a bit of the 1-0 home defeat to Brentford last year. We were terrible that day, but at least we could point to Brentford playing very, very well and the fact we should have lost by 5 or 6, which made losing by one a relief.

Depending on your definition of 'happy clapper' I could be labelled as one, always trying to see the positives in a performance. Whilst being annoyed at a defeat, as long as we played well or tried to play in the right way I wouldn't be to downbeat.

A number of posters have been saying they've been bored for weeks, if not months (maybe even from January!), at the way we've been playing. Today was the tipping point for me as well.

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1 hour ago, Silvio Dante said:

I like to think I’m a fairly rational poster on here. In view of that I’ve given myself a couple of hours to gather my thoughts.

The advance caveat here is that I’ve backed LJ and been a supporter. 

However...

Today, I wasn’t angry.

I wasn’t frustrated.

I was bored.

I don’t think PNE played well. I don’t think we played well. It was an atrocious game of football. And it was boring. We didn’t do anything to raise the excitement and that was unforgivable.

So, why?

The why is that there were bad performances across the pitch, but more pertinently, a ridiculous number of bad decisions by LJ. Like...

- Playing a 5-3-2 and having 2 of 3 midfielders deep leaving the forwards isolated

- Playing a hopelessly out of form Pack

- Playing a Fam/Weimann combination that hasn’t worked

We had no threat, other than maybe Jack Hunt first half. I cynically thought that LJ May have been doing it to prove 5-3-2 didn’t work, but we were equally as bad at 4-4-2.

The biggest issue of all though, is we set up how we did to match Preston. We worried about them, and didn’t make them worry about us. This is LJs biggest failing, it’s the root cause, and he’s not learning (see Cardiff last year).

So, after 3 years - I know what our identity is meant to be. But unless LJ stops throwing that out to match opponents, we’ll have more dire football and he’ll fail. I’m not sure that even me, as a prior supporter, can keep giving him the chance to stop f****** overthinking. It seems too much of a character trait now. For the first time therefore, I think a change may be justified. Not from today’s performance. But from the lack of learning.

You need to email this to Steve Lansdown mate, spot on!!

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I agree that our style of play has become pretty boring. Too much passing sideways, backwards, or to players who are marked. No flair at all. No pace. 

Preston played quite well today I thought and did everything we didn't - showed determination, played as a unit, passed purposefully... Having said that, we made it easy for them and with the way we played we would have lost to a League 2 team.

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56 minutes ago, Portland Bill said:

Is it overthinking or simply not being good enough at the job.

It’s a very good question PB.

I think, inherently, LJ is good enough at the job. He’s shown an ability to identify players strengthes and weaknesses (vis Bobby going to CF, not playing NE until ready). In fact, I’d be confident that if you gave him a squad of 14 he’d outmanage most and get better results. That’s why I’m loathe to get rid.

To the overthinking - when LJ has options, he screws up. Whether that’s because he overthinks or because he wants to keep a squad happy who knows. I’d err to the former and call that the issue.

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