For those of you....

[chinapig]

I had no issue as such with those who approved of the appointment (though my preference was for Cook or a foreign coach) but what puzzled me was the claim that some made that he did not share responsibility for the decline under LJ.

This relegated him to someone who was rather well paid for putting out the cones and bibs. Which would hardly have qualified him to be Head Coach. A bit of a contradiction then.

Unsurprisingly what we got was a continuation of the dire football under LJ only getting progressively worse. Not necessarily bound to happen but fairly predictable that he was not in fact a breath of fresh air.

 

 

[Mendip City]

On 17/02/2021 at 01:52, Lenners said:

Took over a Huddersfield side that were always at the wrong end of the table, spent £2m and got them promoted playing high pressing, high tempo football.

Yeah mate, dogshit.

And got Kasey Palmer playing... so immediately better than LJ and DH! 

[Mendip City]

On 17/02/2021 at 09:51, Davefevs said:

No idea.  Think it’s called leadership, and that doesn’t come with age, it can be there in any player.  On the run we are on, we really should be seeing big arguments on the pitch, not necessarily coming to blows like Orr and Carey.  What do we see - “acceptance”.

Once the players cross the white line, you need them to police their own standards.  That isn’t happening.  Again, as I posted yesterday, it’s not necessarily about shouting and bawling, but it’s making it clear that:

• Fam - that’s 3 times the CBs have had a free header from a direct pass
• Nahki - get the effin thing under, players are committing themselves to run expecting you to hold it up
• Taylor - you know Joao is gonna muscle you, you need to muscle him first
• Adam - you got to do those 3 or 4 yards closing more intently, because you’re getting their too late
• Henri - just stop the stupid trips, you’re putting us under pressure
• Zak - care for the ball, don’t always try and hit a 50 yard “drill” that’s got 1% chance of us retaining it
• etc

And that can come from any player, not just Kalas.  I don’t get why we don’t see this.

 

It all comes down to recruitment doesn’t it? 
I’ve been saying for years that we just sign players to fill positions without considering characters. If we have lists of targets, do we always go for the best technique, best technical player? This is where scouting with eyes as well as stats is important. Are we signing “talkers”, leaders, organisers, players who stand up when the chips are down, players with a bit of edge/nastiness about them? You need a blend of those sort of characteristics. 
Right now I don’t think we’ve many (any?) of those attributes.  

[reddoc]

2 hours ago, RalphMilnesLeftFoot said:

The last part of your post is assumption, and we cant tell, no one can.  As mentioned in my other post above there's loads of reasons for it but again doesn't mean that players are in someway mentally deficient. 

 

Have to confess I don't understand what point you're trying to make here. Mentality describes a thought process/how your mind works. Many people are happier absolving responsibility to others and many perform badly under stressful circumstances. Always been the case, and if you work alongside them you'll take the burden of their responsibilities. Calling them mentally weak may be a little cruel but certainly what is obviously being suggested here shouldn't be confused with any form of mental illness. It's simply a personality trait.

[reddoc]

7 hours ago, RalphMilnesLeftFoot said:

That's fair enough, the point iam making is that people, players etc are not 'mentally weak' whether they have MH issues or not as it's stigmatic https://www.stormontvail.org/blog/not-weak-not-alone-breaking-stigma-about-mental-health-disorders/

It doesnt mean that players in this case are lesser or deficient or have a 'weakness' mentally, our press, papers etc keep doubling down on that including Mourinho on Martial (iirc) and again vs Tottenham https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/jose-mourinho-tottenham-west-ham-22866604 It's also been done on here 

 

Well you'll not find me arguing the black or white option obviously. And of course this is why sports psychologists do so well nowadays.

However ignoring the weakness, there are good examples of people out there that achieved greatness through their determination to crush their opponents,  Hinault, Merckx, Schumacher, Tomba, even Roy Keane. These guys refused to lose. There is a flip side to this. Which is I guess where we came in.