Clutton Caveman
-
Posts
864 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Events
Posts posted by Clutton Caveman
-
-
11 hours ago, ROKERITE said:
Is it all right to blame him for the pig's ear he's making of things at SAFC?
I have the feeling they are just about to experience an LJ losing streak
-
11 hours ago, Cardy said:
Our leader sits in the stand about 50 yards away from where his players need him. Perhaps he needs to lead from the front on matchdays…..
He says he doesn't coach, he clearly prefers a nice soft seat in the stand to being close to his players and he cannot organise and motivate.
He seems to think that talking to the press is below him.
What does he bring?
-
11 hours ago, Marina's Rolls Royce said:
Enough of the Ashton Johnson Lansdown blame triangle.
I've been supporting City long enough to get the feel- and the feel is that we are fodder. NP has been a top manager in his day but his day has gone- just look at the stats.
Is it Nige's fault? Probably not but , imo, a different solution is needed sooner than later. It was much much better with Lee but that's not part of the NP messiah narrative.
We will go down unless SL/JL take financial and coaching action now.
Well I think we have played just about every combination our squad allows. It seems that the team spirit is dropping week by week as the squad start to lose faith in the plan. Many players are staying in the team by doing nothing wrong rather than doing something right. The manager has started openly criticising some players and I suspect behind closed doors some players are criticising the management. We have several players who are on high wages and are not delivering and the chances to move them on even for no fee seems remote.
I would like to think that NP spends a night on Glastonbury Tor and comes back reinvented to invigorate his failing team but guess what I think NP thinks he is fine as he is.
Will the January window save us? If we could find a Tanner type bargain for midfield winger and striker perhaps, but!! oh yes that was a pig flying past my window
So in answer to your question, does this seem like a relegation season. Yes.
-
2
-
-
1 hour ago, westonred said:
Well it isn't his squad is it ! How many players was he responsible for bringing in ? 5 isn't it, so you cannot really blame NP until they are all his players and i would give him at leat another 2 transfer windows to get rid of the players who are letting us down and bring in new blood
Based on what he brought in during the last window, I wouldn't be backing his judgement with £££
-
10 hours ago, And Its Smith said:
First half moved ball well.
Too soft at the back
Responded well to unlucky first goal
Not enough resilience, big frustration. Some players need to man up
Third goal not easy to watch.
No response from fresh legged players
Concerned at lack of clean sheets and lack of shots
Won’t comment on individuals when asked about Vyner
On Saturday he will pick players who are fit and up for the game
Lost control of game when Matty James went off
As much about application as talent. Who is most reliable
Shame he didn't take a little of the blame for failing to motivate the squad. Feels distinctly like me and them.
-
22 minutes ago, 1960maaan said:
Last night we saw James, and Massengo trying to keep and pass the ball. Add Williams and clearly he would improve it.
We don't look solid with a back 3, and actually seemed a little better with Baker at FB, so another improvement.
Martin baffles me. Has he got incriminating photos of Pearson ???
I thought he ran the channels well last night, got in good positions, worked hard. But almost everytime with the ball at his feet he seemed to lose it. Weimann & Wells movement is decent, IMO we need to get them central. It might also reduce the number of lumped balls forward to Martin.Pearson is close to getting people to quote the "insanity" quote. The 3 strikers don't work. Playing players that train well doesn't seem to be getting results. IMO it all needs a rethink. Sadly , Pearson seemed wedded to certain things.
For me , we need to be solid. We aren't creating much with 3 strikers , move stuff around.
Back 4Tanner - Kalas - Atkinson - Baker
I'm not worried if Baker doesn't get forward, just as long as he defends.
Midfield
James
Williams MassengoI would want James to shield the back 4, not be too progressive and let Williams & HNM do the hard yards.
Width
Weimann & COD
Starting as wide MF but with licence to roam. Get forward to support the front, but drop in to make a 5 under pressure.
Striker
Wells
Purely for movement, he can finish too, but with the movement of AW, COD & Wells it could create space. Plus it would add a little pace.
TBH, I'm as low as I've been for years, if I hadn't bought tickets for Coventry I wouldn't bother. It now feels like Johnson 2.0 . Martin undroppable and Vyner was the lucky winner of the "in from nowhere " tombola, who will now be sacrificed again .
But as I've said before, it's Pearson and subs that really depress me. We were getting space, runs looked promising but kept breaking down. Why not COD ? game looked right for him. If he wanted youth, why not Scott ? To wait until 3-0 down, with 8 minutes to go , to then swap full backs ? Even if JD had a knock it doesn't explain why he sat and watched us disintegrate and do precisely nothing for the previous 25/30 minutes.I am completely pissed off with it now. This feels almost like we have accepted relegation. Pearson being honest post match doesn't cut it, yes the players are at fault, but a large percentage of blame has to lay with Pearson. 8 months, a pre season, 4 players of his choosing , I would expect a bit of improvement. Not sure I've seen much, or the little we had, was short lived.
I accept it is a big job, and while we may have improved things off of the pitch, it always comes down to performance and results. I can't think of a manager who, after having little impact coming into a job, would then suddenly improve things. Probably because managers don't get the time to fail any more. How long do we stumble along, Steve won't want to risk relegation , but who is out there that looks a good bet. I would have liked Cooper, Robins or similar, but that ain't gonna happen. We may be looking at a panicy stop gap, but with little money to spend I'm not sure who , or even how.
I saw Roy De Alien link us with Lampard , sadly I could see this appealing to Steve's ego. What's that saying, going down in a blaze of glory ?Wells can finish? We must be thinking of a different player
-
9 hours ago, Better Red said:
After watching team stumble from win to loss and then to loss again and a again.
Nigel job looks easy to me and I think he is about 3 weeks from putting our best 11.
You could argue James could get a spot in midfield.
Scott maybe there on promise rather than form.
outside of that I don’t think there is actually many options for Nig
For me the question is it good enough to stay up? For me might just might scrape 45/5O points so yes.
For the bench I have just picked from the squad that IMO are good enough to make a bench for a championship team.
One or two injuries and it all falls apart quickly. If we don’t make at least 4 signings in Jan then a relegation battle looks difficult to avoid.
we desperately need a left back, midfielder and striker to give the squad better balance, but we need players who can start not just take a place on the bench we have to many of them already.
At least this team would be more exciting to watch an also has pace and energy
Bentley
Tanner Atkinson Kalas Pring
Williams Massengo
Seymeyo Scott Weiman
Wells
Bench - O’leary, James, Martin, COD, Baker, Vyner
JD, Palmer & Bakinson - move on in January window if we can. We are stuck with King and Simpson until the Summer.
Do you really think we could find a new home for Palmer and DaSilva?
-
7 hours ago, The Bard said:
Whatever formation we play, I am not a fan of starting all 3 of them at the moment. It increases the risk of injury and puts the manager in the position where he can't really change things off the bench. Apart from that 5 minute spell on Saturday they have produced nothing together and any front 3 needs one player with the ability to go past an opponent.
Given their age and injury records, surely it would make sense for our current 3 games in 8 days to mix + match. Give each player 2 starts and 1 sub appearance. If we want to play a 3 why not use that as an opportunity to give the likes of Benarous and Scott starts without us being too reliant on them.
Did you see Benarous against Barnsley?
-
1
-
-
15 hours ago, BCFCGav said:
Caveman indeed.
Seems you get comments even when you don't say anything.
Guess what people have different opinions. It is OK to disagree, oh but I forget the woke brigade not only want to tell us what to say but also what to think. And of course they are ALWAYS right.
-
1
-
-
9 hours ago, fgrsimon said:
Maybe Milwall would take him in January, then he could link up with Benik Afobe again. That was his best spell before Afobe got injured.
I just thought about the options for NP. If you consider all of our higher earners, which ones do you think would attract a bid in January if they were available at a realistic price? Remember he has to sell before he buys
For me Kalas, Bentley, possibly Massengo
That leaves the likes of Wells, Palmer, O'Dowd, Baker, Martin and Weimann basically here until their contract runs out.
Our kids look just that, kids. Perhaps able to contribute here or there but far from stepping up and improving the team.
Not really a great picture is it? Perhaps having lost 2 coaches and the Director of the academy we may have a little bit of wriggle room for a January loan.
Having had a chance to look at the situation last season I think NP only joined us because we were the only offer on the table, so does that mean that we not only have a bunch of players that nobody else wants and a coach in the same category.
Just a thought. Well done SL.
-
1
-
-
16 hours ago, petehinton said:
But then also said a few weeks ago he was training well, and loved his attitude for asking to play in the u23s, got his cameo & goal against Fulham as a result iirc. All sounds ominous. Wouldn’t surprise me if injured
Classic case of bags of talent bad attitude, unfortunately a product of the system where kids grow up in a bubble of entitlement. Plenty of first team regulars would kill for some of his skills but few managers seem to trust him.
-
22 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:
Nige is quite reactive. It's the reason Tanner was subbed last week. Tanner was jogging instead of running back into position and Nige went mental on the touchline. Couple of minutes later and Tanner was subbed off.
It could be seen as a weakness, letting your emotions influence decisions too much.
I think it's also a case of Nige putting down markers on the squad though, and setting standards.
If you want to come on this journey then 95% commitment isn't good enough.
Well if that is the standard set I think he could make 3 or 4 changes each week including Bakinson every time he plays
-
On 30/10/2021 at 17:28, GrahamC said:
I don’t want to knock the kid, but how much off the standard was he?
Could see a case for taking him back off, so weak and letting his man go repeatedly.
It was like playing with 10 men, not sure he made a single positive contribution.
Too small, too slow, too passive and just not ready
-
On 30/10/2021 at 15:01, pillred said:
Wonder what pc appointment they will make in his place?
You know I wrote a comment here only to delete because of the reaction I would surely get from the woke brigade.
Amazing how easy free speech can be discouraged
-
1
-
1
-
2
-
-
18 minutes ago, Merrick's Marvels said:
If he wasn't playing as his manager instructed him to do, he'd have been hauled off. How do we know this? Because that's exactly what happened the week before!
So I'd have thought that tucking in, playing close to Kalas, and leaving space out wide was, in fact, exactly what his manager had asked him to do.
Pring was doing exactly the same on the other side. Further evidence, if it were needed, that our full backs weren't having "a shocker" at all.
As for "hoofing the ball forward" - presumably you missed the fact that, rather a lot of the time, our full backs had no-one available to pass to other than a ball down the line aimed at Chris Martin (in case you hadn't noticed, this has been our default way of playing since day 1 of this season).
My amateur analysis is that our full-backs often had no-one to pass to for numerous reasons - the way Barnsley set up, the fact we played with no width at all, the fact Bakinson is frequently a passenger, the fact Massengo's attempts to cover every blade of grass on the pitch, at least twice, means he ends up anywhere but central midfield, and Matty James can't be everywhere at once.
So if anyone's had a shocker...
Ever since LJ our fullbacks ignore the winger and stand between the centre half and the line. This leaves the winger as a constant out ball. The winger gets the ball uncontested and can run at the full back who has the sprint out to him. Sometimes the wide midfielder takes the winger leaving his man free. On Saturday their right winger was their constant easy out ball. I know why we play the fullback narrow, We are trying the close off the ball down the channel between our full back and centre back but if our midfield was more effective perhaps the ball would not come that way so often.
-
1
-
-
On 30/10/2021 at 22:41, ohhhshauntaylor said:
Given what happened (unfairly IMO) last weekend, I think George deserved a thread for today.
He was “one for the future” who’s now made the RB position his own, with pretty much no direct support, he has more than held his own, and I thought today, especially late on he did very well.
considering his age, and experience, he’s made a very promising start, and certainly has some real steel about him with some crunching tackles!
He will only get better, but already is starting to make himself a player who’s “type” we have so badly missed.
Now- let’s get him a song!
Totally agree and on songs for god sake give the DaSilva song a rest. There are players far more deserving of a song than him like Weimann for instance. Pathetic we select the song based on the tune rather than the player
-
1 minute ago, Major Isewater said:
Like King or Williams for example ?
Williams I agree with King for me is too light weight plays too many square balls.
If we are relying on Williams this season I think we are in trouble,
-
On 30/10/2021 at 19:00, Dullmoan Tone said:
TBF he was under significant pressure - it wasn't an open goal.
I think I have seen more opposition easy misses this season than ever.
If that had gone in, I can't begin to imagine the reaction of the crowd or how different we would all feel right now.
And the mad thing, even Pearson admits this, is we weren't good today and the stats show we were outplayed by the bottom team.
Not sure luck will last long.
He keeps saying we were not good, when is he going to do something about it?
-
51 minutes ago, Silvio Dante said:
I think some thought has to be given here to time - both as a unit, and at this level. If you look at Saturday, and a back line of Tanner-Kalas-Atkinson-Pring, then you’ve got three of them who haven’t played at this level before this season (two of which haven’t been here six months with the other injured until pre-season), and the other described by NP as not a captain in the traditional sense but someone who leads by example.
So, with that, I’d expect them to be relatively uncohesive. I also think that’s one of the reasons why NP likes Baker back there - again, not a great communicator, but the experience aids the collective.
Add in NP clearly hasn’t been happy with how the coaching has been done and you’re left with the following:
- Inexperienced players
- No established leader at this level
- Limited time together
- Poorly coached?
The good news is that the more they play, at least two of those will naturally improve. It’s another reason why this season is about laying foundations
I don't really see how you can blame the defence, when our midfield cannot hold the ball for 2 mins they are constantly under pressure. We are so poor at preventing crosses at time it looks like a defence v attack training drill and players picking up clearance at the edge of our box seem to have all the time in the world to control the ball and shoot. For every set piece we leave nobody up and so when we clear he ball it comes straight back. We focus on the defence because the play is so often close to our box. I don't see a single leader in our team. Even the quiet Kalas was clearly furious at how often the ball just came back.
-
1
-
-
12 hours ago, 054123 said:
It was scrappy.
Barnsley had better shape, but we still created chances and could’ve had 3.
I don’t know, I understand who we are and hope to finish between 12-15.
As long as we stay up this year I would be happy.
I didn’t expect us to play great football or dominate teams this year.
I expect it will take a couple of transfer windows (assuming we have funds!) to begin to sort this out.
I think it’s going to become quite boring listening to the same narrative of whether we win, lose or draw, “but we’re not very good are we?”
No shit, I ******* know that.
Heres another newsflash, due to the cluster **** created by Steve and Mark, it ain’t going to be very good for a while and I don’t believe another coach somehow polishes the turd.
Lets just dig in, support the team and just try to manufacture some points here and there, like we have done to this point.
So we won, it was a great feeling but the performance was one of the worst against a very poor team. We simply cannot keep the ball for more than 4 or 5 passes and we go long at every opportunity. If you have a Warnock team of giants with a couple of greyhounds this might work but with what we have the ball just comes back. How could a very average Barnsley team also low on confidence play virtually all of the second half in our half. To me our team organisation and plan is going backwards. I would love to know what the game plan of NP is. Perhaps it is lump it forward or perhaps it is different and the players can't/won't carry it out. Either way you cannot criticise the teams effort and commitment on Saturday but the organisation was awful. As to our salvation being based on youth, I thought Benarous looks way off the pace. On a few occasions Barnsley players simply took the ball off him and ran away, he could not keep up. It seems that our youth policy has been to create a set of LJ clones.
I truly hope that we can find a couple of loans in Jan who can bring some calm and organisation to our midfield.
-
1 hour ago, And Its Smith said:
The latest passing accuracy stats. I don’t think seeing us so low down in terms of accuracy and number of passes will surprise anyone. What is an ongoing concern is that, unlike WBA, our game plan isn’t necessarily to be that low down. We are inaccurate in our passes but not because we are direct due to a game plan necessarily.
Hard to pass to players who are hiding. Our movement off the ball has been awful for years
-
1
-
-
On 27/10/2021 at 11:48, GrahamC said:
That is a strong Weimann obsession that the OP consistently has. As soon as we lose he is on his case.
One of our best 11 players, AW would always be in my side.
Can see an argument for a Wells/Weimann pairing but expect Nige to stick with Martin & Wells (& play Weimann in midfield).
Loving the obligatory “give Palmer another go” mention, too
Strange with Palmer, seems a bit more prepared to work but if killer ball seems to have gone
-
On 24/10/2021 at 05:21, Olé said:
Putting aside the debate and general consensus that it's the right thing to do - even if it is, what the hell is happening at the club that we "sack" one first team coach on the eve of an important fixture and right in the middle of a busy run of fixtures and then don't turn up with the other first team coach at that fixture too.
Don't tell me this was planned because if it seriously was whoever planned it is a moron. You expect players to be well focussed for games not surrounded by off the field soap opera and uncertainty. If this was planned it would have been done in the summer or at least an international break. I expected better from Pearson.
Moving on his predecessors coaches may well have been increasingly desirable to NP, but in timing and handling this smacks of being both knee jerk and the result of some major falling out. I fully expected us to lose by a hatful today not just because we always do but because the situation is clearly totally unstable.
I guess someone had to carry the can for current team performance
-
2 hours ago, pongo88 said:
I agree that Nigel is unclear about his best line up, but I don’t think it’s his fault. There are players who have been given chances but haven’t taken them - eg Bakinson, Palmer and Vyner. Then there are those that who could play but are injured. So who has he got left to bring into the team? I’ll answer that myself, some of the academy players, hence his comments today. This season is just going to be about hanging on
I am not surprised he doesn't know his best team. Most players are blowing hot and cold, great one week OK the next. It seems whoever he piks he has no idea how individually they will perform
Passing
in Football Chat
Posted
Hard to pass from the back when everyone is either stationary, running away from you or hiding. When you next watch us freeze frame when our defenders get the ball from Bentley. Even Pele would struggle to find a decent pass in that situation