Perspective And Frustration

[BarneyCity]

After 15 matches were 5th, and only two points fewer than during our first season after promotion - and 4 points better than last season, so far so good.

A week or so back someone posted some stats about our inability to hold a lead in the last 10 - 15 minutes over the past two seasons, I can't find the post, but the trend remains. We now have, including the game at Preston occasions where we have dropped 8 points in the last period of the game.

So if we'd improved on last years failings, we could have been top of the league by now.

The thing is this happened multiple times last year, and is continuing this time, is it players, is it tactics?

My own view is we change our game, we sit back and give the opposition the opportunity to attack, why?

Going back to the Preston game, the first match, the first half, we played with fluid, rapid movement that tore Preston apart - we had effectively three attacking players, Clarkson, Haynes and Maynard, and Paul Hartley, this changed late in the game, and we consided two goals, and sadly has never been repeated.

I think we are probably better than GJ believes, the team needs the shackles removed, and we need to go on the attack, and lets see what position we end up then!

[chinapig]

After 15 matches were 5th, and only two points fewer than during our first season after promotion - and 4 points better than last season, so far so good.

A week or so back someone posted some stats about our inability to hold a lead in the last 10 - 15 minutes over the past two seasons, I can't find the post, but the trend remains. We now have, including the game at Preston occasions where we have dropped 8 points in the last period of the game.

So if we'd improved on last years failings, we could have been top of the league by now.

The thing is this happened multiple times last year, and is continuing this time, is it players, is it tactics?

My own view is we change our game, we sit back and give the opposition the opportunity to attack, why?

Going back to the Preston game, the first match, the first half, we played with fluid, rapid movement that tore Preston apart - we had effectively three attacking players, Clarkson, Haynes and Maynard, and Paul Hartley, this changed late in the game, and we consided two goals, and sadly has never been repeated.

I think we are probably better than GJ believes, the team needs the shackles removed, and we need to go on the attack, and lets see what position we end up then!

This is a point that keeps bugging me. I do get the impression that Gary does not have enough faith in himself and his players, which is odd given his public persona. He is a fine manager and has assembled the best squad we have had in donkeys years. Yet tactics designed for the much more limited squad we had in our first season in the CCC (which were successful) are now applied to a squad with much greater attacking potential. Last season proved that the approach doesn't work yet still it persists. I'm not advocating a gung ho approach but, as you say, taking the shackles off and letting the players make the most of their ability. Please.

[BrizzleRed]

Strongly agree with both of you on that point about us being too cautious.

It frustrates the hell out of me when we encourage opposing teams at the Gate to throw everyone bar their keeper up at corners, due to us pulling every outfield player back to defend them. With our home record, teams should be scared to come here, but they generally don't give that impression. I'd like to see us leaving our strikers in a position to break away if the oppositions move breaks down, which should avoid our box getting swamped by the opposition at set pieces.

In general play, we do give the impression of a team playing with the brakes on and who knows what we could do if they were allowed to play with more freedom, as we've definitely got the players to do some real damage if we had a more attacking mentality ........ as long as we actually play them of course!