Is Gary A Cautious Manager?

[marshy]

I often read things on here that get me thinking. For instance, after the Donny game someone said 'it's a difficult place to get anything'. Well prior to our visit their home record read W4 D5 L1 so six teams out of ten, 60%, had gone there and got something. Or more recently, after the 'roasting'! Gary said 'this group has been around a long time'. Now, assuming he was talking about the players that actually played, as it would seem unfair to give a 'roasting to the ones that didn't get on the pitch, six of the fourteen (almost 1/2) had been at the club for six months or less, and another two a couple of months short of a year and a half. That makes Gary's fifty-one months seem like an eternity.

Or how about 'Gary is a tinkerman', which is a description of him I've seen on here recently? Well he has made 46 changes to the previous selection in 23 selections, an average of two a game (that didn't take a lot of working out) and has kept an unchanged team twice. He has also selected 13 different defences in 24 games and has probably gone through all the possible permutations, until McAllister is unable to make the starting line-up that is! That looks very much like tinkering to me.

Here's another couple 'we have an unbalanced squad' and 'Gary is a cautious manager'. Well the first of those is pretty much a given. 4-4-2 is our footballing heritage and surely every manager should have at his disposal a suad that can play 4-4-2, and have cover in every position. Whichever way you juggle the squad it's difficult to fit the pegs into the holes. But for me a balanced squad is not just about a balance across the pitch from left to right but also about getting the balance right between attack and defence.

To give a couple of examples of teams that everyone knows:

Man Utd 1999 Attack minded: Yorke, Cole, Giggs, Scholes, Beckham

Defence minded: Neville. Irwin, Stam, Johnson,Keane. That's a ratio of 5:5 Attack:Defence

Obviously the midfielders are the most difficult to categorise as they need to be all-rounders to a large extent but I am using a simple rule of thumb,where would they be if they weren't in midfield? Keane , for instance, played in defence occasionally when called upon but it's hard to picture him as a flying winger or support striker. In our own squad then I have Skuse down on the defensive side of the line and Williams on the attacking side.

England 1966 Attack. Hurst, Hunt, Ball. RCharlton, Peters,

Defence: Wilson, Cohen, JCharlton, Moore, Stiles Again a ratio of 5:5 and a nice balance between attacking and defensive attributes.

Now I should imagine there are some people thinking that when we have the ball we're all attackers and when they've got it we're all defenders. That's undoubtedly true but if we pick a team of defenders and ask them to attack we probably won't score too many, and if like Man Utd at Fulham recently we stuff the team almost full of attackers(forced selection) it's likely we'll concede a few goals-Man Utd not to win at Fulham , by the way, was one of the bets of the season so far.

So what I'm trying to say, in a roundabout way, is that the team the manager puts on the pitch, and the balance between attack/defence tells us a lot about

whether or not the approach is cautious or otherwise. Against Reading, for instance, we started the game with what I considered to be a 3:7 split, and that's at home against a team that was below us in the league. When Sno went off and was replaced by Elliot we went to 2:8, in my opinion a far too negative substitution.

Here's how we've lined up so far this season. 2:8 once Coventry away.

3:7 nineteen times

4:6 four times.

4:6 has been our most attacking line-up to date and bizarrely three of the four games have been away from home, Notts F(d), Leicester(w) QPR(l)

The other occasion was Plymouth at home(w).

Conclusion: I want to see 4:6 a bit more often i.e. more attacking players on the pitch, especially at home, and possibly even a bit of 5:5

[irishreds]

I dont think GJ is a cautious manager. This season we are short of attacking options therefore i think he has tryed to play to are strenghts and be a more solid team. Because we were very good at not conceding. Maybe to much pressure is being put on are defence now.

At Yeovil he had a very attacking team and in our first season in the champ we always had Mcindoe and Sproule on the wing. Hes just never found/been able to sign that 'poacher striker'. Im sure we tried to sign Kevin Philips one year.