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The Gaffer speaks after tonight’s defeat


RedLionLad

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2 minutes ago, Dr Balls said:

The only upside of that run is that these are not teams that are likely to “park the bus” like Birmingham and Millwall, so there may be more opportunities to play to our strengths I.e. not have the majority of possession and counter attack quickly. Two problems - these teams are also more likely to score against us and Manning doesn’t se to want us to play to our strengths!

The last part is spot on! 
 

The nearly three years this club spent dragging itself out of a hole bringing through its own players and finding a way to play with what we had with minimal amounts spent on outside players are over. 
 

What we obviously needed is a manager with a vision to play in a way that doesn’t suit the talent available to him and to go out and “buy or loan” players at an expense to the nest egg. 
 

That yesterday after half time was horrible. There was a thread a week or two ago asking was that our worst ever performance, was there not?

The game on Tuesday could well turn out to our advantage. It is clear The Premier League team will have more of the ball thus forcing us to play counter attacking football regardless of our current league strategies. 

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4 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

The game on Tuesday could well turn out to our advantage. It is clear The Premier League team will have more of the ball thus forcing us to play counter attacking football regardless of our current league strategies. 

Agreed albeit Moyes also can be a bit keen on counter attacking especially in the road, if he is or if he thinks it is a good way to exploit our weaknesses it could be a strange game!

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On 13/12/2023 at 10:14, AshtonGreat said:

I don't think he's dull or lacking in confidence. He just needs time - admittedly JL etc haven't made it easy for him with their comments.

And I'm not worried that we'll get relegated. NP only managed 12 points in his first 15 games and we stayed up. There are worse teams than us in this division.

My concern is that they will improve as we become even more worse.

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28 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Agreed albeit Moyes also can be a bit keen on counter attacking especially in the road, if he is or if he thinks it is a good way to exploit our weaknesses it could be a strange game!

Yes he can.  
 

However better players naturally want to have the ball more. Thus in the Premier League counter attacking football suits WHU and they are making hay with it this season. Against us the opposite is true. 

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1 hour ago, petehinton said:

Why not change something to help deal with it then?

Maybe what Joe Williams said in his pre-match interview, interestingly?

Teach the players how to think for themselves and to adapt themselves to events on the pitch.

There's a limit to what any manager can do from the touchline once the half has started.

If yesterday was anything to go by, there's still some learning to do!

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3 minutes ago, italian dave said:

Maybe what Joe Williams said in his pre-match interview, interestingly?

Teach the players how to think for themselves and to adapt themselves to events on the pitch.

There's a limit to what any manager can do from the touchline once the half has started.

If yesterday was anything to go by, there's still some learning to do!

Of course there is. But when a side brings on an attacking 10 & two strikers on at HT, they were always going to be massively going for it. To expect us to just soak that up, especially with how the second half started, without having to make any changes was very naive and dumb. IMO. It was pretty obvious to Everyone watching it that we needed to change something, rather than stand there and say ‘well….this is a tough one for the players to figure out isn’t it, good luck to them though’. 
 

As @Harry mentioned, going 3 at the back with Tanner at CB, once we were already 1-0 down, made things even worse somehow. We took TGH off, by far and away our most creative CM, to settle us into a midfield two of James and Williams, whilst 1-0 down. That’s what you do at 1/2-0 up, not down. 

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1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I'm not especially concerned about the drop, there have been some bounces but nothing that sustained.

My main concern is will the season fizzle out by mid February to nothingness.

February 👍   That’s an improvement on previous seasons it’s usually all over by November unfortunately 

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3 hours ago, firstdivision said:

Also, Watford is  followed by Coventry (a), Leeds (h), Boro (a), Southampton (h). Good luck with that little lot. 

Pick up 4-7 points plus in those five games and things will bumble along as they are to a degree. Anything more will give Manning much needed breathing space. 0-3 points and we will be very much lower mid table after the Southampton game and the natives will get very restless.

If it’s 0-3 points and an empty transfer window then **** knows what the Gate is going to be like……..just as we approach season ticket renewal time. These next five are a pivotal point of the season imo.

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4 hours ago, The Swan and Cemetery said:

The argument will be that if we’re pragmatic game to game, we won’t instil the style etc consistently that will eventually make us successful. Think LM’s MK stint may turn out to be instructive, with players who were better (Twine + some decent loans) they succeeded, when Twine left and loans returned, they were hopeless the following season. As you point out, this is problematic:

Building the quality required at Championship level to have ‘one way’ is vastly different (/more expensive) than in League 1. If we knew promotion was guaranteed next season, we’d probably all take 18th this season… but all will have happened is finishing 18th, which is a difficult sell “honest guv, we’re teetering on the brink of Prem glory” -  how do you give supporters confidence that we are on the right track, when in the moment it doesn’t feel like that?

All indicates that for LM to succeed we need very different (and more expensive) players, Not clear that the Lansdowns/Tinnion have clocked that success requires a number of things to come together in a planned way, vs constant flip-flopping/whack-a-mole and crossing of fingers. What happens before the end of January may contradict this view (but will also contradict everything they’ve previously said). Was ECB definitively Gould’s dream job vs he realised success was unlikely at City?

I think come the 1st Feb we will have a pretty clear view of what we have at City, both on and off the pitch (e.g. recruitment capability, etc).  This is a big few weeks imho, for quite a few people.

4 hours ago, chinapig said:

A case of Pearson as a pragmatist and Manning as an idealist perhaps.

Nigel knew the limitations of his squad, Liam doesn't yet seem to have seen that.

That is why he built the squad as he did, slowly but surely improving it, so he could evolve the way of playing.

1 hour ago, petehinton said:

Of course there is. But when a side brings on an attacking 10 & two strikers on at HT, they were always going to be massively going for it. To expect us to just soak that up, especially with how the second half started, without having to make any changes was very naive and dumb. IMO. It was pretty obvious to Everyone watching it that we needed to change something, rather than stand there and say ‘well….this is a tough one for the players to figure out isn’t it, good luck to them though’. 
 

As @Harry mentioned, going 3 at the back with Tanner at CB, once we were already 1-0 down, made things even worse somehow. We took TGH off, by far and away our most creative CM, to settle us into a midfield two of James and Williams, whilst 1-0 down. That’s what you do at 1/2-0 up, not down. 

For me, it’s how quickly can you assimilate what Preston changed, and negate their impact whilst you implement your chosen solution.  Sometimes you need a “go to” temporary fix to buy you some time.

My view is that we 1) needed to press the ball better from their keeper / defenders to force them into more wayward balls forward and 2) screen our CBs to make it a) harder to get the ball to Riis and Keane b) give them less room to get it down and c) have one of our players in that pocket where balls might drop.  Just dropping JW or TGH into a Pack-type role might’ve meant Preston gave up with that idea.

Thats not a difficult game-plan to have in your back-pocket ready to instruct against a team going direct, is it?

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We would not take 18th, well I wouldn't anyway.

Slow but steady progress in points and position..19th, 17th was it and 14th. We probably bottomed out in two ways if not three, 18th would be a big step back IMO.

Apologies I misread the post.. 18th then promotion sure but overall no.

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2 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

I'm not especially concerned about the drop, there have been some bounces but nothing that sustained.

My main concern is will the season fizzle out by mid February to nothingness.

I genuinely think it has already. We will finish between 12th-15th this season - which I think is completely unacceptable considering what Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee keep spouting on about 

8 seasons back in this league isn’t it? And it’s delivered absolutely no progress on the pitch whatsover

I know I’m a negative poster, and I know some times I can let my emotions rule my gob and I can spout some bollocks - but the way senior people at this club has behaved this season has absolutely infuriated me to the point that I genuinely don’t give a shit if it implodes and we tumble down to League 1 (please don’t get “I want” and “I don’t care “ mixed up. I don’t want us to go to League 1, I simply wouldn’t give a shit if we did)

They treat the fans like plebs. The fans of this club deserve so much better then what they have been given 

 

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9 minutes ago, Andy082005 said:

I genuinely think it has already. We will finish between 12th-15th this season - which I think is completely unacceptable considering what Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee keep spouting on about 

8 seasons back in this league isn’t it? And it’s delivered absolutely no progress on the pitch whatsover

I know I’m a negative poster, and I know some times I can let my emotions rule my gob and I can spout some bollocks - but the way senior people at this club has behaved this season has absolutely infuriated me to the point that I genuinely don’t give a shit if it implodes and we tumble down to League 1 (please don’t get “I want” and “I don’t care “ mixed up. I don’t want us to go to League 1, I simply wouldn’t give a shit if we did)

They treat the fans like plebs. The fans of this club deserve so much better then what they have been given 

 

Nailed it for me mate.

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2 hours ago, petehinton said:

Of course there is. But when a side brings on an attacking 10 & two strikers on at HT, they were always going to be massively going for it. To expect us to just soak that up, especially with how the second half started, without having to make any changes was very naive and dumb. IMO. It was pretty obvious to Everyone watching it that we needed to change something, rather than stand there and say ‘well….this is a tough one for the players to figure out isn’t it, good luck to them though’. 
 

As @Harry mentioned, going 3 at the back with Tanner at CB, once we were already 1-0 down, made things even worse somehow. We took TGH off, by far and away our most creative CM, to settle us into a midfield two of James and Williams, whilst 1-0 down. That’s what you do at 1/2-0 up, not down. 

Yeah, wouldn’t disagree with much of that Pete. I was thinking more bigger picture, longer term: just found it interesting that it co-incides with that Joe Williams interview.

Expecting the players to figure it out is a massive step change in English football, so we certainly ain’t going to do it overnight. But it’s a direction of travel that has some merit.

I don’t entirely agree about going three at the back: that made some sense, I felt, albeit never having seen Mccrorie play before. And Wells/Conway up front too. But 100% taking TGH off was odd, and that changed definitely felt like we were more trying to defend a lead than chase a game. 

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28 minutes ago, Andy082005 said:

I genuinely think it has already. We will finish between 12th-15th this season - which I think is completely unacceptable considering what Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee keep spouting on about 

8 seasons back in this league isn’t it? And it’s delivered absolutely no progress on the pitch whatsover

I know I’m a negative poster, and I know some times I can let my emotions rule my gob and I can spout some bollocks - but the way senior people at this club has behaved this season has absolutely infuriated me to the point that I genuinely don’t give a shit if it implodes and we tumble down to League 1 (please don’t get “I want” and “I don’t care “ mixed up. I don’t want us to go to League 1, I simply wouldn’t give a shit if we did)

They treat the fans like plebs. The fans of this club deserve so much better then what they have been given 

 

And we did make progress in the first four of those eight. What happened? 

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19 minutes ago, Andy082005 said:

I genuinely think it has already. We will finish between 12th-15th this season - which I think is completely unacceptable considering what Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee keep spouting on about 

8 seasons back in this league isn’t it? And it’s delivered absolutely no progress on the pitch whatsover

I know I’m a negative poster, and I know some times I can let my emotions rule my gob and I can spout some bollocks - but the way senior people at this club has behaved this season has absolutely infuriated me to the point that I genuinely don’t give a shit if it implodes and we tumble down to League 1 (please don’t get “I want” and “I don’t care “ mixed up. I don’t want us to go to League 1, I simply wouldn’t give a shit if we did)

They treat the fans like plebs. The fans of this club deserve so much better then what they have been given 

 

Absolutely spot on. I have never felt so disillusioned with the club as I do now and I've been supporting this club for 50 odd years. I just can't see where the owners can reason the actions they have taken and I am yet to hear any real valid reasons for the change other than a perceived clash of personalities &  especially as we are worse off. Listening to more mumbo jumbo soundbites from a coach who seems way out of his depth who cannot game manage is as painful as reading "I'll be back on "X" when we're in the Premier League " from tweedle dumb. There is a complete lack of character running through this club and an apparent disregard for the fanbase and it will take a monumental drive from the same people to keep season ticket renewals at the same pace for next season. I'll look forward to how they're going to spin that one.

 

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15 minutes ago, Natchfever said:

Finances going out of control cant have helped Dave.

I wonder if our plan, I say our that of the hierarchy was to scramble up by 2020, 2021 at the very latest.

I looked back at when Holden was sacked and SL paraphrasing said a successor would have money to spend as FFP was fine..wonder if yet again he misjudged a situation.

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54 minutes ago, Andy082005 said:

I genuinely think it has already. We will finish between 12th-15th this season - which I think is completely unacceptable considering what Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee keep spouting on about 

8 seasons back in this league isn’t it? And it’s delivered absolutely no progress on the pitch whatsover

I know I’m a negative poster, and I know some times I can let my emotions rule my gob and I can spout some bollocks - but the way senior people at this club has behaved this season has absolutely infuriated me to the point that I genuinely don’t give a shit if it implodes and we tumble down to League 1 (please don’t get “I want” and “I don’t care “ mixed up. I don’t want us to go to League 1, I simply wouldn’t give a shit if we did)

They treat the fans like plebs. The fans of this club deserve so much better then what they have been given 

 

It's easy to forget that 8 seasons in the Championship is progress.  We've spent the last 40 years yo-yoing between the second and third tiers (or lower), spending more time in the third tier than the second, and sometimes surviving only a single year when we did manage to get into the second tier

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23 minutes ago, italian dave said:

And we did make progress in the first four of those eight. What happened? 

We spent way above our means to achieve that “progress”, with a crazy policy that selling a player a season for £10-20m was a given and would balance the books, along came Covid and that ****** that cunning plan.

Nige picked up the pieces, kept our status in the second tier when we didn’t have a pot to piss in then got sacked as FFFP was easing. So now we SHOULD be able to release the shackles a bit and it’s down to the hierarchy to produce.

Get the next couple of windows right and a plan might materialise. Get them wrong and we might just be carrying some non-descript third tier player on our shoulders down the Gloucester Rd after a late winner at the Meccanno in a league derby.

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