Sleep walking to L2

This is good Si, what it shows is over 20 players (subs as well) our brilliant squad which Topper raves about, can’t get a point off Burton over two games.

It kind of sums it all up doesn’t it, could anyone else do any better🤷🏼‍♂️

"there's not too much wrong from what I can see"

"there is a feeling there that we can hopefully get a little bit more out of them and start producing winning football, as opposed to just good looking football some of the time, but not getting the end out of it."

"There's enough time to challenge this season, but we need to win games of football."

"this season it seems a little bit more even from top to bottom and we're sat in the middle of the pack at the moment. Someone will come from that position, why can't it be us?" 

"Like I said to you previously, there's a reason why I took this job and that group of players is one of the main ones."

Yet we've took 4 points of Portsmouth, outplayed Barnsley, beaten Bolton away etc etc

We are absolutely worst than under Barton.

Thanks, liberal lefties, for getting him out and potentially getting us relegated.

Never mind, we will be top in the tolerance and kindness table.

Before you bite, yes it’s a WUM. With a grain of truth in the core.

Go woke, go broke. Go woke, go down. 🤣

And herein lies the rub for MT.

Since he has come in he's lost Wilson, Taylor, Hunt, Friend, Grant, Vale, Finley, Crama, McCormick, Ward through injury in some capacity or length of time. Hes never seen Rossiter play.

Add to that players which are miles off the pace and were under Barton, Cox, Marquis, Sinclair, Javani as well as lost a major player in Collins, but who wanted to leave and was touted around for sale pretty much as soon as he got here.

Facts are facts this squad in its depth, which was assembled by Barton and Jennings was not built for games like Fleetwood, Burton, Cheltenham, insert any other team that are low block and physical. We've seen it time and again both last season and even in L2.

It comes down to what I wrote in the other thread about the way we recruited and how JB focused on the player, his potential capability when fit, but never took into account that those players couldn't play for over half the season.

Really MT currently has the harder task because on an early season billiard table pitch with at least 4 of the above injured players available, JB probably looked like he was doing a better job, but there were warning signs that these results would come our way.

MT has been told to shrink and evaluate the whole squad by the owners but this will take more than 2 months work and 1 transfer window. It also highlights even more that the owners really need to look at our recruitment strategy and get a football scouting network in place asap.

...are better managers being turned away? Have we ditched better ones to bring in Taylor?


Incidentally our previous managers record against Burton was P4 W1 L3 and his record managing us in League One is still worse than Taylor...

Strange some on here are now complimentary towards JB after wanting him gone.

MT really needs to find his mojo, just come across at least being positive, saying they will be working hard to sort it out.

What must be said is the players need to step up, they are professionals being paid a decent wage, have some pride, play for the fans that turn up every week and watch. I wants to see a team that wants the ball, not afraid, chase down in numbers when don't have the ball and get forward in numbers when we do.

I don't know where to start with the direction from the owners, we've gone from needing a new stadium to bolting ends on the already dated stands, to selling our better players and not replacing them. I don't know if Wael knew these guys or been naive in thinking they would progress the club, but 6 months in we don't hear from them and don't get impression they know what they are doing. The JCH transfer debacle, tells a big story, JB wanted a player and owners pulled the plug last minute. Sold down a river with this lot I feel.

"Facts are facts this squad in its depth, which was assembled by Barton and Jennings was not built for games like Fleetwood, Burton, Cheltenham, insert any other team that are low block and physical. We've seen it time and again both last season and even in L2."

I've read this over and over.
A manager with a philosophy doesn't build a squad to play against a certain style. It builds a squad to play a certain style.
If you come up against different types of opponents, the idea is to force your will onto them and play to your strengths to nullify theirs.

If a side plays long and has big players to impose a physical game, you shut down the long ball players to force poor long balls. Your defenders(who are usually accustomed to aerial bombardment and playing the way they face) should be prepared and concentrate on strict line management/offside/spacial awareness. Its not hard and anybody who has played beyond 14 years of age knows this.

If we've got lighter technical players, they need to move off the ball when in possession to find pockets. We then pass the ball quickly to move the big physical side around and draw fouls/limit their possession/frustrate their attackers who won't be getting much of the ball.

We should NOT revert to matching up to them because that's their game and we can't win.

Blaming past employees is also a bit of a cop out. The real facts are that no matter who pulls on a Jersey and walks onto the field, they should demonstrate effort. We aren't seeing that. We are seeing petulance, shrinking violets, unmotivated individuals. That lies with the manager to get the best out of the squad at his disposal.

More than happy to say the players aren't good enough or injuries have hit us etc, that may be true. However we've got 11 on the park and they aren't playing to their full potential at all whilst the application is woeful.

How quickly people forget beating Portsmouth, Charlton and Oxford at home, all inside the last month and a bit...