Gas v Latics MDT

You’d really help yourself if you could read.

What I said was “I will never understand a manager who makes subs at half time.

He’s basically saying I can’t help you with any information or expectation and so I’ll just swap players and see if one’s better.

You rarely if ever see the best managers do it. It screams “I dont know how to improve this”.

The essence of managing / coaching would be to identify how that player can improve and how the team can improve by doing certain things better and then to give them the opportunity to carry that out”

It seems to be working for Blackpool, if I was the VP I'd tell MT he needed to get vastly improved performances at Posh and Wycombe or he'd have to seriously consider his position.

According to Dan Hargreaves Ward was only rested yesterday so hopefully he'll return next week and C Taylor will start and actually play to his full ability.

You must be in the minority if you thought the starting 11 all deserved to all start the 2nd half, if nothing else it sent a message to them that the first 45 mins simply wasn't good enough. Although you do wonder if they really cared.

Saturday's result: Bristol Rovers 0, Bristol Rovers 4.
We gave them the goals on a plate.
Regroup, get a firecracker up their jacksies (exept Mola who was good) and get at 'em, starting at the Posh.
Message to the players: "get over it, and be quick about it". 

Well no you won’t understand my point because you’re making an assumption of what I said rather than what I actually said and then you’re basing your argument on one example.

It’s quite unusual which is why I said “rarely if ever”. That doesn’t mean it doesnt happen ffs 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️

I also said the “best managers” rarely do it. I’m sure there are examples of ones that have though.

My argument was based on that it screams desperate but of course there will be times when a manager genuinely identifies an issue. My guess is today that Eddie Howe spotted something that wasn’t working, or that Wolves had done something different to the pre match analysis carried out or that possibly the injury meant a change of shape that meant other subs also were needed.

Of course you’re going to be judged on the success of that so Howes seems to have spotted something and corrected it. On the other hand, we got worse after the break and nothing really changed in terms of stopping Wigan having success so that just screamed desperate to me.

No of course not. No one was suggesting that he sat on the lot and did nothing.

But what he did do didnt work do its fair for us to sit here and discuss whether it was the right thing to do.

IMO making the two young players both of whom are desperately trying to make an impression and get their season up and running, scapegoats, was shocking man management unless they were genuinely so far off the rest of the pack it had to be done. They weren’t. It would be a hard push to single out anyone as being better brighter or alternatively, worse than anyone else during that first half.

Again IMO Sousa has done ok and Hutchinson had had brighter moments than Garrett and Thomas and so had Thomas stayed as a WB it would’ve made sense but to move him into the middle and persevere with him didn’t.

All I’m doing is looking at using some common sense. We were getting overrun in midfield I can see that. He’d already identified Conteh as being tired and having taken a knock and he was all over the place. He needed help alongside him and neither Garrett or Hutchinson were able to offer enough to hold it together in there. The sensible thing would’ve been to bring on Lindsay to help Conteh stem the tide defensively.

With LT he then moved to a system that had wingers yet with Forde and LT as natural wingers he moved LT into the middle took off Hutchinson and left us even more exposed defensively and played SS and Ruel as wingers…Ruel had been close to being our worst player first half.

It was an absolute car crash and it was compounded 10-15 mins later by trying to correct what he’d already got wrong by bringing on Lindsay and Forde.

As I said if the subs were a toss of a coin of many players underperforming, and a shot across the bows as a warning to all, then have some balls and make a statement by hooking a big player not the easy targets. That’s just how I see things like that though.

And before anyone says it of course we have the benefit of hindsight but we also have the benefit of common sense.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on that, for a spell I thought Hutchinson was quite bright and moved the ball well particularly out to Thomas and into Promise. Defensively yes they all looked all over the place but that was largely in transition because no one managed to get hold of the ball long enough.

It is what it is and I respect we’ll all have an opinion but ultimately LT did nothing to justify that faith and imo he hasn’t done so yet apart from Cambridge which we all now know, appears to be a outlier in terms of performances.


It’s possible re Lindsay but MT did say post match he was close to starting so to revert to only 30 mins doesn’t make sense.

We know from last season LT is capable of playing well, even at RWB, just why he's so poor lately is baffling, as he's clearly not a newcomer to the club nor struggling with how MT wants him to play. Sinclair is similarly as bad on the other wing.

I expect, the owners of the White Star Line thought the same, when they appointed Captain Smith.