Burton v Gas Match Day Thread

Do you shave your fanny?

You should be so lucky my dear 👀.

Crack on, enjoy!

Cheers Chap, you too.

A near 20 page winning Match Day Thread, wonders will never cease.

Just got home so just catching up with this thread.
Tbh I don’t think anyone’s saying that the owners are picking the team nor is MT cutting up the oranges. (Well he may be I suppose.)  I think the worry was /is, that after a run of 4 poor performances and being without a win Hunt is picked after appearing to be frozen out and we beat Charlton and he’s MOM or very nearly is. Then rumours (which may or may not be true) are spread that because of contractual issues he ‘may’ have not been playing for reasons other than football ones. 

I agree bluetooth, the thought is absolutely nuts! They are not picking the team, but I guess they may be trying to ‘influence’ who is available to play because of contractual reasons. That’s not outside the realms of possibility. But that wouldn’t be just Rovers it happens to. It happens all the times when players get to a certain number of games just before a few more games triggers a new contract. And sometimes owners don’t want to offer one. I hope all that stuff stops after this week and that Hunt becomes a permanent part of the team to put all the rumours to bed.

Let’s face it, MT could have been blamed for loads of stuff after the September he had, from the Middle East crisis to the government cancelling winter fuel payments to people like me! (B******, I hope he gets sacked. Joke btw!). This place has given him a hammering for his tactics or lack of them, his style of play or rather what style of play so the difference Jack Hunt has made has been enormous which begs the question ‘why not before’. And some people think they have the answer and they may have. I’ve no idea but MT is a tough guy with an hard shell who just gets on with things and has responded well.

And today, well played the team faced with a problem MT made some good substitutions and we won the game easily in the end. I just hope that he realises that when we attack we will cause teams problems. Well done everyone!

UTG!

exactly!!! 2 wins against really poor teams and this poster thinks this will shut the moaners up, we should be winning against poor teams.

Charlton are hardly a typical L1 "poor" team even if we made them look poor for 70 mins on Tuesday. The next three league games will give us a good idea if we've made any real progress.

Charlton aren’t a typically poor league 1 team BUT they were atrocious on the night against us and there nothing anyone can point to that suggests that was anything particularly good that we did to make them look poor.

They were just systematically poor in all aspects. We were pretty much as poor apart from one key area which was defending our own box. Had Charlton shown the same desire to block a shot or a cross our chance recreation and most likely our efforts on goal would’ve been minimal if not zero.

Burton are talented group of players but again they were a very poor team. For moments a group of talented players can and will make you look poor and they did. They dominated the ball for large periods and you could see something in them that I’m yet to see in us….a plan and a style. However, they will struggle because they looked a poor team with little substance beyond an idealistic approach to playing the game.

What continues to bug me is the randomness to every single part of our approach. Every. Single. Part.

Once again the squad selection was odd.

Players who had previously been starting regularly (Thomas) didn’t even make the bench. Players (Garrett) who have been regular contributors from the bench didn’t make the bench. Then players like Hutchinson who seems a perennial 7th sub stays on the bench despite never being used, ahead of Thomas / Garrett. On that note Hutchinson has now been sub 7 times and not once entered the pitch for a single minute. Does that not strike anyone as odd? Does MT think he’s a Gk? My point being, all subs sit in a box of some kind. Winning, losing, chasing, holding out, several goals up and coasting, shape change, injuries…in the 7 times he’s been sub all of those things have happened yet MT has never once looked at him for a solution. I find it bizarre. Despite varying opinions on how he’s done he hasn’t been THAT bad and if he has why is he even on the bench ahead of others?

Anyway I digress….the randomness continues into how and when subs are made. 48 mins was when the first two were ready. Why wait 2/3 minutes when given decision making time it’s likely to have been made prior to the start of the second half, in which case why waste a substitution ‘break’ when you have a free one minutes before when you’d already decided?

The shape change came early…midway through first half…an indication that the manager got the formation and / or the personnel wrong and knew it. Fair play for recognising it but what did he find out in 25 mins that he hasn’t found out in the previous 12 weeks? I’ve said for weeks that we seemed set on and seemed to recruit for a 352 but had players better suited to 4231/4411. It’s bizarre.

Our general play has a randomness to it to which suggests the in possession work isn’t good enough. No one seems to have the bravery to put a stamp on exactly what we are or what we want to be. I don’t feel we’re any closer to that now than we were against Northampton and I genuinely don’t think the manager has a clue who is best 11 are or what formation to play them any more than he did v Northampton.

Burton were poor and fell apart like a cheap suit when put under any pressure or intensity. There were gaps everywhere. The overloads we could’ve and should’ve had and punished in wide areas on the counter were copious and blatant. Yet we barely troubled their keeper until they had 8 men on the pitch!

I’m far from convinced by the man in charge in spite of two wins. My opinion is that, the two wins, have been largely down to the opponents rather than the manger, the tactics, or the team.

The problem we have imo is two wins have just delayed the inevitable. I think the powers that be want him gone and in truth two back to back losses will be enough and the longer it takes the shorter the time to make progress.