Thoughts...

Good to read some balanced thoughts tbh.

I’m not sure what else many people expected?

Hall hasn’t played a minute of competitive football since the Tottenham game which was what, 20th August?

Moore has missed the last 3 games since 14th September.

Hutchinson hasn’t kicked a ball in a competitive game since 14th Sept and played 250 minutes since first week of August.

Kofi has played 70 mins once since the Tottenham game on 20th August.

Garrett has played 19 minutes since 14th September.

Macca hasn’t started a game since 7th September or played more than 25 minutes since.

O Donker has started one game all season and blew up after 55 mins

Sousa has only completed 90 mins once all season.

Add that to the fact that :-

Bilongo was playing as a CB!!

Garrett / Hutchinson / Shaw have never played together before.

Macca was playing as a CF!

It had disaster written all over it. It genuinely looked like the manager had set it up to fail and then sat up on the armada with his arms folded a wry smile and a “I told you so” look.

If any of the players above had been injured and played the amount of minutes they have we’d all be saying it was to be expected. Let alone all of them together on the same team on the same night!!

As I say, it seems to me that the manager wanted to make some points and set it up to prove them.

Swindon aren’t that bad a side and only threw young players on later on once the game was over and these league two teams really aren’t as bad as some want to make out.

“ I’m not sure what else people expect “ is that how low our expectations are now? I didnt expect to be played off the park by a water poor league two side that also made just as many changes as us by the way so the excuse of starting mixture of fringe players and starters is rubbish. In fact they had more academy players in the squad than we did! Truth is not one of these new signings have hit the ground running except maybe 1 or 2. We’ve signed the most money we ever have in a transfer window and our new record signing is a solid league two striker at best. Hutchinson is meant to have been Evans replacement but those players are miles apart. He’s somehow turned Thomas in do a bad defender. Used to relish playing forward beating a man and cutting in on his left. I don’t know who’s been responsible for all these signings but they’re water poor given the money we’ve spent to. Clarke knew a lot of the players he bought in we got promoted. Barton knew a lot of the players he bought in. We got promoted. Taylor has bought a lot of players he knows. They all look like they’ve never kicked a ball in there life and no wonder the players looked very demotivated and uninterested compared to Swindon when you’ve got the most boring man on the planet trying to motivate you. Need time to gel bla bla bla no he’s had his 10 games and we’ve got worse. The 4 teams we’ve beat are absolute dross so that papers over the cracks we haven’t beat one good side this season. Get him done before it’s to late. Nice guy. Maybe to nice to be a manager? But don’t worry wael go in the away stand when things get rough take a few photos wearing a stone island badge and everything is forgotten. Embarrasing. Proper cringe. Anyways let’s hope Huddersfield stick 4 past us and there’s a taxi for Taylor and we actually employ someone with a decent record in league one and above.

What I meant by what is the amount of players we had starting who have barely kicked a football in a month was just too many all at once. It made life more difficult than it needed to be for all of them and hung each of them out to dry.

You need players around you to perform. It’s ok expecting an individual to just stand out in a bad team performance but that’s so hard to do when players around you are all underperforming or finding it tough. He simply lumped together ever possible player who was under cooked and put them in a formation that didn’t suit them and wondered why it looked a mess.

The environment is everything. Being in a functioning unit with players around you that are fit and / or settled helps the players who haven’t been playing stand half a chance. Chucking them all out there at the same time in a Mish mash of a formation was criminal.



If it’s one or two then it’s normal and some players just find it hard to settle, but the fact as you say, it’s pretty much all of them suggests to me that it’s the manager who’s making it hard or failing to help them.

A good manager makes poor players better and good players even better and puts them in a team which is stronger than the sum of its parts as a unit.

This fella, as you say is making good players look poor and young unsettled players look really poor and the teams he’s putting out, barring one or two moments in one or two games, much much worse than the sum of its parts.

You simply have to question what he does and how he’s treating people to make them look like they hate being on a football pitch and to make them clearly look worse footballers than they clearly are!!



They do look demotivated and uninterested. They also look completely devoid of any confidence whatsoever and look scared shitless to play football or make mistake.

That’s on the manager. He has ripped out any sign of confidence in these players by continually talking them down, questioning them in public, taking them off, leaving them out the squad, putting them back on off the back of no football, leaving them out again and blaming them!

They literally look like they have no idea what he wants, or how to do it. They look tentative, slow to react, inhibited and scared stiff.

Knowing that the manager will have a cart load of excuses to exonerate himself from any blame when you don’t perform by shifting it onto the players.

A good manager protects those players and manages them behind closed doors. He addresses issues at training not in front of his mouthpiece sycophant Dan Hargrieves who laps up every ounce of nonsense like he’s privileged to be part of a pro football club and wants to be his best mate.



Agree. 1,000,000%. I said after the Charlton game it was bad news because it meant some short term gain for some long term pain….and it needed to be the other way round.



I don’t think he is a nice guy. He doesn’t talk about his players with any warmth, enthusiasm or feeling. He talks like he’s a disappointed family member who’s just had a meeting at the boarding school about the son he never sees who’s made him feel let down in front of his rich friends. It’s demoralising and insulting and you can see in how they play that they are intimidated by the potential consequences of any mistake.

Just for clarity I didn’t think last night was anything BUT shambolic.

I’m just trying to understand why.

No, but we should also ask why are they sulking?

Too many egos and only 11 spots free every game.

5 CM’s, 5 strikers, the manager was asked to do a presentation to each knew signing, wasn’t involved in recruitment of them. He did this, now he can only pick 11 players each game. Imagine going for a job interview with HR person first of all, she/he tells you that we want you, sell you a great story, meet who your inline manager will be, you get into the office and you are not really needed and someone is doing your job, wouldn’t you sulk?!

We don’t have league cup, FA cup, European fixtures like Chelsea to squad rotate!

Billongo was at fault for the 1st 2 goals, he is not a CB ( where is Forbes ) and you could argue that Kofi was for the second 2 not closing down and lost his man for a a free header on the corner . The midfield was non existent, every time I see hutch he reminds me of Westbroke . LT huffs and puffs that's it . Its not secret I am not fan of his tactics and I have dug MT on here numerous times but I think there are bigger things going on here. Someone's playing football manager with our club !

Forbes on international duty

Interesting that MT in his interview also said we had lost recently to Cheltenham Reserves. Certainly looks like there is a divide between the main 1st team starters / those he trusts and others. However, even if MT hasn't been actively involved in all of the transfer deals, it is clear that for whatever reason he isn't getting the best out of certain players be it the way he manages them or the roles he asks of them. Luke Thomas is a prime example. Seems like a confidence player who is being asked to play a role he isn't comfortable in. Now doesn't want to shoot or risk losing the ball trying to beat a man. Whilst i wouldn't be choosing him, I do feel for him