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Don’t think I’ve seen it mentioned before, but that’s a right sitter Mitchell misses when we are 1-0 up. Fantastic bit of play and he somehow gets it over the bar, if that goes in it’s a totally different game.
For someone who says refs have a hard job and that they’ll make mistakes, he sure does go on about how they fell short today. Hope our fans remember this when we see opposition benches go mad or moan after games.
The sarcastic “best decision he made all game” comment for receiving a yellow for dissent was poor form too.
This isn’t excusing any ref decisions btw, but we can only control ourselves. Much like when it comes to defending after any such decisions.
Couple of mins in so far and it’s refreshing to hear an immediate acknowledgment of how we could have been better for the goals.
Then there’s a referee moan (maybe valid for those who watched), but to follow it up with ‘xG’ talk? Ugh. Modern football is rubbish.
Sassi sounds like he could be out on Tuesday so let’s hope Ferguson can recover from illness and solidify his place for a while.
We’d have less selection “turbulence” to worry about recently if those selections were more consistent, injuries permitting. Still, apart from the constant referring back to ref decisions despite saying he didn’t want to, that was actually one of the better interviews so far.
By all accounts, the ‘possession football’ was not the issue today. We have to stop beating that drum because he will never change the way he wants his sides to play.
Nor will almost any manager who replaced him. The game has changed. I don’t like it, but that’s how it is.
Unless you know a load of managers who play differently, we should hope that ours who recognises that we can be entertaining and effective when playing at pace can solve the other problems mentioned above.
On paper it’s a good start. We have a good squad capable of playing attacking football that gets results. We have a preferred way of playing that can achieve that too.
But, and it’s a big but, one that’s consistent throughout for me, we have some real issues that need first acknowledging and then addressing. The main one is around team selection and the consistency of it.
Ferguson was playing well, as well as he’s ever played since coming to the club. He was free of injury and was doing everything asked of him. True, it had only been a couple of games but we were getting results. He was left out for Sassi against Aldershot, we continued getting results. But now we aren’t and he isn’t even in the squad. Now there may be an injury but we had a player full of confidence who now knows he’s not first choice and a replacement who is struggling by all accounts (not seen any of today’s game).
That’s one example. The midfield is another. At some stage McNulty has to decide which is his strongest team and stick to it. At the moment we have almost too many choices and little in the way of significant impact. The signings of Westley and Ayinde have cluttered things even more.
So yeah, we’re probably ahead of where I’d have expected but the concerns are real. It’s to be hoped the manager shares them. I’ve a worry he’s not even acknowledging them at present.
For the majority of the season so far, we’ve done all of that. Never seen a player cross the ball as much as TAR for example. Last week we didn’t, we were way off it. Partly because of selection and partly because of a reluctance to change formation.
The manager is responsible for those and finding a way to do all the things we’ve proven to be good at within his preferred way of playing. He does that and we have another level to move up to which will build upon an already impressive start. He doesn’t and the criticism, as it is now, remains valid and has to be acknowledged.
He won’t change his philosophy though. That’s something we have to accept. He can change how that philosophy can be adapted though. That’s something we’ve seen.
We were playing the same way as the previous games but badly. We went through Sassi a lot v Maidenhead (see the Mitchell goal) but then he had more time and more options. It’s just that we didn’t play very well against Solihull and everything was much slower meaning the ball was retained at the back much more. Something which makes us far less effective.
We need to play quickly and wide. When we can’t we need to change how we play more effectively during games. That’s the criticism McNulty has to take on board.
Despite that, he didn’t send his players out to play any differently last Saturday. To say he did would make all the previous wins irrelevant, because those tactics are fundamentally his way of playing. Whether we like that is another debate!
There’s also a contrast in the statements around the financial aspect.
Presumably Dale can clarify exactly how much money they have currently forecast to make from the competition factoring in possible fluctuations in crowd sizes.
And the secret to getting past that has been shown to move the ball quickly into wide areas and get the outside central defenders supporting attacks. Then when one route wide is blocked off, shifting it centrally so the likes of East and Henry can move us forward from there.
We look half the team when we don’t move the ball at pace. The manager knows this because we have won over half our games getting at the opposition. It’s when the opposition are set up really well we have to give them other problems. The selection and use of a forward three last week didn’t help us to achieve that.
Yep. Despite the faith put in him with the longer contract, the jury is still out on some aspects of his management. Do I believe there has been a bit too much negativity around one defeat? Undoubtedly. Whilst some make valid points, there is a predictability amongst other comments. To the point of not even showing an understanding of what we’ve seen so far. Or choosing to ignore it to suit an entrenched view.
However, there are some worrying trends developing which TS has identified in his posts - the amount of changes made game to game being the main one. Another, for me, would be the reluctance to make tweaks to our midfield/forward formation. At some point the 2/3 needs to become a 3/2. If only to see if we can get more out of Rodney.
For the last time (it probably won’t be), the manager did not send his team out to play less offensively last week. We retained the same formation but a combination of team selection, poor choices and passing by those on the pitch and, most importantly, an opposition who nullified our threat very well, we lost a game of football.
Could the manager have done things differently, made better selections prior and in-game? Yes. He cannot deflect this criticism.
But to suggest he actually decided to play a different way to how we have which has been successful is nonsensical at best. Or wasn’t he playing his preferred way when we were winning games?
Yes, it’s good that the club have quickly explained the situation.
Not sure I’m a fan of the “proper football pyramid of three up, three down, between the EFL and National League” line. Were we arguing for a “proper football pyramid” 18 months ago? Will we continue to do so if we go up this season? If so, great.
As the home club keep all the receipts, they can make their own decisions on admission prices and Dale will have to put some real imagination into this if they want people to turn up.
Season ticket holders for a fiver at most, general admission £6 (if that’s allowed to charge more).
So everyone plays four teams and the top two go through? Much like the stupid nature of the Champions League, having a competition where you have spend ages working out fixtures and permutations is another nail in the football coffin.
Why couldn’t they have had eight groups of four then a last sixteen round?
Having an event that all supporters could watch, live or after, using YouTube has surely got to be a better idea than the limitations of Teams which has proven not to be popular.
Presumably Andy Duff will be heavily involved in this meeting and would have been told how well attended the meetings were previously using this method?
Thanks for the reply, there’s hopefully still time for changes to be made and lessons to be learnt around process and procedure going forward.
Very disappointing this will take place on Teams. Having attended others using this format it is very limited with respect to encouraging interaction with the wider fanbase.
The attendance at the last kit focus group meeting using this format was also very low. It should have been enough for anyone present from the Trust and the club to realise that it was an ineffective method to create better engagement with a larger cross section of fans.
There have been plenty of valid points about the problems we encountered on Saturday, but there also needs to be some perspective.
We’ve started the season very well, both results wise and performances in the main. The league table reflects that (and if the manager did acknowledge that it would actually support the work he is doing).
The selections McNulty made have been identified as a contributing factor, it would be good to know more about these but that’s not happening much. However, previous changes have occurred and we’ve won games well - the previous two being good examples. As much as we will debate these, and there’s a concern if they become repetitive, the manager has some credit in the bank because he’ll point to it working so far. Now he has another decision to make after it hasn’t in the last game.
We need to learn from these games and look to find different ways of changing games, for me that would be tweaking the formation - to the 3-5-2 mentioned further up the thread. It’s obvious we want to play quickly in behind opposition fullbacks, to suggest otherwise ignores the crazy amount of crosses TAR puts into the box and how often Allarakhia looks to take on his man. But when that route isn’t as freely available, we need to make the other team think more. Otherwise we look slow.
At no stage though did we set up negatively and defensively, but the contributing factors of player selection, individual performance and a well organised team who took advantage of a below par display meant we lost. That’s football.
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