| Harrogate (h) Match Thread 18:12 - Feb 10 with 19917 views | HullDale |
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| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 09:44 - Feb 13 with 2889 views | kel |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 18:49 - Feb 12 by Shun |
I’ve heard the same, but on the pitch he’s been showing he doesn’t want to be here for a while now. If that was the case he should’ve requested his agent do a better job of finding him a new club in January. That hasn’t happened so he needs to realise he’s here till summer whatever happens. He can sulk all he wants but he’s paid money the likes of which most football fans could only dream of, and has the honour of being the club captain. He needs to start acting like it and show a bit more responsibility.
What frustrates me is that we’re famously a club who won’t stand in the way of a player’s career. The fact that he’s been here for so long and no other club has come in with a good enough offer shows how much he’s coveted, so perhaps he isn’t as good as he thinks he is. |
The writing was on the wall when he ‘liked’ an instagram post from BBM’s gobshite wife in pre-season where she referred to the new board as amateurs.
I actually thought he had a good start to the season but his constant hoofing yesterday frustrated the hell out of me. Don’t know if it’s an instruction from the manager or not but Dorsett wasn’t doing it even half as much. |  | | |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 09:49 - Feb 13 with 2866 views | RooleyMoorBlue |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 21:35 - Feb 12 by mikehunt |
Don’t get the sudden animosity towards Eoin. It is embarrassing to hear people screaming hatred at him. Today was the first really poor game I have seen from him. Can’t believe he is purposely playing cr*p because he doesn’t want to be here. If he didn’t want to be here surely he would have angled to clear off in January?
The mood in the Sandy can change in an instant and it started in no time today. How on earth they expect players to perform when they are screaming abuse at them is beyond me.Yes, we were garbage for the first hour but Christ, there are ways to go about these things. If you want players not to care then just carry on bellowing abuse.
This is the one thing that would stop me going to matches. It is absolutely cringeworthy (imo) |
If players can't take criticism from fans then they are in the wrong job. The mood of the crowd is set by the players and after 3 minutes of comedy defending, the fans were on edge and dismayed by pathetic defensive errors. By the time their 3rd goal went in, even I was baying for blood, which isn't my usual reaction. If fans didn't care they would remain quiet and unmoved. |  | | |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 09:59 - Feb 13 with 2810 views | EllDale |
It would be interesting to know if the change in formation was forced by the absence of Downing or would have happened anyway in a bid to freshen things up.
If the former is the case then it's hardly a vote of confidence in Max Taylor or Sam Graham is it?
Or even Jimmy McNulty.
If O'Connell is merely running down his contract then we face the prospect of having to find replacements for him, Downing and Dorsett in summer.
I agree about the MIckey Mouse defending for all three goals.
How many times this season have lost the ball in midfield and the opposition surge though to score? Far too many for my liking and more often than the oft quoted inability to defend from set pieces. |  | | |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 10:25 - Feb 13 with 2727 views | HullDale |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bhn1rk
23:20 onwards on that link.
I wasn't sure at the time if I was reading too much into it (still not sure now in all honesty!) but that to me doesn't sound like a man who is proud to be, & thriving on being, a league 2 football club captain.
Doesn't come across as particularly enthusiastic, and definitely not inspirational. It could be just how he talks, the accent / tone of voice etc, but coupled with recent body language and the performance yesterday, it doesn't fill me with confidence that he is the man to rally the troops when we're against it. He says in the interview he was more vocal when he wasn't captain - do we take it off him now and just let him concentrate on playing to his best? Or would that cause more issues than it solves?
From what I've seen, Downing and Ball both look more like natural captains... coaching, talking, encouraging the rest of the team. Its a dilemma. | | | |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 10:36 - Feb 13 with 2673 views | AltDaleComms |
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| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 10:49 - Feb 13 with 2605 views | RooleyMoorBlue |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 09:59 - Feb 13 by EllDale |
It would be interesting to know if the change in formation was forced by the absence of Downing or would have happened anyway in a bid to freshen things up.
If the former is the case then it's hardly a vote of confidence in Max Taylor or Sam Graham is it?
Or even Jimmy McNulty.
If O'Connell is merely running down his contract then we face the prospect of having to find replacements for him, Downing and Dorsett in summer.
I agree about the MIckey Mouse defending for all three goals.
How many times this season have lost the ball in midfield and the opposition surge though to score? Far too many for my liking and more often than the oft quoted inability to defend from set pieces. |
Anyone who witnessed our defending during the first game of the season will realise nothing has changed. Six months down the line the players are still making 'schoolboy' errors. A captain is supposed to lead by example and this just isn't happening. Maybe the answer is for someone else to take over the armband and allow O'Connell to concentrate on his own game and get him back to his best. If this happens (change of captain) and there is no improvement then the only conclusion you can come to is, that he doesn't want to be here. We all know what he is capable of and we all want him to succeed, but as things are, it isn't working.
As regards to our overall system of play, the square peg will never fit into the round hole, no matter how much you bash it. Six wins from 28 games is testament to that and a different approach is required. At home we have had a lone forward far too often. Campbell was making some great runs all the game yesterday but I can only remember one instance when he was fed through.
Personally I think Stockdale has done a good job, when you consider he only had 6 weeks to put a team together. If we finish with at least two clubs below us, I would consider the season a success, because there were times in the summer when there was a real possibility of us going the same way as Bury.
All we want as fans is 100% effort and a modicum of skill. We want proactive football not reactive mayhem. Football is a very simple game, so let's go back to basics and keep it simple. | | | |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 12:36 - Feb 13 with 2373 views | D_Alien |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 10:25 - Feb 13 by HullDale |
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bhn1rk
23:20 onwards on that link.
I wasn't sure at the time if I was reading too much into it (still not sure now in all honesty!) but that to me doesn't sound like a man who is proud to be, & thriving on being, a league 2 football club captain.
Doesn't come across as particularly enthusiastic, and definitely not inspirational. It could be just how he talks, the accent / tone of voice etc, but coupled with recent body language and the performance yesterday, it doesn't fill me with confidence that he is the man to rally the troops when we're against it. He says in the interview he was more vocal when he wasn't captain - do we take it off him now and just let him concentrate on playing to his best? Or would that cause more issues than it solves?
From what I've seen, Downing and Ball both look more like natural captains... coaching, talking, encouraging the rest of the team. Its a dilemma. |
It's entirely possible that O'Connell's been unsettled in his captaincy role by the arrival of natural leaders such as Downing and in particular, Ball
From being the main Dale voice on the pitch he's suddenly put in the shade, and i can't see that he's doing anything now except playing out time. An unwelcome issue for RS to have to manage, but one that he must grasp one way or the other for the sake of our defence |  |
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| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 13:22 - Feb 13 with 2240 views | HullDale |
Good points well made.
Normally when a player is OOC in Summer (and general feeling is unlikely to sign again) you'd expect them to have their best performances to put themselves in the shop window and get the best next move possible.
Could it be that OOC EOC has something else lined up in Summer already? There was a strong rumour that we accepted a bid for him in January but he turned the move down - could that same club have agreed with him to move in Summer for free and a portion of that transfer fee would be instead a signing on bonus for him? Purely speculation - not sure if that is even allowed - but its been on my mind since yesterday.
Could it also be that he is annoyed the club accepted a bid (thought we'd try harder to keep him) and that frustration is showing through?
The more I think about it, he is the only regular first teamer who I would say hasn't clearly improved from under BBM to RS (I'm thinking O'Connell, Dooley, Newby, Grant, Lynch & Done off the top of my head). | | | |
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| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 16:56 - Feb 13 with 1905 views | DaleiLama |
Just as fans see different aspects to the game (e.g. I would have given the motm to Newby yesterday), so, too, do fans have different expectations and levels of patience.
There's nowt wrong with a large dose of ambition and I believe the manager and board have this in spades (as do I). This, at least in my view, has to be tempered by circumstances. Firstly we lost Lund, Humps and Oli in the summer, followed 4-5 months later by Bees and Morley. That's a lot of quality first team players and contributors.
RS got this job on a manifesto of entertaining, attacking football. The first part of this will obviously depend on your p-o-v, but the second cannot really be disputed, as stats have shown for most games this season in terms of chances created. We weren't converting those chances, so we splashed the cash in the January window and acquired 2 of the most prolific goal-scorers at lower league levels. The board didn't break the bank and the pair might even prove to be shrewd investments with development and improvement over time. we got a wee glimpse of what might be in the last 15 mins.
The current best first 11, even taking into account the hastily assembled late-summer signings (which might also have featured on supermarket sweep) are probably more RS-men than BBM-men but it could be 6:5 or 5:6 depending on which week you pick.
This squad has talent. It is also has plenty of young players and the post-January 1.2 edition of RAFC under RS now has to find the best way of playing.
For me, the things we are currently not doing well enough are winning 50:50 balls, standing our ground against on-coming attackers and retaining possession (in no particular order and not flogging defending corners to death again). We are light in the tackle and some of our recent passing has been woeful. That is not because our players have suddenly become bad though (as RS points out in his recent post-match interview). It is no coincidence that our 2nd and 3rd goal came as a result of some good old fashioned physical challenges by Newby and Charman (the latter smaller in stature than Andrews but having a much more physical style) who both won balls that led to (converted) chances. Ball will certainly help to fill some of the void Oli and Aaron left in this respect too. I posted that Grant was > Newby in the Colchester thread. That certainly switched in the HT game. Grant is pushed off the ball way too often to ever be really good in L1/2 where he'll too often be out-manoeuvred.
The on-going debate about 5 or 4 at the back was put under a harsh light yesterday when we conceded 3 using a formation which many have been crying out for. CoK was let go because he didn't fit into a back 4 @ MTFC - could it just be that Robbie had it right all along and that the 3 CHs and 2 attacking WBs really is our best formation?
Personally, I am nowhere near running out of patience. Was I as sick as a parrot at 1-3. Too bloody right. But as RS points out, that comeback showed character and resilience which we may just need in the coming weeks and months. Do I want to see better defending? Of course. Do I think we are at full strength yet? No way. The one aspect of our play where I believe RS can have the biggest impact and help to turn things around is to up the urgency, tempo and aggression (within the spirit and rules of the game). Otherwise, I think the trajectory we are on is not that of a team that should be relegated. I would qualify that by saying if we are, with the benefit of hindsight, he wasn't the right man for the job because he couldn't motivate a team with enough talent to survive.
Interestingly (to me at least) RS says he doesn't want to be a nearly team in the video embedded in the OP. On 11th of December, after the conclusion of the Gas fixture, I posted "at 18:03 11 Dec 2021 - I've said it b4 and will say it again - we are a nearly team this campaign so far. Nearly good. Nearly winning games. Nearly a contender. But we can also be bullied easily, we nearly have a defence and nearly convert enough chances. The challenge RS faces is to get us over those humps. Give him a chance I say"
It's still my view, but failure to fix the problems will end in our failure. No doubt Robbie is fully aware of all this and he still gets my vote.
UTDNFS |  |
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| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 17:42 - Feb 13 with 1780 views | Dale_4_Life |
| Harrogate (h) Match Thread on 22:59 - Feb 12 by Brierls |
The overall performance was just about OK.
Many got the change in formation they wanted, it nullified COK’s threat.
O’Connell had a poor game, but so did others and not coming in for the same vitriol.
We don’t cope with pace.
Newby had a very good second half.
Great to see Campbell get a goal.
Charman hasn’t trained all week. RS is right to protect him for long term gain.
This is a season of transition. I see enough in RS signings and some performances to believe he’s the right man for the job. Next season I expect much more. |
Brierls excellent post.
Defensively we were Sunday league.
Best attacking performance of the season.? Hoping OConnel can find his mojo again as yesterday his performance and body language both left an awful lot to be desired. Campbell and Charman and Ball all showed bottle today... Take note our captain! | | | |
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