After the Gillingham away win back in January Leahy posted a picture of himself grinning during the game with the sarcastic caption “you’re ■■■■ Leahy” in reference to something a fan must have shouted.
That for one solitary win in a sea of defeats.
Also Ferrier liked the status about Keates being sacked. These players are a mess, I don’t know how they think this is acceptable. Conceding on average about 2 goals a game, every single game pretty much without fail.
And they wonder why we’re wound up and angry. And they all shirk away from responsibility on the pitch, particularly towards us fans who’d made the effort
I think Josh Gordon has a discipline issue that has cost us several times this season. His tendency to dive in when he has zero chance of getting the ball or in daft positions on the pitch needs to be cut out.
Away at Plymouth, bloke running away from goal out wide and he dives in wrecklessly, free kick, Plymouth score. Last week against Oxford. Exactly the same. Then yesterday.
Sometimes I love the way he runs about a lot and I think he puts a real shift in, but if you’re a professional, you need to have a better mentality.
Alongside his workrate, putting in little nudges, kicking the ball away etc are a real feature of his game. Put this down to him being a ‘nuisance’ striker earlier in the season but he seems to have lost the ability to harness that in recent times.
Agreed. Everyone loves a player who niggles and winds up the opposition but you have to pick your moments. The fact that he increasingly doesn’t is either lack of coaching, his own indiscipline or his increasing frustration is getting the better of him.
Gordon was the biggest reason I think we’ll be down now. I was hoping we went back to 4-3-3 against Southend but without Gordon’s work rate it won’t work which will be another 2 points at least dropped.
I’d honestly love to pop down to Essington and see exactly what training sessions look like. Absolutely staggering that we can have a bunch of players simply not improving in any way, in some cases across a span of almost 2 years at the club. We’ve conceded goals like yesterday’s repeatedly throughout the season.
There’s been no competition for places in the side in key positions due to terrible recruitment which means it doesn’t make a difference how badly some perform, they’ll be in the starting 11 next week regardless.
The only competition for Luke Leahy’s position is Scott Laird. I could write a dissertation on this statement and what it represents.
Would start Ferrier. Southend very nearly signed him in January so maybe he’ll put in some of his early season effort to remind them of that although they look league 2 bound aswell.
Ismail just behind the front two and hope this very odd player can actually get into a game.
Kinsella is a defensive midfielder, the replacement for Adam Chambers. He is not and never will be a number 10 or even a half-decent attacking midfielder. He has been played out of position recently but that is not his fault.
I’d actually play Zeli and Oteh because all Ferrier wants to do is fight his defender and it often leads to them stepping in front of him and winning it.
Zeli isn’t an odd player he is a very good player. Problem is we’ve been playing him too deep to make an impact. You can’t judge a fish by its ability to climb trees.
Zeli has the ability to win matches and we have to find a way of getting him on the ball in dangerous areas.
Keep on forgetting Oteh is still here tbh! Even in games when team is losing he rarely comes on until two minutes before the end.
Just think him and Cook as front two will mean hoofball from start to finish and I’d prefer a bit of pace in final third.
Zeli has wierd mentality which maybe explains why at 25 he has the misfortune to keep finding relegated league one teams.
He was unplayable at Sunderland for half a game and did well in a few others but when it comes to the crunch he goes missing. World of difference to an Oztumer player who would usually win the crunch games with a goal.
Best thing about yesterday, undoubtedly the MOC interview.
That’s me done for this season. Went yesterday purely to give support to the team if that makes sense. New manager, fantastic opportunity to make a giant step towards safety so I went. Couldn’t really afford to give up my Saturday morning shift, or the £100+ of matchday expense, and although Accrington make a real effort, its not the most edifying destination. The ONLY thing that was League One about us yesterday was the support. Loved watching Andy Cook this season, but I think that’s it for him at Walsall after what happened at the end. Walsall, the club that gave him his long awaited chance in league football. Only thing that he should be thinking about is making a public apology to the fans that went yesterday, in fact they all should. Keep hearing this phrase “the players need to look at themselves in the mirror”. I don’t think these players have got that in them. To them its all everyone else’s fault. The ref, the fans, the manager, the pitch, or even each other. Its them I’m afraid. they’ve got TWO excellent servants of Walsall FC the sack which is very sad, and I’m absolutely delighted with what MOC said. Only thing I disagree with is the bit where he says he can’t make 10 or 11 changes, oh yes you can Martin DO IT. If Chambo is back in training as was mentioned play him and the kids on Friday for me, they simply can’t be any worse than this lot.
I agree with most of what Geordie Saddler wrote, but strongly disagree about the Martin O’Connor interview. I think it was terrible, and that the best way to increase of chances of staying up would be to sack MOC immediately.
When O’Connor was here with Hutchings he was loathed by the players. He used to rant and rave at them when they lost, which was most of the time. The worse the results were, the worse that O’Connor was. It was only when Hutchings and O’Connor were sacked and Dean Smith came in with a more positive approach that the same players were eventually able to perform at the their best again.
The club is at rock bottom, player morale could hardly be lower and it should be obvious that the bullying sergeant-major-PE-teacher-from-Hell approach is not working. We need someone who can lift the spirits of the players, not someone who they are either resentful of, or frightened of.
That’s a different take on things Bernie, but I’ve personally lost all trust in most of these players. I honestly don’t think some of them give a monkeys whether we get relegated. I do however trust MOC. I remember many years ago when we finally got promotion from division 4, I came down to Walsall for the first week of the season. Games were Stockport at home, Brentford (league cup), and Shrewsbury away. We were awful against Stockport and lost 2-0. I bumped into MOC and Kyle Lightbourne in a bar in Walsall on the Saturday night and had a few choice words about the performance. MOC apologised and asked me if I was staying for the next couple of games which I confirmed I was. He offered to get me some tickets, which I declined and said it was just one of those days and they would be bang at it against Brentford. Although we drew that game the first half-performance was a proper reaction, going 2-0 up with MOC leading from the front and getting the first goal. We then beat Shrewsbury away 2-0. I think if I’d bumped into Andy Cook last night, or any of this shower, I doubt the outcome would have been as civilised!!
Maybe you’re right.maybe my opinion is outdated and these modern players need a different approach, but didn’t we try that under Whitney? He was Mr. positivity, all hugs and team-bonding. Look what happened to him.
I look at our club now, and other than MOC I don’t as a fan trust any of them. The owner is what he is, employs people like Mole and Gamble. Ferrier liking the DK sacking tweet, Leahy post Gillingham, ear-cupping Gordon, and now the Cook incident. There’s a real horrible streak running right through the club with the fans on the receiving end of it, and to me that’s just not right.
I have some sympathy with that view.If you keep telling people they are rubbish they lose confidence and their work deteriorates. As a Manager I always tried to be an encourager and confidence builder. That is why Dean Smith is such a successful Manager…he never slates his players in public and if he comments on individuals they are always positive comments. Wherever we end up we need a Manager in that mould.
This was exactly what his rant was about. He wanted to see commitment and passion from them, they couldn’t be bothered. That wasn’t about confidence, it was about having the pride to try to win a football game. I see the argument from the other side, in the long term we do need someone to keep things in-house and develop a new squad mentality; thats why I wouldn’t appoint MOC next season but, for now, he got it right.
Also Devlin in the Scunthorpe game cupping his ears after scoring … then 15 mins later being responsible for playing their scorer onside for the winning goal.
