if you told me I could take a point each from Southend and Grimsby, I would have probably taken it,…That was the main objective, to keep the wolves from the door, and that’s what we’ve done
Easy to pick and scratch at what people say, but that says to me very plainly that it was our avowed objective to get draws against the bottom two, a fact clearly exemplified by the complete lack of attacking intent in the second half of either game when we were on terms, including when Southend went down to 10.
Now supposedly that is indicative of a “poor mentality”, CORRECT!
That’s why many paying fans have been critical of it, and in being critical have identified that this mentality is a massive reason why we are 13 without a win in one of the poorest basement divisions in memory.
This to me identifies two serious weaknesess with Dutton.
Firstly, there is zero evidence he’s got a way of playing that he wants to instill.
Secondly, he’s managing his own fear of failure as much as the football team.
Those to me are core abilities for managing, particularly at this level as many posters on here have repeated. The players by definition arn’t the greatest, its not as though you can simply send them out and give them the freedom to express and showcase their proven ability.
So they need organising, and motivating. I don’t see how he can do either of those things with ever-changing formations, personnel, and flip-flopping priorities based on his own lack of self-confidence.
I’m not asking for someone as inexperienced as Dutton to come in and make us look fantastic, but even if he’d come in under as little pressure as he was as we were comfortably mid-table and tried to hammer out a definitive style that wasn’t imediatley successful at least there would be something to identify and work with. I just don’t see that if I’m honest, and I’m sure if we’d approached all 13 games as we did v Harrogate we’d have a couple of wins and a few more points.
Didn’t Liam Keen put an additional tweet out to suggest this was an answer to a leading question. Either way something the club needs to do is start giving managers/head coaches and players a bit more media training.
No, not really. He set the team up not to lose and hope for a win. Do you think if we went 1 -0 up he would let the opposition equalise just to achieve ‘our avowed objective to get a draw’?
Devil’s advocate moment here, and a genuine question…
Do we think it’s either likely or possible that Pomlett may have privately decided that the permanent manager come the summer will be someone other than Dutton, but there’s an element of reluctance pull the trigger now, as he’d prefer summer candidates to see him as a chairman who’ll back his appointments through a bad patch (I appreciate that bad patch is somewhat understating the issue at hand)?
No, he would become even more defensive and invite pressure.
Which is one reason why on 4 occasions when we’ve taken the lead under Dutton we’ve failed to win the game.
It’s all well and good defending but you’ve gotta have an outlay for attack during periods of the game to ease the burden on the defence. Sit in and defend but there should be tactics how we’re gonna play our way into attack from that defensive position. We was playing Southend who had 10 men ffs. The bloke useless putting it nicely. Totally unacceptable even with our squad of players. I had hope after Harrogate and the orient result wasn’t too bad but don’t try and sugar coat the previous games.
I’d argue in LP’s case most of his was probably more scheduled information release to large groups of employees such as corporate updates but I could be wrong. On the flip side I’d agree with the club having some skills in regards to Dan Mole to call upon to help. Saying that football is a fickle world (no criticism just the reality of it) and one wrong step in the media spotlight or pre/post match presser can cost coaches big time and that goes all the way to the top level of the game.
Apart from a reasonably competent defence, we have little else. Therefore, making it as hard as possible for the opposition to score has to be a major part of the game plan. Its the only tactic we do well.
If Dutton is to start going for all-out attack and leaving gaps for the opposition to counter then I will be very much surprised. We haven’t got the personnel who can orchestrate a successful attack, so what’s the point? Defend and spoil is the best chance of achieving safety. If that means four more 0-0’s then suits me.
Not sugar coating anything. We are crap. I just hope we are a bit less crap next season. If we are, and the standard of League 2 is the same, by being slightly less crap will have us mid-way with a chance of the play-offs.
Not only likes him, but thinks he’s the cat’s whiskers, no matter what results he comes up with during this spell of relegation threatened crud, Dutton is here to stay, he WILL be our manager next season, and we will be asked to pay to watch this offal.
Why should our management care about us, they know the faithful 3k will turn up every other weekend come what may, they are only interested in the commercial side of the organisation, the football is an irritating side line that actually costs them to arrange…badly.
They might have a shock at the figures next season. I’m sure Covid will unfortunately still scare some older fans into not attending and the others are so bored watching this rubbish some won’t bother either, especially if there are queues and tests to do before hand.
Edit - could vulnerable adults be denied entry like the snooker?
I’m imagining they will be down in the low 2,000’s if Dutton is still in charge…no entertainment, no reason to be there, waste of time, drab draws, never scoring more than the occasional goal, great to watch.
