In my view Clarke has played a huge part in the upturn, Gordon , Holden and Macdonald , 3 players who have improved massively and become our main contributors.
You could also now argue that Adabeyo is showing promise, it’s the experienced players that have continued to perform below expectations… something that needs addressing.
One thing I do find strange mind is the persistent and patience we have shown with Holden over the season. Odds are he won’t be Walsall next season, so have we been paid to develop and give him game time?
And you’re right. Credit to Clarke and maybe more so Marcus Stewart as the vast majority of players, especially the forwards have improved over the course of the season. As others have said elsewhere, this is very different from the past few seasons where we seem to have had a knack of ruining decent prospects.
I’d say we’d have to be wouldn’t we and it’s testament to the players and coaching staff that we are even having this conversation after some of the performances this season.
The fact that there are signs of improvement, certainly in individual players are grounds for some optimism. However that’s got to be tempered by the fact that we regularly ship 2 goals per game, usually through some pretty rank defending, that makes winning games very difficult and promotion teams need to be winning games. Even in the run of better results we’ve managed to do that against Carlisle (twice), and Morecambe, two simply awful teams, and have managed to do it in each of the last 4 home games. We’ve also failed to beat any of the bottom 5 at home. We all know what areas need to be improved…home form…defending set peices…greater consistency etc etc. To me all of those link in with one another if you have a method that’s drillled into a style of play which focusses on our strengths, that to me is the biggest question mark over DC and one that is no nearer being answered than back in August, you’ve only got to go back 10 days for his “robust” initial selection v Northampton which had us cart-wheeling towards another defeat until he changed it and we came back and dominated…but then again when we played on the front foot gainst Crewe and looked like winning he changed it and it back-fired. I’d be far more convinced as to promotion credentials if I could see the emergence of a consistent game plan, and even though this squad has some serious limitations I think if we’d had one we would be a lot higher than 14th.
You may be right, I’m a little more critical though.
His main contribution has been to work out that neither Holden or Gordon are as effective playing wide compared to playing central. McDonald has been pretty good all season when given the chance, which early on was not forthcoming. So again, DC’s main contribution there has been to play him.
You’re right. There’s something about our central five - keeper, centre halves and central midfield that isn’t working. I think we’re ok now down the sides and up front.
As much as I like Roberts it could be that we’re just short of a commanding keeper. As a bang average centre half myself I know how much a decisive keeper made for clearer minds of those in front of him.
But then Sadler is rarely better than a six out of ten and Scarr has a rick or two on him every game.
And then there is this strange zonal marking thing. You look at Vales first on Saturday. We’ve got eleven men in our box and yet they play a short to a bloke in ten yards of space who crosses it to an unmarked bloke in ten yards of space. It’s so bad it nearly defies algebra - you put eleven x’s randomly in a 44 by 18 yard box it is nearly impossible to leave the space we sometimes afford at set pieces. Yet we manage it. So is it defensive coaching?
I don’t know but we have shortcomings that haven’t been adequately addressed. I rather suspect that Marcus Stewart is better at his job than whoever is coaching the defensive part of our game.
With the money they spend there’s next to no chance he’s breaking into their first team anytime soon and in any case the leap to championship will be too much.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he came back on loan next season if there are no takers in league 1 (think Pring will go up a division).