I do but when so many players are playing out of position it’s hard to blame them. Yesterday it was so clear yet Sadler will do the same again next game and we will all be scratching our heads when the team list comes out then at the end of the game people will start blaming budgets , the board and say we need to give Sadler 2 years. I like Sadler and want him to be the man but yesterday decision making really worries me.
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We were poor yesterday. That said Swindon didn’t cause Evans that many problems & we were in the game until the sending off. Although Swindon seemed in 2nd/3rd gear for much of the game.
You can see what Sadler was trying to do with the formation, against a free scoring side as we looked for our second away win this year. But that went out the window in 2 mins, where we shouldn’t have conceded.
352 was often 5311though & it showed, as we invited them on & was depressing the lack of fight with 10men at 1-0, when they just passed it around.
There were glimpses of promise (10 mins pre HT) that showed if this team can click, can put it together for 90 then we could be a force; but we just seem to lack the quality.
Our discipline, our fitness & the Johnson situation are causes for concern. The next 4 games are crucial for Sadler & this team.
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Thought our forward line looked fine with both in it when they have been selected.
Yep draper and DJ with oteh as 3rd option.
DJT getting minutes over Oteh is also a travesty in my opinion.
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Said yesterday, DJT didn’t bring anything to the party when he came on. The only concern I have with Draper is that he is first choice and on loan. Just hope we keep him for the whole season.
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Sometimes you try things as a manager, it doesn’t work and you change mid game. Sometimes you try something that’s wrong but the players make it work. Sometimes you try something that just doesn’t happen and sometimes you try something that should work and the players just don’t perform.
Yesterday I think it was very much the last one of those.
We can’t blame a system that had seen us go 4 unbeaten and take two wins from the last two. That just makes no sense and screams of confirmation bias from people who are simply obsessed with a formation being the solution or the problem.
Yesterday we started poorly. Again. We seem to have a game plan that means starting the game by going long, limiting risk and trying to put the ball into channels, I guess, in the hope that the game settles down before we begin to try and play football.
It’s backfiring spectacularly. We struggle to get going, we concede early goals and we allow opponents to grow in confidence and dominate the ball getting a foothold in the game which is then hard to reverse.
We need to somehow reverse that trend and the only way is to be brave be the ones who take control. We have the players to do it.
Yesterday we conceded possession too often within the first two minutes, allowing Swindon to relaunch attacks. Prime example was Knowles winning it in the corner (rb position) with Swindon having had the ball for several passes and under no pressure he launched it upfield to no one….it comes straight back every time.
After 10 mins when we did begin to play we showed we are capable. Many people don’t and won’t agree (which is fine), but DD found Hutch in some great areas on the half turn and for the remainder of that half he caused Swindon all sorts of problems combining with Gordon and made some great runs forward where if there had been better end product from others we’d have gone in at least level.
A big issue first half was how deep we sat. Swindon (Flynn) made sure his wide players stayed high and wide and this pinned Knowles and Gordon back too often into a 5. Knowles In particular was “football thick” and allowed that to happen even when that wide player wasn’t a threat and needed to leave him and push on 1 player which would’ve allowed Oisin to do the same and in turn Tierney the same and all of a sudden were 20/30 yards up the pitch with more support around Draper.
Tierney for me got his role all wrong. Partly to do with the above and maybe he felt he needed to drop deeper to help out but he was nowhere near close enough to Draper to benefit anyone in possession and allowed Swindon too much space to play out when we were out of possession.
Second half we started slowly again. We struggled to find any real momentum. We stopped getting the ball to Hutch (Swindon got much tighter and Flynn had clearly identified it) and that becomes a huge problem to us.
Once knowles was sent off that was game over. We’d already brought DJ on which basically meant almost playing with 9. If he’d been sent off before that sub, no doubt Matt would’ve been on and we could’ve kept 4 in midfield and tried to break from there but it became disjointed in an effort to try something.
Stirk went off, Oisin went off and Tierney went off and we ended up with just two midfielders on the pitch 10v11, 1-0 down against a team already dominating possession.
You can look for all the excuses in the world and pin the blame on whoever you want for playing badly but that’s how it was and there’s nothing anyone could do about it.
A couple of personal observations…just my opinion….
Draper isn’t the superstar he’s being tagged as. He’s a physical presence with a moment in him but in order to be at his best he needs some rest as well and he’s been flogged to death of late. His decision making is understandably erratic and too often he thinks he can just bulldoze his way through. He’s learning but I’m not going to pretend he’s something he’s not. He’s with us for a reason and that’s to learn in order to play higher not because he can dominate this level.
Knowles isn’t a very good footballer. Stop thinking it’s the position that’s killing him. If he doesnt play wing back he doesnt get in this team. Simple as that.
Oteh is being underused. There’s a much bigger case for him getting more minutes than there is (in my eyes at the moment) than DJ.
DJ did nothing yesterday to say to me he should start next week. In his defence and anyone who’s had kids will testify, not only is it tiring but your mind is quite literally not on your job, especially if your job isnt that enjoyable at the moment. You’re distracted and would prefer to be at home than anywhere else on the planet. Maybe that’s how it is and there’s no “agenda”?
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I have previously mentioned Menayese and Earing as players who could strengthen the defence and midfield options; however, I’d totally forgotten about Comley.
If Oisin plays in midfield, Comley would be perfect in front of a defensive 4 or slotting into a central 3. I also think this would allow Stirk to push on slightly more.
Just as we have not really played DJ with Oteh (for instance), Comley could play a big part in another mini run.
I was despondent yesterday but the thought of a few players coming back buoys me somewhat, because Swindon away was always going to be a tough game to get points from, on their current goalscoring run.
Onward and upward: UTS!
MS got it completely wrong yesterday because Draper looked shattered and then playing him upfront on his own didn’t work.
The midfield offered very little and Christ knows what the defence was thinking leaving Austin a bigger hole than the Titanic to enjoy a free header.
I don’t profess to be an expert but it seems to me there are too many players being used out of position.
Swindon don’t look anything special in fact they look vulnerable at the back and apart from that first twenty minutes we were equal to them, the turning point was Knowles getting sent off which killed off any chance of a comeback.
Does anyone know what was going on during the minutes silence as I could hear someone but couldn’t quite make out what was happening.
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Flynns post match
Christ alive! I find myself largely in agreement 
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It’s plain stupid 
I think now you’ve seen the light you’ll find that happening more often 
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Next game we have to go 4231 and have to give Oteh a chance
We don’t have a 3rd centre back so 3 at the back is pointless
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I agree with most of that but I still think Knowles might have something to offer further up the pitch - his pace is a good weapon. But I do not think it is good for the team to have someone so lacking discipline in at WB. I noted that Swindon did not have anyone booked for indiscipline but we had two.
Swindon were the better team but there were a couple of moments in the game that might have turned it. Their midfielder Khan should had been booked for a bad foul but the ref waved play-on because we had an advantage. I thought he would book him anyway but he did not. Khan was later booked for another bad foul.
And for the Gordon booking, the defender had both arms around him, preventing him from moving at all. It was a clear penalty (although by then too late, anyway).
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He just needs to be able to think as quickly as he runs, his decision making is poor but that said I’d still have him as a winger because he will run at people.
No good if he runs down dead ends though.
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Yes, that is what I mean. He terrifies defenders but, even before his dismissal, he was ineffective yesterday getting forward and error prone at the back, although he did make one crucial header.
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Just don’t think you need to over complicate things in this division. If you have players suited to a 4231 ,4321 or 4141 then you just put the players in their natural positions and coach/manage them accordingly!!. It’s seems we’re intent on shoehorning players into a system that doesn’t suit us ie 352 or 532!!
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We do there just not good enough and the formation isn’t working
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Again the whole situation in a nutshell, no real need for yet another master class of conjecture from UTS’s number one essay writer.
Think Sadler IS out of his depth, his team choices (leaving out a reasonably gifted striker cus ya don’t like the guy, and replacing him with the likes of DJT and Matt!!!) player positioning and ‘coaching’ are indeed very suspect. As others have mentioned why are Walsall teams so awful (and this is also an historic thing) at set pieces…corners, free kicks and throw in’s seem to be like items from another dimension?