I noticed that, I don’t think I’ve seen that before: Jatta was stood way behind our defence for goal kicks. Waiting to pounce on a back-header from one of our defenders perhaps? Hoping that our defence will drop back to keep him onside? He was a mile offside from the goalkick so it was an unusual tactic.
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Can’t be offside from a goalkick
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No offside from a goal kick
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Of course, forgot that. Perhaps hoping that the goal kick would go all the way through to Evans and he could capitalise. I also noticed that there were a couple of occasions when Langstaff hung around behind Evans hoping to catch him out.
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There were several of our fans yelling abuse at the linesman for not giving him offside.
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There was a bloke sat next to us who was fuming, out of his seat going mad. I said to him you can’t be offside from a goal kick and he started arguing. I started to question myself and rules do change sometimes without me realising.
I just agreed with him in the end anyway, cos I had the kids with me and he wasn’t having any of it. My son Googled it just to check but I let the chap carry on believing 
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I think Daniels thought the same as the bloke next to you!
Mind you he had one hell of a kick on him. Launched a good 75 yards
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Was he an UTS Poster Jesus mate you can’t can’t get away from them .
Could well have been for all I know
Well done. That’s some post.
I agree that work ethic isn’t an issue and hasn’t been all season.
Our problem, and it’s been a problem for successive managers, is that work ethic trumps ability when it comes to selection. And that means squeezing round shapes into egg shaped holes.
Yes - Stirk is advanced and yes he puts tackles in but his ability to create a chance. Josh runs about a hell of a lot but doesn’t score goals at the rate of a centre back let alone a centre forward. Dave gets disorientated when not playing in the middle of the three. Foulkes is an overlapping right back and not a right wing back.
So whilst your analysis of shape and travel is spot on there is room to ask why we get time and space wrong and why we get execution wrong. Goals one and three are to do with Dave and Foulkes losing their bearings for a few seconds. Goal two is too many players in a condensed area doing an “after you Claude” as somebody danced through them.
And that’s not to do with how Sadler set up or work ethic. It is to do with players losing themselves for a second or two because they are in a strange bit of the pitch. That was always the problem with Mcentee in midfield. Either accidentally becoming a fourth centre back by dropping too deep or becoming disoriented in a forward position.
Anyway - I enjoyed your post.
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I agree. Which is why it surprised me to read so many people accusing a player like Hutch of not caring or being on holiday. It’s nonsense. The work rate is phenomenal from all players. Weekly.
I don’t think this is a managerial issue any more than a general footballing one.
Fans are no different, they are the first to accuse a player of being a luxury and tell you how undervalued a player like Comley is and then also the first to slaughter a player like Josh Gordon for having little or no quality.
They’ll jump on a creative player for “going missing” for the 20 mins of possession a game we get but also want a player like DJ to be in the side and to be ‘allowed’ to not have to buy in to the team work ethic.
There needs to be balance but essentially every player has to work and fulfill his role out of possession. Not all players will be wrecking balls and not all players will chase crisp packets in the wind for you but every player needs to buy in to the game plan for being out of possession and fulfill their role within it .
I agree. But he’s there because a league two budget didn’t allow for another player to cover a specific role and he was good value for someone who can fulfil several……he fits the out of possession press but is useless in the final third in possession….useless is harsh…but Saturday Hutch played a ball into his feet in the 10 position and it bounces off him and breaks down…it’s not his skillset.
If we are to be more successful then we need more like Hutch and Earing than we do Stirk and Comley……lets be honest here we have a CM outperforming almost every CM in the division and he gets dogs abuse because we don’t have players who can get the ball to him and thats deemed his fault and not the fault of the level of those next to him.
Agreed but with more quality around him would his attributes be more valued? Personally I think they would. He’s not a dead loss. But he is I agree synonymous of what you say.
Dave has been on the edge of being poor for several weeks….central or right side. Personally I’m surprised it was manny that made way and not him at the weekend.
Completely agree.
I think we are too cautious. The mentality is to sit and protect and it hands the initiative to the opposition. How would Notts have coped if Knowles had been playing the other end of the pitch and Jodi Jones was being asked why he wasn’t tracking him……
It’s also part of the tactical work. It’s been the plan all season for the left and right CMs to press from inside to out and not make the wing backs have to press onto the wide men. Hutch and Stirk or Earing or Tierney have been covering huge areas and very large distances in order to play the way we’ve played. It catches up and in many cases we get exposed by the better possession based teams. Against lesser opposition it’s hit and miss.
I’m not so sure. I think it’s an issue with how we set up. We end up with 5 players in a row on the halfway line or the edge of our box. We invite pressure.
We also don’t keep possession long enough to spring out of defensive shape and into attacking shape. We moan endlessly about our midfield but imagine how it feels when you’ve spent most of the game pressing opposition full backs then when we force an error or a long ball and win possession you try desperately to find space and think about attacking, only to see your back 5 launch it over your heads……just as you join in and make a run forwards your front two have miscontrolled it or lost the first header and it’s on its way back again….your constantly playing catch up.
Retaining better possession allows players more time to regain composure and shape and build attacks rather than first thought is panic and i’ll hit the channel and we lose the ball immediately.
Good discussion….ive only clipped your post to try and discuss each point….its not meant to read as me dissecting it 
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Summed up nicely. This has been my number one complaint all season!
It’s the thing I hope Sadler works on in the summer.
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This is exactly right and my biggest problem with Sadler.
Tactically I can’t see how the setup makes sense. We work so hard to win the ball and then lump it up and it’s 50/50 whether we win or lose the header/wrestle and win at chest height and retain possession.
When we get into the final third we can play and cut through teams, so we should do it everywhere to build a foothold in the game and put the other team under pressure.
I’m not demanding a notts county approach, I’m fine with fairly direct, but we haven’t recruited a team of giants and we’re technically decent, so play to those strengths.
It just feels like we’re always under pressure and on the back foot and the other team are finding time to play.
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Yep we play two up front, obvious for all to see 
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Except literally we don’t in the screenshots above.
If you watch, We rarely have two forward players side by side in an advanced space.
But I accept formations are fluid so it’s not an absolute truth, but personally think it’s misleading to say we play with 2 up top.
Or to put it another way, Josh Gordon doesn’t play as an out and out striker
Matt is literally the lump up top, and Gordon does a lot of the pressing and leg work.
But when the ball comes into the box you’d like to see both of them in there.
It’s two up top.
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First I’ve read that DJT is the next Adebayo
And now we don’t play 2 up top…
Am I alive ? Or am I in some sort of parallel universe that UTS has broken the fabric of space and time with.
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One thing I often wonder at professional level is whether coaches work on a player’s swing?
In deadball games like golf and snooker players obsess and obsess about body and head position and where everything should be to optimise the accuracy and power when striking the ball.
When I coached kids I spent a lot of time teaching how to kick the football, but as players get older and play at more serious levels I think the attention given to it diminishes. Becomes more about shapes both in and out of possession.
My point as it relates to Walsall is that I believe some players need to seriously re-evaluate their swing. Somebody like Liam Gordon continually gets too close to the ball when striking it. This makes him often clumsy to the extent of that ridiculous air shot he played on Saturday. Then we have Hutchinson who for whatever reason has lost his swing in the last few months. If he was a golfer his coach would have picked apart what he was doing three or four months ago versus now. Slow motion analysis an all that. For me, he’s allowing some anxiety impact his technique. He’s rushing things which means that rather than that beautiful flowing action we got used to, it’s all become a bit jerky and pokey which means that he’s often pulling the ball wide and left or his head lifts which creates the odd balloon. Even from the dead ball on Saturday he did an awful balloon of a free kick from a very good position.
Whenever I’ve watched pros or top amateurs train I’ve never seen anybody working on these things.
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It’s turned into a wild place with the analysis on here.
Monday night football has nothing on this lot 
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