Always amazes me how we tend to offer unproven talent lengthy contracts I.e Scar , Devlin, Guthrie , Leahy . Yet we have allowed so many good pro’s to leave over the years due to poor contract offers.
Genuinely can’t understand how the club works.
4 Likes
Rowett ain’t realistic. He was on shed loads at Derby and Stoke and will see himself as championship manager (or at worst top end league 1 Pompey/Sunderland etc).
I don’t want DK sacked but if it happened ambitious targets would be someone like Paul Hurst but again I don’t see the club getting someone like him. Steve Evans and Cotterill also unemployed…
2 Likes
I don’t want Keates sacked either, but if he keeps picking the same players who in turn keep making the same mistakes, its his job that will be on the line. He has signed virtually an entire starting 11 of his own, and yet continues to pick Whitney’s failures. Over the next few games he’s got to be brave and pick the players he’s signed. Starting with the defence, obviously it needs changing. Dobson and Kinsella have been taken out of the team, but over the season they have produced the best performances in that position, we need them back in and performing with renewed energy. Pick the new winger and the new centre-forward ahead of Ferrier and Devlin.
5 Likes
The Problem is the signings Geordie, you can’t throw the new winger in as I’m guessing he’s never played a league one game in his life.
All these new January signings yet you have to ask the question , will any of them (Jarvis apart) improve the team ?
1 Like
Don’t want Deano sacked,but listening to Ian Holloway on GOS how good would he be in and around the club next manager
2 Likes
To which the obvious answer is, there’s only one way to find out!
I look at it the other way. ie. what is the way to guarantee we get relegated from here? And the answer that comes back is to keep picking the players that keep making the same mistakes. Keates has had a year of working with this defence and its as bad if not worse now than at the start. They arn’t going to improve, they are what they are. I would say that Laird is a solid division 3 player. For me Johnson hasn’t done anything wrong when called upon, and if Fitzwater is worse than Guthrie why do we keep signing him?
As for the middle 4. Kinsella never deserved to be dropped. The winger you mention, well he is a winger! So that’s reason enough for him to be starting on the wing ahead of Devlin. For all the tubthumping about Ferrier, he’s scored 1 goal (a pen) in 24 appearances, and whenever he plays alongside Cook it doesn’t seem to work for some reason. Turn off Cook’s goals and we might as well give up. Time for bravery for me, because half-baked tinkering will just reap more results like yesterday.
5 Likes
Ben Turner was released by Burton the other day…joined Mansfield.
Guess it’s more exciting joining team going for promotion but surely that would’ve been a decent experienced head to pick up for the defence?
With the options I’d leave Guthrie out for a few games tbh.
So it seems we’ve turned to Guthrie now, as well as Devlin and Leahy. So I’ll have to say it again because still nobody has given a response…these are the same defenders who let nothing like this number of goals in last season, so what’s changed. They’re certainly not world beaters but they were, at least, adequate then. So is it the players or is it the tactics/systems? If the players, then can we agree that they’ve gone backwards under the current manager?
4 Likes
Yep I thought exactly the same when I watched it. We desperately need an experienced football league manager. Problem is they’ll cost but I’d hope we could convince someone like Holloway or another manager who’s fed up of the merry go round and wants to be at a club for a while to completely improve different areas with his experience and know-how. That’s what we probably needed after Whitney looking back, then if he wanted to move upstairs then great, then we get Keates in rather than relying on an inexperienced manager (again) to sort everything out whilst still needing to get results to keep his short managerial career alive. But it all costs money doesn’t it and the inexperience/penny pinching at this club isn’t really going to convince any experienced man to come in and sort ■■■■ out.
3 Likes
You could have Liverpool’s back 4 and we’d still be susceptible to crosses and people playing between the lines because of the way we set up.
You all need to gain a perspective of the bigger picture and stop scapegoating individuals. Individual defenders are only as good as the unit which include the other 3 defender, the 4 in front of them and even the front 2. Guthrie doesn’t miss headers, doesn’t lose his areal battles. Has statistically a high number of intercepted passes yet is getting the blame.
As a team we don’t control games, we don’t have control of the ball for spells in games. We don’t create hundreds of chances, we live off scraps and yeah Cook has scored goals but scrappy ones and he thrives off that. Controversially, if Keates want a team that is fluid and passes through the lines then he would have to drop Cook. His lack of mobility is often the reason we’re restricted to going long. He’s meant to thrive off crosses yet is never on the move when the ball is delivered like a good striker should be.
Personally I think we need to go back to 3 in midfield with a sitting midfielder, 2 wingers and a mobile striker (Oteh) and that means we need to drop Cook.
He has scored goals yes but he is as much at fault as Ferrier/Gordon for not allowing us a maintain any attacking momentum. This means the ball is constantly turned over to the opposition and they attack again. The defence then having to withstand waves of attacking pressure which they eventually sercome to.
So to put it short, I blame the problem on the lack of quality upfront and the system of using a flat midfield 4 (not the individuals in that midfield) as to why were are getting so comprehensively beaten every week.
4 Likes
You make too much sense mate which is why you’re being ignored. Difficult to come up with an arguement without understanding the game.
I get you, don’t worry.
I hear “we need new defenders because these are ****”. Even though all 10 outfield players are responsible for defending.
And “we need someone to put the ball in the net”. Even though all 10 outfield players are responsible for creating opportunities for said striker. It’s as if each player is out their to play for themselves and not as part of a team.
3 Likes
I personally think Keates has created this mess out of nothing. He inherited a similar mess and by the skin of his teeth managed to keep us up. I thought what he did in the summer was decent management, and then he seemed to have created a team with limitations, but also an identity and a way of playing that was getting results. A couple of defeats against better teams and all of a sudden it was different formations, talking the team and the players down, rabbit in the headlights tactics, selections, and substitutions (or lack of), the Russel Martin fiasco etc etc. Why Keates started talking about survival and relegation back in October baffles me. Surely he saw how Graydon managed to keep things grounded, but also ticking along game by game in the team he was part of? We had some dips in that promotion season, in fact going to Chesterfield away it looked like the bubble had burst and we were heading down the league, but went back to basics and ground out another 1-0 win. I honestly thought that would be the Keates method also, the mess we’re in now reminds me more of the Mads Timm/Paul Devlin relegation season. All we need now is Keates to pick himself at Blackpool and it would be dejas vous all over again!
1 Like
He won’t, and Bonser will sack him after the defeat. At least it will keep those irritating rabble of peasants of his back until O’Dysmal comes back!
Incidentally, is the much vaunted protest going to begin by the seaside? Or have we caved in again because of a lick of paint in the bogs?
But we’re not getting comprehensively beaten every week! Yesterday Rochdale had two shots on target. We got suckered by two sloppily defended set-pieces at Plymouth, one of which was identical to the goal we conceded against them at home. We’ve also played extremely well and been the better team against Sunderland, Peterborough and Luton, and yet contrived to draw three games that should have been three wins. I would say all of that is basic individual sloppiness more first and foremost, and poor game management second most.
Never thought I’d say it but what I’d give for o’dysmal right now! He’d at least bring some order and discipline to team shape.
1 Like
We’re not exactly coming up with hundreds of opportunities to win games. We look like a team with 1 idea and don’t know how to execute it.Even at the start when we were winning we were ruthlessly taking out chances and holding on to games. The lack of attacking potency is resulting in pressure defensively.
5 Likes
Totally agree. The pendulum has swung firmly into panic mode, completely disregarding the possibility that the new players and the team might need a few games to settle. It was a really bad result against Rochdale and by all accounts a dismal performance and yet any suggestion that the manager should go at this stage is beyond bizarre: the mayhem alone would cause as many problems, and that’s assuming any new manager would be an improvement.
If this carries on for much longer i can see him walking or being sacked in the next few weeks then what though? the club will not pay for a decent manager with experience who would want backing and total control.still not convinced Keates had much say in the whole Ferrier thing either.
he deserves time to see how the new players settle completely agree with you on that needs to happen quickly though we are in the ■■■■ and the knives are starting to come out more and more each week.
It is very rare for a manager to walk. He has a contract which the club have to honour or pay him up. Why walk away with nothing?