I’ve just written the following meandering, directionless thoughts and so apologise in advance if you do bother to read it, as it’s a couple of minutes of your life you won’t get back!
You suspect that it is going to be years before our Academy, or youth system, or whatever it is called produces a sustained level of throughput capable of holding down first team places.
I get the impression that the wholesale playing side review allegedly being undertaken by the DoF includes the developmental stages, which again I get the impression that he doesn’t think too highly of. It therefore begs the question of what exactly the once highly praised Miguel Llera has achieved/is achieving. Is he as good as we are told/hoped him to be, or is he hamstrung by the reality of the actual level of resources going into “infrastructure”?
I feel that all the talk and information that we do get from the club is just something that we can beat them up about when things don’t happen, or work out and so it just seems to turn out to be waffle.
I can’t remember whether I’ve made this point on here before, but the concern for me in respect of the DoF is who is “qualified” to judge whether he is actually doing a good job, as the Chairman has stated that nobody on the board has football expertise to judge that performance/approach? Does the DoF have to come clean at some point down the line and recommend to the Chairman to sack him as he hasn’t done a good job? The Chairman seems to have given the Head Coach two years to get promotion (I think), but what about the DoF? Has he been given a timescale to prove himself? Or does it get to a stage where it’s bleedin’ obvious that the DoF might be rubbish and gets sacked anyway? I don’t understand why the Chairman seems to think that a DoF is necessarily a long-term appointment, especially a successful one, who is possibly just as likely to be head-hunted as a Coach/Manager would be. I appreciate that there fewer DoF positions around, but the principle remains.
Has the DoF decreed that we play a rigid 4-2-3-1 system throughout the club for so long as is here, or is that down to the Head Coach? Is the club identity being established by the DoF, or the Head Coach?
The conveyor belt of “right character” players that the DoF has allegedly got lined up to replace any departees, are they available and will they want to come here? Presumably those players are just names and that is as far as it could go at the moment.
The latest example of Leak appearing not to be trusted by MT to perform for the first team is very concerning, especially as two senior central defenders were unavailable and he is a regular on the bench. If not against Stevenage, then when is he is ever going to be given another chance, as if not him, then who? A full back! Does it take three central defenders to be unavailable for him to be “risked”, or more? Surely if you’re going to bring somebody else into the side from “out in the cold” like Mills, equally and preferably Sadler would have been a more obvious solution especially as he is a left sided central defender? Do we assume that both Sadler and Leak are finished as players here?
Whilst not all necessarily products of our system, Bates, Perry, Willis and Foulkes, don’t seem to be close to either making, or re-making breakthroughs to become regular starters. Bates and Perry are struggling for game time having both demonstrated an ability to perform at this level, whilst the concern in respect of both Willis and Foulkes is that they can’t even command regular first team selection for the lower-level clubs they are loaned to. None of this augurs well for the short, or medium-term prospects of them making an impact for us. Are none of these players good enough for us now, or ever? Have we got to write them off, dispose of them and wait for a new batch to filter through? Are they so cheap that we can afford to have them making up the numbers? I can’t see where we are going.
The current squad is a mess as has been said many times and I don’t know where the responsibility really lies. DoF, Head Coach, or both?
The carefully vetted “right character” signings are now having their mindset questioned!!
I would like our “clear identity” which is spoken of to be clearly explained to me because I don’t really know what it is or means. If it relates to a style of play whereby from a goal kick the keeper passes short to a technically limited central defender who then passes it around between other defenders and probably to the keeper again, who then try to pass it to technically limited midfield players facing them who generally aren’t comfortable/confident enough to pass in a direction other than back (Earing excepted) and so on it goes eventually forward in an uncontrolled way and momentum breaks down. Surely the coaching/awareness training should extend to those deeper lying midfielders to be coached to be able to receive the ball from a defender having assessed already what space they have got and to be able to control the ball and turn in a timely manner to carry the ball forward. Too often the likes of Labadie and Kinsella simply lay the ball back to the defender irrespective of whether they have the time and space to turn and progress the play forward. They are arguably shirking responsibility and passing the ball (and buck) back to a theoretically less equipped defender for the sequence to start again. Of course, there are times when you have to play the way you are facing, but they do it too often unnecessarily and therefore restrict our ability to advance constructive play into the heart of the opposition.
I didn’t watch the Stevenage match but I hear that Wilkinson was played centrally behind Miller. Why would the Head Coach play him there, when it seems fairly obvious to me that wider right is his best position and to play him anywhere else is likely to be to the detriment of the team? Earing has to be the player centrally because he has the technical ability to go forward, right and left. He is one of very few players who possess two good feet, to such an extent that it’s not that easy to know which is his dominant foot. His ability to effectively move onto either foot should be cherished and utilised to its utmost, rather than the overall benefit to the team being compromised by playing him deeper.
In my opinion, it is difficult to understand why you would not deploy your better players where they are likely to be most effective as it contributes to our general inability to be effective.
There is so much on which to comment both on field and off field, that it’s difficult to know where to start and end. Perhaps I shouldn’t have started!
Not at all sure why I’ve written all this, other than because deep down I must still care, despite being fed up and losing interest on a daily basis and with the futility of it all.
