How many players arrived too late yesterday to be included in the starting lineup, I wonder. And was there a knock on effect from Friday's Sponsors' dinner?Thoughts prompted by Righty's reference to the M25 which I read somewhere else was the reason for one or two players failing to make the starting lineup.
@Blue_since_1990 I'm not upset mate I didn't see the game so I can't comment on his performance but by all accounts he's had a bit of a stinker! I understand you pay to go and watch the team you love week in week out and expect players to perform I've been a Coventry fan for many years and believe me that isn't easy and can get every frustrating! At the end of the day to you he's just De Havilland your cb but to me he's my brother and its hard to see all the negative comments against him when I've grown up with him watching him sacrifice the life of a normal teenage to early adult life no going out drinking or anything he's always been absolutely dedicated to his football because he loves the game so much! He's a pro because of the effort he's put in to become one! He's young still I know how talented my bro is he wouldn't be where he is if he wasn't but comments he's getting on social media will not help him push forward as a player they will inevitability hold him back and I don't thinks that's fair after all the effort he's put in to be where he is today.
@Username no maybe not but you can understand how negative comments will only have a negative effect surely? Like I said I know you pay your money to watch your team and you expect a certain level of performance from them all which is fair enough but a lot harder to achieve when being put down! Confidence in football is key a striker full of confidence like Vardy last season can score 11 premier league games in a row but the same striker when lacking confidence can go 10 games without a goal! It doesn't mean he's any worse of a player? How is someone meant to build confidence when being publicly slated constantly?
@RichardDeHavilland raises some very fair points - though perhaps the solution would be for WillDH to get off Twitter? I've never understood why players have accounts. In the old days when they had a stinker they'd have to put up with a wave of grumblings from the crowd for 90 mins, none of which would be discernible, and a bollocking afterwards from manager and teammates. Now they get a week's worth of personalised invective into their inbox - 140 characters of ungrammatical spite from the unwashed masses all competing against each other in a public forum to be more vicious, with little possibility of the player defending themselves. Given the sacrifices RDeH outlines, surely an easy one in comparison would be to forsake social media, at least during the season itself.
@aloysius possibly but it is probably nice for him to show the good times on there with his pals? Either way a player shouldn't have to come off of social media because of being put down not even by opposition but their very own fans
@RichardDeHavilland good for you for sticking by your brother. If my brother played for us the advice I would give him would be to stay away from reading this forum and the fans Facebook page just train hard, ply his trade and listen to the boss and not some fat bloke from loudwater
@RichardDeHavilland social media abuse is one thing but I'd be interested in your views on Will being sent out 5 mins ahead of the rest of the team at half time and practising his passing. I don't think that kind of man management helps anyone and that is before all the managers arm waving and obvious anger after almost every ball played forward by WDH.
My thoughts on yesterday are good game, bad result. If the starting lineup was GA underestimating an opposition fighting for their lives, that would be worrying. I thought Cheltenham went about their business impressively, given that their striker gave away a ridiculous penalty for no good reason and the two yellows for the red card wereequally stupid. Blackman made two good saves and paid the price for the defence not being at the races. As for WillDH...not sure any of the back four were that great defensively. Lots of hacking and poor heading from both JJ and Harriman and there were a couple of tackles from AP that I think he got away with lightly. Freeman and Woody both worked hard but not sure Gape or Bloomy touched the ball more than a couple of times in the first half. Southwell was anonymous. In the second half, yet again, when Scotty K and Bayo were on and we played it to feet, we looked dangerous and had them rattled. When wingers run at defences they look panicked...when we launch a ball forward not so much. Did anyone notice during the stoppage when players were by the dugouts, we looked like a gang of midgets compared to the Cheltenham players? We have, it seems to me, quick diminuative ball players in the middle of the pitch who are not going to get much joy from the long ball, especially as they usually have three people wrestling Bayo in the box (and we all know he's not going to get a call...) A win would have been great but from a neutral point of view, given we could not defend a lucky lead, the Robins deserved their point. We're still in there - just. As for the 15th minute booing, I thought that was in response to a particularly poor cross from JJ that went nowhere...an immediate emotional response. By the time the half-time whistle went as far as I could tell, the fight-back meant we were behind the team.
@Right_in_the_Middle I wasn't at the game so didn't see it but we all know being singled out only makes us feel 10 times worse then your head is going to be all over the place and you'll probably try too hard and feel very pressured which will cause more mistakes! Not a strategy I'd employ myself.
Man management skills are obviously sadley missing ,football management skills also way off the mark with the WDH situation sending a player out at half time is a discrase especially to a hostile crowd, it's beyond belief to think a manager could do that.
Do your brother a favour and find him a day job hes shit, he punted the ball out of play 7times and was to blame arguably for all the goals........saying he had no one to pass to makes me laugh jj was square everytime and blooms came short everytimehow does he make a living out of it
@bigred87 what are you doing? Are you a blues fan? Giving someone this kind of shit is not acceptable especially a member of their family. Seems like you have a hidden agenda
Some comments on here are best ignored in my opinion!
Wasn't at the game yesterday, but WDH has done fine in the games I've seen. I've thought that both him and Muller have shown plenty of potential. Perhaps neither are 1st choice material yet, but then again we've been spoilt with great centre backs in recent years. Given time, I see no reason why they can't make a positive impact for Wycombe.
WDH had a stinker on Saturday but he really shouldn't get too down.
He is here on merit after all, and a manager with a proven record for identifying young talent (including several in his position) believes he has potential.
Everyone will take knock backs during their career. The crucial thing is to bounce back and make sure they become lessons learnt, rather than mistakes to be repeated.
He's also made a smart choice coming to a club where he will get opportunities to prove his ability. At other clubs he may not get that chance but he's getting the chance to turn it around as part of the first team.
Finally, don't take Twitter too seriously!! It has proven time and again to be an extremely poor guage of actual the consensus opinion.
I'm happy to nail my colours to the mast, based on what I've seen to date, I think Will is a decent prospect.
Centre Half is a tough place to learn your trade and if you have a bad game, as young inexperienced players do, then you tend to stick out. Some of the above postings are a disgraceful way to treat a young player wearing the WW shirt and he deserves our support. Are we not supporters?
I like a lot of what Will's got to offer in terms of his physical toughness and strength in the air. He can defend and I'm happy to follow Martin O'Neill's mantra of "I like my defenders to defend". If they can also spray it about great, if they can't then so be it - it never did Glyn Creaser, Terry Evans, Paul McCarthy or Jason Cousins any harm.
Give him another 20 first team games under his belt and I think we'll have a genuine prospect. Decent young centre halves of his size don't grow on trees.
Can't agree. He's an ok defender, but unless he learns really fast not to foul so often and needlessly, as well as learn to kick it vaguely to a player on his own team he'll never be good enough.
I genuinely don't think he has the awareness on the pitch to survive, he's always on the limit of being in position defensively, but when he gets the ball he just doesn't see things quickly enough to give a pass to a team mate, which invariably leads to a hopeful punt.
I'm sorry, but WDH just isn't good enough. I have absolutely nothing against him as a person, or the effort he puts in, but he is not up to standard by any stretch of the imagination. We can't afford to keep conceding poor goals because of one player.
We aren't conceeding poor goals due to one player though are we? Our midfield was woeful for the first 15 mins on Saturday and all of the back four could each take part of the blame in at least two of the goals. WDH seems to be the scapegoat and I think that's a shame. His distribution does let him down but to be honest who in our back four is a good passer of the ball. Defensively I think he's looked ok for the most part. He's not at the same level of Stewart or Pierre but I refuse to believe that automatically makes him rubbish on this sliding scale of brilliant to awful in two stages.
I don't see how the constant abuse will help him or the team in the run in. I do though think Ainsworth's treatment of WDH at half time on Saturday was a worrying sign. On top of the rumours of dropping players for being late it worrys me that Ainsworth might be losing the plot a bit.
If Orient and Cheltenham hadn't both been reduced to ten men, I think we would have lost both (I only attended Orient so my opinion on Saturday is second-hand).
That's pretty woeful if we consider ourselves promotion contenders, against two relegation-fighting teams (well, only one fighting team).
If we don't up our game against Mansfield, we could get a pasting, unless one of their players decides he wants an early bath too. Imagine if Doncaster finish with 11 men and we put in the same levels of performance as the last two weeks.
If you had a bad day at every day you'd quickly lose your job, or at least get put on more menial duties.
I can't fault his effort, but he's not up to league football at the moment. He might have it in him, but we can't afford to wait and find out, if the management team really think he's got a lot of unrealised potential he needs to go out on loan somewhere and learn fast.
@Right_in_the_Middle said:
We aren't conceeding poor goals due to one player though are we? Our midfield was woeful for the first 15 mins on Saturday and all of the back four could each take part of the blame in at least two of the goals. WDH seems to be the scapegoat and I think that's a shame. His distribution does let him down but to be honest who in our back four is a good passer of the ball. Defensively I think he's looked ok for the most part. He's not at the same level of Stewart or Pierre but I refuse to believe that automatically makes him rubbish on this sliding scale of brilliant to awful in two stages.
I don't see how the constant abuse will help him or the team in the run in. I do though think Ainsworth's treatment of WDH at half time on Saturday was a worrying sign. On top of the rumours of dropping players for being late it worrys me that Ainsworth might be losing the plot a bit.
He hasn't looked OK defensively though. He was out of position countless times on Saturday (and in most games I've watched), was beaten for pace on nearly every occasion by Cheltenham's distinctly average strikers, and was comfortably beaten by them with the ball too. He was skinned 3/4 times. He loses an awful lot of headers as well. I haven't seen any sign of a quality player in any aspect of the game.
And FYI, I haven't compared him to Pierre or Stewart at all. They don't even come into it.
Comments
How many players arrived too late yesterday to be included in the starting lineup, I wonder. And was there a knock on effect from Friday's Sponsors' dinner?Thoughts prompted by Righty's reference to the M25 which I read somewhere else was the reason for one or two players failing to make the starting lineup.
@Blue_since_1990 I'm not upset mate I didn't see the game so I can't comment on his performance but by all accounts he's had a bit of a stinker! I understand you pay to go and watch the team you love week in week out and expect players to perform I've been a Coventry fan for many years and believe me that isn't easy and can get every frustrating! At the end of the day to you he's just De Havilland your cb but to me he's my brother and its hard to see all the negative comments against him when I've grown up with him watching him sacrifice the life of a normal teenage to early adult life no going out drinking or anything he's always been absolutely dedicated to his football because he loves the game so much! He's a pro because of the effort he's put in to become one! He's young still I know how talented my bro is he wouldn't be where he is if he wasn't but comments he's getting on social media will not help him push forward as a player they will inevitability hold him back and I don't thinks that's fair after all the effort he's put in to be where he is today.
Don't think I've ever heard anyone knock or doubt his effort
Very well expressed and entirely understandable comments Richard.
@Username no maybe not but you can understand how negative comments will only have a negative effect surely? Like I said I know you pay your money to watch your team and you expect a certain level of performance from them all which is fair enough but a lot harder to achieve when being put down! Confidence in football is key a striker full of confidence like Vardy last season can score 11 premier league games in a row but the same striker when lacking confidence can go 10 games without a goal! It doesn't mean he's any worse of a player? How is someone meant to build confidence when being publicly slated constantly?
@RichardDeHavilland raises some very fair points - though perhaps the solution would be for WillDH to get off Twitter? I've never understood why players have accounts. In the old days when they had a stinker they'd have to put up with a wave of grumblings from the crowd for 90 mins, none of which would be discernible, and a bollocking afterwards from manager and teammates. Now they get a week's worth of personalised invective into their inbox - 140 characters of ungrammatical spite from the unwashed masses all competing against each other in a public forum to be more vicious, with little possibility of the player defending themselves. Given the sacrifices RDeH outlines, surely an easy one in comparison would be to forsake social media, at least during the season itself.
@aloysius possibly but it is probably nice for him to show the good times on there with his pals? Either way a player shouldn't have to come off of social media because of being put down not even by opposition but their very own fans
@RichardDeHavilland good for you for sticking by your brother. If my brother played for us the advice I would give him would be to stay away from reading this forum and the fans Facebook page just train hard, ply his trade and listen to the boss and not some fat bloke from loudwater
@RichardDeHavilland social media abuse is one thing but I'd be interested in your views on Will being sent out 5 mins ahead of the rest of the team at half time and practising his passing. I don't think that kind of man management helps anyone and that is before all the managers arm waving and obvious anger after almost every ball played forward by WDH.
My thoughts on yesterday are good game, bad result. If the starting lineup was GA underestimating an opposition fighting for their lives, that would be worrying. I thought Cheltenham went about their business impressively, given that their striker gave away a ridiculous penalty for no good reason and the two yellows for the red card wereequally stupid. Blackman made two good saves and paid the price for the defence not being at the races. As for WillDH...not sure any of the back four were that great defensively. Lots of hacking and poor heading from both JJ and Harriman and there were a couple of tackles from AP that I think he got away with lightly. Freeman and Woody both worked hard but not sure Gape or Bloomy touched the ball more than a couple of times in the first half. Southwell was anonymous. In the second half, yet again, when Scotty K and Bayo were on and we played it to feet, we looked dangerous and had them rattled. When wingers run at defences they look panicked...when we launch a ball forward not so much. Did anyone notice during the stoppage when players were by the dugouts, we looked like a gang of midgets compared to the Cheltenham players? We have, it seems to me, quick diminuative ball players in the middle of the pitch who are not going to get much joy from the long ball, especially as they usually have three people wrestling Bayo in the box (and we all know he's not going to get a call...) A win would have been great but from a neutral point of view, given we could not defend a lucky lead, the Robins deserved their point. We're still in there - just. As for the 15th minute booing, I thought that was in response to a particularly poor cross from JJ that went nowhere...an immediate emotional response. By the time the half-time whistle went as far as I could tell, the fight-back meant we were behind the team.
@Right_in_the_Middle I wasn't at the game so didn't see it but we all know being singled out only makes us feel 10 times worse then your head is going to be all over the place and you'll probably try too hard and feel very pressured which will cause more mistakes! Not a strategy I'd employ myself.
Man management skills are obviously sadley missing ,football management skills also way off the mark with the WDH situation sending a player out at half time is a discrase especially to a hostile crowd, it's beyond belief to think a manager could do that.
Do your brother a favour and find him a day job hes shit, he punted the ball out of play 7times and was to blame arguably for all the goals........saying he had no one to pass to makes me laugh jj was square everytime and blooms came short everytimehow does he make a living out of it
A professional footballer who time and time again over hit a lofted pass......what a joke
@bigred87 Who did you play for?
@bigred87 what are you doing? Are you a blues fan? Giving someone this kind of shit is not acceptable especially a member of their family. Seems like you have a hidden agenda
@Morris_Ital I think he's probably playing for Terriers Under 12's.
He may have been kept back a few times though...
Lol Yep I'm always amazed at the ability of some posters to make a complete cock of themselves in a very short sentence .
I think @bigred87 has seriously overstepped the mark here.
Some comments on here are best ignored in my opinion!
Wasn't at the game yesterday, but WDH has done fine in the games I've seen. I've thought that both him and Muller have shown plenty of potential. Perhaps neither are 1st choice material yet, but then again we've been spoilt with great centre backs in recent years. Given time, I see no reason why they can't make a positive impact for Wycombe.
WDH had a stinker on Saturday but he really shouldn't get too down.
He is here on merit after all, and a manager with a proven record for identifying young talent (including several in his position) believes he has potential.
Everyone will take knock backs during their career. The crucial thing is to bounce back and make sure they become lessons learnt, rather than mistakes to be repeated.
He's also made a smart choice coming to a club where he will get opportunities to prove his ability. At other clubs he may not get that chance but he's getting the chance to turn it around as part of the first team.
Finally, don't take Twitter too seriously!! It has proven time and again to be an extremely poor guage of actual the consensus opinion.
Yes agree with the last two postings.
I'm happy to nail my colours to the mast, based on what I've seen to date, I think Will is a decent prospect.
Centre Half is a tough place to learn your trade and if you have a bad game, as young inexperienced players do, then you tend to stick out. Some of the above postings are a disgraceful way to treat a young player wearing the WW shirt and he deserves our support. Are we not supporters?
I like a lot of what Will's got to offer in terms of his physical toughness and strength in the air. He can defend and I'm happy to follow Martin O'Neill's mantra of "I like my defenders to defend". If they can also spray it about great, if they can't then so be it - it never did Glyn Creaser, Terry Evans, Paul McCarthy or Jason Cousins any harm.
Give him another 20 first team games under his belt and I think we'll have a genuine prospect. Decent young centre halves of his size don't grow on trees.
Can't agree. He's an ok defender, but unless he learns really fast not to foul so often and needlessly, as well as learn to kick it vaguely to a player on his own team he'll never be good enough.
I genuinely don't think he has the awareness on the pitch to survive, he's always on the limit of being in position defensively, but when he gets the ball he just doesn't see things quickly enough to give a pass to a team mate, which invariably leads to a hopeful punt.
I'm sorry, but WDH just isn't good enough. I have absolutely nothing against him as a person, or the effort he puts in, but he is not up to standard by any stretch of the imagination. We can't afford to keep conceding poor goals because of one player.
We aren't conceeding poor goals due to one player though are we? Our midfield was woeful for the first 15 mins on Saturday and all of the back four could each take part of the blame in at least two of the goals. WDH seems to be the scapegoat and I think that's a shame. His distribution does let him down but to be honest who in our back four is a good passer of the ball. Defensively I think he's looked ok for the most part. He's not at the same level of Stewart or Pierre but I refuse to believe that automatically makes him rubbish on this sliding scale of brilliant to awful in two stages.
I don't see how the constant abuse will help him or the team in the run in. I do though think Ainsworth's treatment of WDH at half time on Saturday was a worrying sign. On top of the rumours of dropping players for being late it worrys me that Ainsworth might be losing the plot a bit.
If Orient and Cheltenham hadn't both been reduced to ten men, I think we would have lost both (I only attended Orient so my opinion on Saturday is second-hand).
That's pretty woeful if we consider ourselves promotion contenders, against two relegation-fighting teams (well, only one fighting team).
If we don't up our game against Mansfield, we could get a pasting, unless one of their players decides he wants an early bath too. Imagine if Doncaster finish with 11 men and we put in the same levels of performance as the last two weeks.
When I have a bad day at work I'm glad it doesn't happen in front of several thousand people watching.
Also, I have houseplants with a higher IQ than @bigred87
If you had a bad day at every day you'd quickly lose your job, or at least get put on more menial duties.
I can't fault his effort, but he's not up to league football at the moment. He might have it in him, but we can't afford to wait and find out, if the management team really think he's got a lot of unrealised potential he needs to go out on loan somewhere and learn fast.
He hasn't looked OK defensively though. He was out of position countless times on Saturday (and in most games I've watched), was beaten for pace on nearly every occasion by Cheltenham's distinctly average strikers, and was comfortably beaten by them with the ball too. He was skinned 3/4 times. He loses an awful lot of headers as well. I haven't seen any sign of a quality player in any aspect of the game.
And FYI, I haven't compared him to Pierre or Stewart at all. They don't even come into it.