I literally did not mention Bloomfield until others brought him up. Dodds has nothing to do with the Bloomfield situation other than being the next to take up the same employment.
I'm literally trying to discuss current things like today's game, and being told to move on and grow up.
Will beat Brum next week. We’re resolute at the back, king returning, opposition who will look to attack us more opening spaces in the other half of the pitch. 2-0 or 2-1 win and we will soon forget today and be satisfied with 4 points from the 2 matches.
See that last paragraph, that was an attempt to get back on topic and move on. But noooooooo…… it’s just us pompous lot.
k thx bye. Kiss kiss
Edit: if anyone cares, the Majitos were either weak as hell or dangerously drinkable. And I took inspiration from @chris and went for the full Brazilian. Two of their curries rice and, weirdly, potato’s. Was really good but certainly more Thai than what imagine to be Brazilian. Served almost tapas style which is Spanish and not, I don’t think, Portuguesey.
oh, and the move on is from the sort of petty bullshit back and forth point scoring. Hence why I haven’t addressed, well almost haven’t addressed, anything in your post this time.
I have no problem with Dodds or the team he put out. We had the best of the game and more chances, but we did need more confidence in pushing forward against quite a dour team. Fred scores a worldy after his solo run and we are all happy and he's back on the wing next week.
Finally got home after no trains north out of Kings Cross for 3 hours. Which seemed a fitting end to a not particularly enjoyable day.
It was very much of a relief that the weather was pleasantly warm - that second half would have felt a lot worse in some of the temperatures we’ve had in recent games.
In amongst all the negativity (for me it’s just how slow we are in moving the ball at the moment) there were quite a few positives and I do think Simons will become a key player for us - although I thought he disappeared a bit second half.
i have seen us play a lot worse and I have been more bored than I was today before. But it’s a little bit frustrating for me that we are both playing well throughout a lot of the team AND being thoroughly boring to watch.
The highlight of the day for me though was an exceptional and extended murmuration above Wycombe Station. It was beautiful to watch, more entertaining than the football and somehow less predictable.
I agree yesterday was a dull game, but you either have a very short memory, or have managed to blot out the seemingly endless boring games of Bloomfield's early management career. I hope you are prepared to give Dodds a little leeway in his early games.
Just a little plea from a paid up member of the "pompous brigade"
The problem isn't that Doddball is dull, the problem is that it's....professional.
I have been so spoilt by the Ainsworth era where games where focused on team spirit and injury time often felt like the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Yesterday was very grown up and probably used words like 'transition' and 'channels' that I only half understand as I prefer terms like 'going out on his shield' when watching football. But nothing lasts forever and I, for one, will embrace our data overlords (whilst secretly thinking 'In order to get what they wanted, they had to lose what they had')
As many have alluded to, teams are coming to AP for a point and we are struggling to break them down.
i quite enjoyed yesterday, thought Wigan were very good defensively but offered very little going forwards. Extremely well organised and I can see why they concede so few goals. I was also frustrated but mainly due to our league position and the tension to get three points.
We created a few openings but didn’t really do enough.
A couple of things I’d like to see change. 1st half Scowen and Simons played next to each other in a two that was protecting the back four. I didn’t think we needed that and it became difficult to transition. Josh’s effort came from him being further forward, I’d like to see us be a bit braver and take some risks.
Tempo - we didn’t really up it and try and take the game by the scruff of the neck. Maybe it’s modern football but we lacked urgency. Too many times we strolled across to take corners, pondered over free kicks, throw ins and goal kicks. It didn’t feel like we wanted it enough OR rather the coaching manuals nowadays are about believing in the process but it seems urgency is a forgotten concept.
When we are not winning we should be sprinting to every throw, free kicks etc and getting the ball back in play as soon as possible.
We are now seven games unbeaten in the league, that’s great news but only three wins.
Dodds said he would assess for first few games and not change much. I’ve been fairly pleased with things so far if he has been assessing. Moving forwards I’d like to see him tweaking a few things.
We’ve almost got a free hit at Birmingham next week. Let’s end their 16 game unbeaten run and all will be good again.
Finally, we all want the same thing - a team we can be proud of and hopefully a promotion. There are too many of us looking for things that aren’t there in some of the posts and it is getting a bit emotional. We have traditionally had the best forum in the football league, let’s move forwards together and get this forum back to being the world class place it has been for so many years.
This is quite an interesting read. The rest of the world has seemingly caught up with the GA ‘move the ball forward quickly’ (AKA transitions) philosophy…
I only just realised that Wigan have the third best defence away from home in the league. So at least we got the point on a week others around us also dropped points.
Tempo, like playing the ball out from the back, is a legacy of Pep and that dull as fcuk football that City play. A graveyard for flamboyance in favour of process and phases. Coaches see a slow tempo build up and think this is the way to win games. Our superiority in passing showed that yesterday but stats can do one when you don't actually win games (I'm not talking about Wycombe here, it is all football). Largely speaking I struggle to watch Premier League games as balls are passed around and then everyone gets excited when it goes through the lines in the hope there might be an attack.
We have wide players that rarely hit the dead ball line to get a cross in. And again this is not exclusive to us, or current manager, or previous manager. Sadlier and GMac do it when they play.
The problem is that when you play a ponderous tempo game of possession you better have a player to split the defence with a pass and. a player to make a run ready to receive that pass. If everyone is stood around it doesn't make for much of a spectacle.
As I say a wider thought on football and nothing to do with our current coach.
The majority of gasroomers are in full support of the new manager and are certainly not criticising him at all. I think he will see us over the line to the championship and be a tremendous appointment.
Agreed @TheAndyGrahamFanClub . We have not taken as many risks recently as we did before Xmas.
Fred being the prime example currently. That run at the end shows how he can terrify opposition.I want to see him do that as much as possible. Instead he has been ultra safe the last couple of months. McCleary went through the same last season.
I suspect playing the top half of the league might be better for us, at least it may open games up more and we can exploit the space.
One thing that Wigan did exceptionally well yesterday was press. We needed more movement from our front three and they were all quite static. Kone is very good at finding space across the back line and we missed that movement.
Hoping Mansfield can do us a favour and not lose. If they win we will actually finish the weekend better than we started.
The quote I responded to was you having an unnecessary dig at Dodds.
And whilst others brought him up, the mention of Blooms that you took exception to was simply someone placing yesterday's result/performance into context i.e. noting that we struggled to break down many ultra-defensive low block teams at AP under Blooms as well. I didn't interpret that as a criticism of Blooms, rather it was a defence of Dodds
If nothing else this thread proves just how difficult it is to please everyone. First we had the criticism of Ainsworth ‘hoofball’, now the doubts being expressed about the more ‘controlled’ style under Dodds. My view is that, if it gets us promoted, I don’t care what style we adopt in the next 14 games. We can think about the different requirements needed in the Championship when and if we get there.
We started brightly enough but ran out of ideas and ended up with the ball being passed along the back or lumped forward. Wigan were toothless but dogged in defence.
I think what it really proves is how people's assessment of a match is often coloured entirely by the result. If Fred's shot had squeezed in towards the end then this place would have a very different vibe and yet the performance itself would have been exactly the same.
There is much to be positive about and I'd say most crucially of all this is not at all a bad time of the season to become very difficult to score against. If that back four stays together between now and the end of the season, and Kone gets back to where he was fitness and form-wise we have a hell of a chance to go up. Ignoring Birmingham who have always been in a league of one this season there is no way I would swap positions or squads with anyone else in the division.
Sounds like things have calmed down overnight. Several very thoughtful, measured and well balanced posts already which is good to see. Let’s hope our feuding friends can soon forget the divisive events of January 2025 and we can all drink to the rallying words of @Commoner’s final paragraph.
Sounds like an average game, looks like an awful thread.
If you still think Blooms was hard done by you'll probably have that confirmed in a few years, suspect if he does well at Luton he won't give a toss, also find that outcome increasingly unlikely. Either way it'll become less relevant as time goes on but if anyone fancies boycotting and holding up placards outside instead go for it. Snide remarks on here won't help either him, you or the team one bit.
If you think Dodds is out of his depth you'll also find your answer in time but unlikely after one interview, one dull game or him hugging someone. Blooms took the best part of a year to be effective. Similarly with Rice if we do well nobody will acknowledge or care what he actually does day to day, if we don't he'll be a nice easy target.
We were dull today seemingly because we didn't score but opposition good defensively, Kone is just back, Fred was dropped for being in poor form and seems to have made an impact from the bench, and we signed another striker but he's injured, and all the while we are keeping pace in second, doesn't sound a disaster.
I may have missed the point of this thread and pitched this at the wrong level so will end with a "ner ner na ner ner" and a "no - you smell", maybe we can have a separate playground insults / was I right all along thread away from match day reviews and man of the match discussions.
This is exactly what I have been thinking for a few weeks. I also think some already have promotion factored in so it is something to now be lost rather than to be won. We haven’t won anything yet. Please play nice.
It is quite frustrating though. We could really do with being about 6-9 clear points at this stage because our remaining fixtures are quite brutal on paper where Wrexham’s begin to ease.
Birmingham (a)
Wrexham (h)
Huddersfield (a)
Reading (a)
Bolton (a)
Charlton (h)
Orient (a)
Stockport (h)
Yes I’m fully aware no one expected automatic promotion this season, but we have so much quality. It would be incredible to go up. It does feel like things could slip away very frustratingly in the final few weeks because we dropped points at home to bottom eight sides.
I think every game is tough when you’re going for something as huge as promotion to the Championship as we saw with yesterday’s results elsewhere. Crucially we aren’t losing games or conceding many goals. I think we can be just as - arguably more - confident of facing the teams in the top half as those in the bottom half as those games will be more open and we defend very well.
The Bucks Free Press interview with Dodds gives a further insight into a further challenge for a new manager.
£2million of signings outside the match squad and he doesn’t consider them up to it compared to the existing players. I find that really disappointing in the context of wide left which has been crying out for more. Bez is a player with great endeavour but I think we all assumed that Berry would make that position his.
He didn’t say he doesn’t consider them to be up to it, his actual quote about some (not all) of the new signings was: ‘They just need to roll their sleeves up and be better than the players in front of them.’ In other words he is keeping faith at this point with the majority of the players who got us to where we are.
Comments
I literally did not mention Bloomfield until others brought him up. Dodds has nothing to do with the Bloomfield situation other than being the next to take up the same employment.
I'm literally trying to discuss current things like today's game, and being told to move on and grow up.
Will beat Brum next week. We’re resolute at the back, king returning, opposition who will look to attack us more opening spaces in the other half of the pitch. 2-0 or 2-1 win and we will soon forget today and be satisfied with 4 points from the 2 matches.
You tried this on the last match thread.
I'm not defending some of the reactions...but can't you just give it up?
See that last paragraph, that was an attempt to get back on topic and move on. But noooooooo…… it’s just us pompous lot.
k thx bye. Kiss kiss
Edit: if anyone cares, the Majitos were either weak as hell or dangerously drinkable. And I took inspiration from @chris and went for the full Brazilian. Two of their curries rice and, weirdly, potato’s. Was really good but certainly more Thai than what imagine to be Brazilian. Served almost tapas style which is Spanish and not, I don’t think, Portuguesey.
oh, and the move on is from the sort of petty bullshit back and forth point scoring. Hence why I haven’t addressed, well almost haven’t addressed, anything in your post this time.
I have no problem with Dodds or the team he put out. We had the best of the game and more chances, but we did need more confidence in pushing forward against quite a dour team. Fred scores a worldy after his solo run and we are all happy and he's back on the wing next week.
Frustrating yes...but I was not bored.
Finally got home after no trains north out of Kings Cross for 3 hours. Which seemed a fitting end to a not particularly enjoyable day.
It was very much of a relief that the weather was pleasantly warm - that second half would have felt a lot worse in some of the temperatures we’ve had in recent games.
In amongst all the negativity (for me it’s just how slow we are in moving the ball at the moment) there were quite a few positives and I do think Simons will become a key player for us - although I thought he disappeared a bit second half.
i have seen us play a lot worse and I have been more bored than I was today before. But it’s a little bit frustrating for me that we are both playing well throughout a lot of the team AND being thoroughly boring to watch.
The highlight of the day for me though was an exceptional and extended murmuration above Wycombe Station. It was beautiful to watch, more entertaining than the football and somehow less predictable.
Having millions of pounds worth of players and thousands of fanatical fans backing them home and away gives them a big advantage.
I agree yesterday was a dull game, but you either have a very short memory, or have managed to blot out the seemingly endless boring games of Bloomfield's early management career. I hope you are prepared to give Dodds a little leeway in his early games.
Just a little plea from a paid up member of the "pompous brigade"
The problem isn't that Doddball is dull, the problem is that it's....professional.
I have been so spoilt by the Ainsworth era where games where focused on team spirit and injury time often felt like the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Yesterday was very grown up and probably used words like 'transition' and 'channels' that I only half understand as I prefer terms like 'going out on his shield' when watching football. But nothing lasts forever and I, for one, will embrace our data overlords (whilst secretly thinking 'In order to get what they wanted, they had to lose what they had')
As many have alluded to, teams are coming to AP for a point and we are struggling to break them down.
i quite enjoyed yesterday, thought Wigan were very good defensively but offered very little going forwards. Extremely well organised and I can see why they concede so few goals. I was also frustrated but mainly due to our league position and the tension to get three points.
We created a few openings but didn’t really do enough.
A couple of things I’d like to see change. 1st half Scowen and Simons played next to each other in a two that was protecting the back four. I didn’t think we needed that and it became difficult to transition. Josh’s effort came from him being further forward, I’d like to see us be a bit braver and take some risks.
Tempo - we didn’t really up it and try and take the game by the scruff of the neck. Maybe it’s modern football but we lacked urgency. Too many times we strolled across to take corners, pondered over free kicks, throw ins and goal kicks. It didn’t feel like we wanted it enough OR rather the coaching manuals nowadays are about believing in the process but it seems urgency is a forgotten concept.
When we are not winning we should be sprinting to every throw, free kicks etc and getting the ball back in play as soon as possible.
We are now seven games unbeaten in the league, that’s great news but only three wins.
Dodds said he would assess for first few games and not change much. I’ve been fairly pleased with things so far if he has been assessing. Moving forwards I’d like to see him tweaking a few things.
We’ve almost got a free hit at Birmingham next week. Let’s end their 16 game unbeaten run and all will be good again.
Finally, we all want the same thing - a team we can be proud of and hopefully a promotion. There are too many of us looking for things that aren’t there in some of the posts and it is getting a bit emotional. We have traditionally had the best forum in the football league, let’s move forwards together and get this forum back to being the world class place it has been for so many years.
COYB!
This is quite an interesting read. The rest of the world has seemingly caught up with the GA ‘move the ball forward quickly’ (AKA transitions) philosophy…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c20l7lw3ypzo
I only just realised that Wigan have the third best defence away from home in the league. So at least we got the point on a week others around us also dropped points.
We're all Mansfield fans today, aren't we?
Tempo, like playing the ball out from the back, is a legacy of Pep and that dull as fcuk football that City play. A graveyard for flamboyance in favour of process and phases. Coaches see a slow tempo build up and think this is the way to win games. Our superiority in passing showed that yesterday but stats can do one when you don't actually win games (I'm not talking about Wycombe here, it is all football). Largely speaking I struggle to watch Premier League games as balls are passed around and then everyone gets excited when it goes through the lines in the hope there might be an attack.
We have wide players that rarely hit the dead ball line to get a cross in. And again this is not exclusive to us, or current manager, or previous manager. Sadlier and GMac do it when they play.
The problem is that when you play a ponderous tempo game of possession you better have a player to split the defence with a pass and. a player to make a run ready to receive that pass. If everyone is stood around it doesn't make for much of a spectacle.
As I say a wider thought on football and nothing to do with our current coach.
The majority of gasroomers are in full support of the new manager and are certainly not criticising him at all. I think he will see us over the line to the championship and be a tremendous appointment.
Agreed @TheAndyGrahamFanClub . We have not taken as many risks recently as we did before Xmas.
Fred being the prime example currently. That run at the end shows how he can terrify opposition.I want to see him do that as much as possible. Instead he has been ultra safe the last couple of months. McCleary went through the same last season.
I suspect playing the top half of the league might be better for us, at least it may open games up more and we can exploit the space.
One thing that Wigan did exceptionally well yesterday was press. We needed more movement from our front three and they were all quite static. Kone is very good at finding space across the back line and we missed that movement.
Hoping Mansfield can do us a favour and not lose. If they win we will actually finish the weekend better than we started.
The quote I responded to was you having an unnecessary dig at Dodds.
And whilst others brought him up, the mention of Blooms that you took exception to was simply someone placing yesterday's result/performance into context i.e. noting that we struggled to break down many ultra-defensive low block teams at AP under Blooms as well. I didn't interpret that as a criticism of Blooms, rather it was a defence of Dodds
If nothing else this thread proves just how difficult it is to please everyone. First we had the criticism of Ainsworth ‘hoofball’, now the doubts being expressed about the more ‘controlled’ style under Dodds. My view is that, if it gets us promoted, I don’t care what style we adopt in the next 14 games. We can think about the different requirements needed in the Championship when and if we get there.
We started brightly enough but ran out of ideas and ended up with the ball being passed along the back or lumped forward. Wigan were toothless but dogged in defence.
I think what it really proves is how people's assessment of a match is often coloured entirely by the result. If Fred's shot had squeezed in towards the end then this place would have a very different vibe and yet the performance itself would have been exactly the same.
There is much to be positive about and I'd say most crucially of all this is not at all a bad time of the season to become very difficult to score against. If that back four stays together between now and the end of the season, and Kone gets back to where he was fitness and form-wise we have a hell of a chance to go up. Ignoring Birmingham who have always been in a league of one this season there is no way I would swap positions or squads with anyone else in the division.
Eric, I agree with every word you have written.
...ever
Sounds like things have calmed down overnight. Several very thoughtful, measured and well balanced posts already which is good to see. Let’s hope our feuding friends can soon forget the divisive events of January 2025 and we can all drink to the rallying words of @Commoner’s final paragraph.
This is why WTV is becoming an increasingly attractive option.
Sounds like an average game, looks like an awful thread.
If you still think Blooms was hard done by you'll probably have that confirmed in a few years, suspect if he does well at Luton he won't give a toss, also find that outcome increasingly unlikely. Either way it'll become less relevant as time goes on but if anyone fancies boycotting and holding up placards outside instead go for it. Snide remarks on here won't help either him, you or the team one bit.
If you think Dodds is out of his depth you'll also find your answer in time but unlikely after one interview, one dull game or him hugging someone. Blooms took the best part of a year to be effective. Similarly with Rice if we do well nobody will acknowledge or care what he actually does day to day, if we don't he'll be a nice easy target.
We were dull today seemingly because we didn't score but opposition good defensively, Kone is just back, Fred was dropped for being in poor form and seems to have made an impact from the bench, and we signed another striker but he's injured, and all the while we are keeping pace in second, doesn't sound a disaster.
I may have missed the point of this thread and pitched this at the wrong level so will end with a "ner ner na ner ner" and a "no - you smell", maybe we can have a separate playground insults / was I right all along thread away from match day reviews and man of the match discussions.
This is exactly what I have been thinking for a few weeks. I also think some already have promotion factored in so it is something to now be lost rather than to be won. We haven’t won anything yet. Please play nice.
It is quite frustrating though. We could really do with being about 6-9 clear points at this stage because our remaining fixtures are quite brutal on paper where Wrexham’s begin to ease.
Birmingham (a)
Wrexham (h)
Huddersfield (a)
Reading (a)
Bolton (a)
Charlton (h)
Orient (a)
Stockport (h)
Yes I’m fully aware no one expected automatic promotion this season, but we have so much quality. It would be incredible to go up. It does feel like things could slip away very frustratingly in the final few weeks because we dropped points at home to bottom eight sides.
I think every game is tough when you’re going for something as huge as promotion to the Championship as we saw with yesterday’s results elsewhere. Crucially we aren’t losing games or conceding many goals. I think we can be just as - arguably more - confident of facing the teams in the top half as those in the bottom half as those games will be more open and we defend very well.
The Bucks Free Press interview with Dodds gives a further insight into a further challenge for a new manager.
£2million of signings outside the match squad and he doesn’t consider them up to it compared to the existing players. I find that really disappointing in the context of wide left which has been crying out for more. Bez is a player with great endeavour but I think we all assumed that Berry would make that position his.
He didn’t say he doesn’t consider them to be up to it, his actual quote about some (not all) of the new signings was: ‘They just need to roll their sleeves up and be better than the players in front of them.’ In other words he is keeping faith at this point with the majority of the players who got us to where we are.