I can’t stand the ‘bed wetting’ comment. It’s not big, not clever and certainly no better than the drivel from the Facebook site which so many on here are quick to poke fun at.
In our last four games we’ve played over 400 minutes of football, 300 of which against bottom eight L1 sides and only scored three goals. We’re not even averaging one goal per 90 minutes as a team against poor opposition, even if we strip out the Preston game from the sample.
The trouble is that I don’t think we can return to the October/November goalscoring era. Morley allowed us to build out in a 4-1 shape by acting as the single pivot (the ‘1’). I don’t think any of our midfielders - perhaps any midfielders in the entire league - can reproduce what Morley was doing for us. This is why I have constantly called him our most important player - he allowed us to overload in forward areas of the pitch because he could play deep as a single pivot and we could push Scowen into a higher press and let our forwards do a load of damage.
We’ve been forced to rebrand. I think our defensive record will be the best in the league from here on in (except maybe Birmingham City). This may hinder us from winning lots of games, but we certainly won’t lose many (or any at all). I think having Kone back might be what we have missed to get us scoring just enough to turn these wasted opportunity draws into wins.
Agreed. I'm sure it's an effective way of getting results but I can't get away from the feeling that style of football is really quite tedious to watch unless it is executed well and at speed.
Some of our games this season and last remind me of watching England under Southgate. For large parts of the match I'm barely watching because nothing of interest happens until the first pass into midfield. That can take a while to happen and even then the ball is often returned straight back.
At times it leaves me wondering whether there is merit in another rule change, similar to the Introduction of the back pass rule, to stop teams passing to the keeper. Clearly that would need to be tested in some way to see what kind of impact it has on the game.
It isn't a black and white matter of course. We have played brilliantly incisive football when we've been on it this season. And I'm prepared to accept that controlling possession is an effective strategy for increasing our chances of winning, which is what I want above all else.
It was really noticeable on Saturday that both Scowen and Simons were predominantly sitting deep - just in front of the back four. This approach is consistent with the stronger defensive and less effective attacking performances you describe.
I think a lot of fans don't have what it takes for the run-in
It's not going to get any easier. Plenty of games on a knife-edge going into the last 15 minutes, do we push for a winner or try and hang onto the point? What are the other teams around us doing? etc etc
You can't be having a meltdown every time we don't win
We build out as a 4-2 now like you say with Xavier and Scowen deeper. It’s way more defensively solid - we’ve only let a total of 0.74 XG against us in the last three league games. I know it was against sides that are fairly ineffective up front, but that’s still an outstanding defensive display. Trouble is that we aren’t hitting the net at the other end. Xavier’s set pieces look promising though. That should offset some of our poor open-play chance creation. I know it’s cliched, but we really need to turn these draws into wins.
We were brilliant to watch in the first half of the season and scored goals for fun to give us the platform we have now, but this final third of the campaign is a very different scenario. The fear of losing can suffocate teams going for promotion or trying to avoid relegation and I think it’s a good sign that we have become more resilient defensively, especially during a spell when our leading scorer has been out of action. As Eric Plant points out above, there will probably be more games like Saturday during the run in and patience and is required from players and fans alike.
Morley used to sit back and allow Josh to go forward, and after doing that for a few weeks he was really effective, hopefully he can have the trust in Xavi to start doing that more.
The bed wetting stuff is a bit of a cheap dig but gets the point across, its not a majority but we've seen so many comments this season that have turned out to be pish days or minutes later, some folk would have booted out all of the new signings and the manager at half time in the first game of the season, if not the first game of last season.
We shouldn't be playing for draws, especially with mid to low-table opposition. Not only for the points tally but the sense of confidence in the team. They should always go out expecting to win, with the arrogance and swagger to think they're better than whoever the opposition is and willing to believe they can always score, no matter how late in the match it is.
I have a horrible feeling we're going to miss out on autos by four points - and I will certainly look to the draws against Wigan and Crawley as opportunities missed if that happens.
No I don't. I was speaking to Eric's hypothetical.
However I do believe the head coach's playing set-up in both matches was overly cautious and I do hope, in hindsight, Dodds realises that and learns from it.
Poor teams turning up and stifling higher placed teams in order to gain points for themselves should be outlawed. It is ruining football. (Sorry Gaz...)
We may have failed to score but the idea we were playing for a draw is risible. Not the game I watched.
Playing for draws? Imagine the meltdown on here if we went out with ‘arrogance and swagger’ on all out attack and lost because we had neglected our defensive duties. I’m glad the head coach takes a more pragmatic view.
There'll be a bigger melt-down on here if we don't get promoted because we played too cautiously in too many matches and ended up with 1 point instead of 3 too often.
I don't remember meltdowns during the Gorman era - I remember people's pride in the way we played with vim and swagger, even if it didn't always work. The difference between now and then, of course, is we're now able to spend seven figures of players who are for the future rather than the current squad.
John Gorman was manager for two seasons, both in the bottom division. In his first campaign we finished 10th and in his second we finished 6th and lost in the playoffs. You can’t make comparisons between then and now. I don’t think we have played too cautiously in any recent games, it’s been a case of not being able to break down teams who have played cautiously against us.
But this is the nub of it, the absolute nub. We're second in the league. We're going to face lots of team who play cautiously against us. We've tried and failed to break them down by playing with control, a double pivot, long balls over midfield etc and it's not worked. Given the talent we've got in the squad, surely we should trust our players to bamboozle, to play with panache, to overload, to bomb forward, to get at 'em and up 'em. That's what I want to see from our team of many talents. Not an abundance of caution and the hope we might nick a goal somehow.
I watched Man City get schooled by Liverpool yesterday. The lauded Pep and his panto coaching was totally found out and I think the era of his passing teams to death is clearly over. 66% possession and nothing to show for it.
Liverpool pressed at the right time, showed tempo at the right time and were ruthless in attack. I am not comparing us to either team but I think English football has certainly tried to imitate City throughout the leagues and I hope that is now going to go away. It's boring. It's attritional. It's clearly beatable.
We have some great players capable of playing some fantastic football and I hope we exploit those talents and nothing else. As others have said the first half of the season we played without fear and attacked at will. Now we seem too safe and our first instinct is to not lose.
As others have said the first half of the season we played without fear and attacked at will. Now we seem too safe and our first instinct is to not lose.
Which is another one of them nubs...we have something to lose, which is bound to have an effect on players. I am sure if our exciting attacking players wanted to bomb forward and destroy the opposition at will...the coach will not be saying...'If you see a great opportunity...just pass it back to Joe or Caleb. Safety first.'
And even if he did...they probably wouldn't. The fact is there are two teams...and one of them wants to stop the other one from winning.
When you say, we "attacked at will", we didn't really, though, did we? Just for example, my memory of the away game at Wigan was that we started well, scored early and as the game went on, found it more and more difficult to get out of our own half, with just the occasional breakaway. At the end, the players were falling to their knees, punching the air and man-hugging all round, reflecting the backs-to-the-wall nature of the win.
And even where we found it easier, a lot of the attacking was punctuated by long, patient passages of Wanderers passing the ball around the back four, into midfield and back again as we tried to move the opposition around and create the gap or spot the run. Saturday, to my mind, was not much different from that, saving that we scored in all those early games (often early) and didn't on Saturday.
As I have a degree in stating the bleedin’ obvious I’m going to remind people that if we have the ball the opposing team can’t score. Football has evolved (admittedly not always for the better) and the days of you score two and we’ll score three have long gone.
Comments
I can’t stand the ‘bed wetting’ comment. It’s not big, not clever and certainly no better than the drivel from the Facebook site which so many on here are quick to poke fun at.
In our last four games we’ve played over 400 minutes of football, 300 of which against bottom eight L1 sides and only scored three goals. We’re not even averaging one goal per 90 minutes as a team against poor opposition, even if we strip out the Preston game from the sample.
The trouble is that I don’t think we can return to the October/November goalscoring era. Morley allowed us to build out in a 4-1 shape by acting as the single pivot (the ‘1’). I don’t think any of our midfielders - perhaps any midfielders in the entire league - can reproduce what Morley was doing for us. This is why I have constantly called him our most important player - he allowed us to overload in forward areas of the pitch because he could play deep as a single pivot and we could push Scowen into a higher press and let our forwards do a load of damage.
We’ve been forced to rebrand. I think our defensive record will be the best in the league from here on in (except maybe Birmingham City). This may hinder us from winning lots of games, but we certainly won’t lose many (or any at all). I think having Kone back might be what we have missed to get us scoring just enough to turn these wasted opportunity draws into wins.
Agreed. I'm sure it's an effective way of getting results but I can't get away from the feeling that style of football is really quite tedious to watch unless it is executed well and at speed.
Some of our games this season and last remind me of watching England under Southgate. For large parts of the match I'm barely watching because nothing of interest happens until the first pass into midfield. That can take a while to happen and even then the ball is often returned straight back.
At times it leaves me wondering whether there is merit in another rule change, similar to the Introduction of the back pass rule, to stop teams passing to the keeper. Clearly that would need to be tested in some way to see what kind of impact it has on the game.
It isn't a black and white matter of course. We have played brilliantly incisive football when we've been on it this season. And I'm prepared to accept that controlling possession is an effective strategy for increasing our chances of winning, which is what I want above all else.
It was really noticeable on Saturday that both Scowen and Simons were predominantly sitting deep - just in front of the back four. This approach is consistent with the stronger defensive and less effective attacking performances you describe.
I think a lot of fans don't have what it takes for the run-in
It's not going to get any easier. Plenty of games on a knife-edge going into the last 15 minutes, do we push for a winner or try and hang onto the point? What are the other teams around us doing? etc etc
You can't be having a meltdown every time we don't win
We build out as a 4-2 now like you say with Xavier and Scowen deeper. It’s way more defensively solid - we’ve only let a total of 0.74 XG against us in the last three league games. I know it was against sides that are fairly ineffective up front, but that’s still an outstanding defensive display. Trouble is that we aren’t hitting the net at the other end. Xavier’s set pieces look promising though. That should offset some of our poor open-play chance creation. I know it’s cliched, but we really need to turn these draws into wins.
We were brilliant to watch in the first half of the season and scored goals for fun to give us the platform we have now, but this final third of the campaign is a very different scenario. The fear of losing can suffocate teams going for promotion or trying to avoid relegation and I think it’s a good sign that we have become more resilient defensively, especially during a spell when our leading scorer has been out of action. As Eric Plant points out above, there will probably be more games like Saturday during the run in and patience and is required from players and fans alike.
Morley used to sit back and allow Josh to go forward, and after doing that for a few weeks he was really effective, hopefully he can have the trust in Xavi to start doing that more.
The bed wetting stuff is a bit of a cheap dig but gets the point across, its not a majority but we've seen so many comments this season that have turned out to be pish days or minutes later, some folk would have booted out all of the new signings and the manager at half time in the first game of the season, if not the first game of last season.
We shouldn't be playing for draws, especially with mid to low-table opposition. Not only for the points tally but the sense of confidence in the team. They should always go out expecting to win, with the arrogance and swagger to think they're better than whoever the opposition is and willing to believe they can always score, no matter how late in the match it is.
I have a horrible feeling we're going to miss out on autos by four points - and I will certainly look to the draws against Wigan and Crawley as opportunities missed if that happens.
Do you honestly believed the team "played for a draw" against Crawley and Wigan?
No I don't. I was speaking to Eric's hypothetical.
However I do believe the head coach's playing set-up in both matches was overly cautious and I do hope, in hindsight, Dodds realises that and learns from it.
Poor teams turning up and stifling higher placed teams in order to gain points for themselves should be outlawed. It is ruining football. (Sorry Gaz...)
We may have failed to score but the idea we were playing for a draw is risible. Not the game I watched.
ah but will you offset those against games such as the Mansfield home game where we were lucky to pick up all 3 points?
Playing for draws? Imagine the meltdown on here if we went out with ‘arrogance and swagger’ on all out attack and lost because we had neglected our defensive duties. I’m glad the head coach takes a more pragmatic view.
I hope Eric’s hypothetical was on the same wavelength.
There'll be a bigger melt-down on here if we don't get promoted because we played too cautiously in too many matches and ended up with 1 point instead of 3 too often.
I don't remember meltdowns during the Gorman era - I remember people's pride in the way we played with vim and swagger, even if it didn't always work. The difference between now and then, of course, is we're now able to spend seven figures of players who are for the future rather than the current squad.
Who said we were playing for a draw?
This mirrors the system Mike used when he was at Sunderland, which was basically 4-2-3-1.
John Gorman was manager for two seasons, both in the bottom division. In his first campaign we finished 10th and in his second we finished 6th and lost in the playoffs. You can’t make comparisons between then and now. I don’t think we have played too cautiously in any recent games, it’s been a case of not being able to break down teams who have played cautiously against us.
But this is the nub of it, the absolute nub. We're second in the league. We're going to face lots of team who play cautiously against us. We've tried and failed to break them down by playing with control, a double pivot, long balls over midfield etc and it's not worked. Given the talent we've got in the squad, surely we should trust our players to bamboozle, to play with panache, to overload, to bomb forward, to get at 'em and up 'em. That's what I want to see from our team of many talents. Not an abundance of caution and the hope we might nick a goal somehow.
I watched Man City get schooled by Liverpool yesterday. The lauded Pep and his panto coaching was totally found out and I think the era of his passing teams to death is clearly over. 66% possession and nothing to show for it.
Liverpool pressed at the right time, showed tempo at the right time and were ruthless in attack. I am not comparing us to either team but I think English football has certainly tried to imitate City throughout the leagues and I hope that is now going to go away. It's boring. It's attritional. It's clearly beatable.
We have some great players capable of playing some fantastic football and I hope we exploit those talents and nothing else. As others have said the first half of the season we played without fear and attacked at will. Now we seem too safe and our first instinct is to not lose.
As others have said the first half of the season we played without fear and attacked at will. Now we seem too safe and our first instinct is to not lose.
Which is another one of them nubs...we have something to lose, which is bound to have an effect on players. I am sure if our exciting attacking players wanted to bomb forward and destroy the opposition at will...the coach will not be saying...'If you see a great opportunity...just pass it back to Joe or Caleb. Safety first.'
And even if he did...they probably wouldn't. The fact is there are two teams...and one of them wants to stop the other one from winning.
Exactly this. The dynamics of football change significantly when there’s a big prize in sight and it affects most teams.
I'm going to set up a branch of AA in the Shrewsbury region where people like myself can secretly enjoy a certain type of football.
Anti-football Anonymous?
When you say, we "attacked at will", we didn't really, though, did we? Just for example, my memory of the away game at Wigan was that we started well, scored early and as the game went on, found it more and more difficult to get out of our own half, with just the occasional breakaway. At the end, the players were falling to their knees, punching the air and man-hugging all round, reflecting the backs-to-the-wall nature of the win.
And even where we found it easier, a lot of the attacking was punctuated by long, patient passages of Wanderers passing the ball around the back four, into midfield and back again as we tried to move the opposition around and create the gap or spot the run. Saturday, to my mind, was not much different from that, saving that we scored in all those early games (often early) and didn't on Saturday.
As I have a degree in stating the bleedin’ obvious I’m going to remind people that if we have the ball the opposing team can’t score. Football has evolved (admittedly not always for the better) and the days of you score two and we’ll score three have long gone.