I think there are parallels between MB and MD in that Gaz left us in a good position just outside the playoffs (which is why I was surprised he went) and despite having the same team and not changing much MB who also knew all of the players oversaw a bit of a terrible run that saw us drop away. Second season was dire for the first half, then Wembley saved him to an extent. Another surprising departure left us in second with MD picking up from Sam Grace not knowing the first team or any of the bloated squad. I think he has the harder job in a way, not wanting to scupper the success. Thing is if we end this season with a whimper he may not get the whole of next season the way Blooms did. It's a business yer know...
There are definitely similarities between Ainsworth and Bloomfield leaving. I think deep down, possibly both managers at the time knew we didn’t quite have enough to make promotion and left when their stock was highest.
Let’s be honest, the lull started with the two draws at beginning of December. Back-up team losing to Swindon highlighted lack of squad depth. Warning signs with Bolton and a not particularly great Charlton away game.
Then on to New Year, hardly started with a bang. By now, teams have figured us out and the busy schedule is taking its toll. Grace did a great job in difficult circumstances and Dodds would have been close to matching his average points return with a win against Wrexham.
Im certainly just as bemused as all other fans with the Norris long ball hoof approach, but we’ll just have to stick with it as way too early to fully judge this situation. There have been glimpses of good performances sandwiched inbetween the strange.
Sonny Bradley has to start every game if he is fit. Why this man isn’t playing every week is beyond me, Low (error for pboro penalty) and Taylor (error for smith hitting post) have given good reason to be dropped in recent games. It’s simple, play Bradley and get a better performance.
If he can’t figure out who to drop then go with the 3 at the back like against Birmingham. I think we all got excited seeing the ballsy managerial approach to that 2nd half at Brum with 10 men. Only for Dodds to then get all rigid and scared on us the following games.
Hopefully now the pressure of the situation has been lifted with the Wrexham loss and it will allow Dodds to make necessary changes and adjustments. In regard to all the new recruits, I personally think they are all fantastic signings that are simply not match fit or ready.
What a luxury to have, signing players to make us better next season regardless of the division we’re in, either to dominate league 1 or survive the Championship. We’re used to loan players, freebies and last minute deals picking up scraps of the transfer window. This is all a new concept to us fans, but we have to trust that the process is actually a positive one, as the evidence is there already that we’ll be having an amazing time over the next few years.
People regularly mention how Ainsworth went to a bad setup at a bad time for everyone and suggest Blooms should have been more careful, they don't generally acknowledge that clubs weren't exactly fighting over Gaz despite the fact he'd done a great job for a decade keeping us in the league then taking us to the championship. Blooms is a very different case, while a collapse might have seen him drop off some radars he was in demand and left us for a club about 4 places higher that he had no links with suggesting all the sort of things that have been alleged.
"they are all fantastic signings" will take some time to prove. Certainly some do look it and time is needed but you can't really overlook that we aren't in good form and some players are nowhere near despite having been here the equivalent of a full pre season. Maybe it has taken too long to assess them where a dedicated period of training and friendlies was needed. He needs to start throwing his weight around a bit more and demanding more from his players, and if they aren't up to it he has plenty of others waiting to come in. Tonight will be a good test against a nasty side with the option of rotating a tired team. Important choices to be made.
If I had to hone it down to the biggest problem that I have with Dodds, it's that he talks about his mantra being control - but the major change he's made to the team is to convert us to a long ball team with a keeper whose kicks rarely find any of our players, and a strikeforce without the skillset to receive them.
The real control came during the Bloomfield era when we were playing tight balls from Ravizzoli quickly through the thirds, keeping possession and threading through to our strikeforce with peachy balls on the ground. I don't think it's any coincidence that our penalties have dropped off a cliff since he came in - a long ball to Udoh is easy to head away. A through ball to the front four puts defenders under pressure and that's when the mistimed tackles come in.
I'll balance that up by accepting that Xavier Simons playing is pretty essential to making Bloomball work for us and he's been unavailable for most of Dodds' time here. But he's back tonight - so no excuse not to play sexy football again. The problem will remain though if Dodds sticks to a double pivot (waste of Scowen) and long ball from Norris. I know the keeper isn't going to get dropped but he's perfectly capable of playing good short balls out, if instructed to do so. Those instructions need to come from Dodds, starting tonight.
I hear a lot of the concerns here, and do think Dodds is being too cautious, but I think some people are willfully forgetting the performances against Bristol Rovers and Burton. Granted, these are teams we should be beating, but we played some superb football (to feet) in those games, one of which was without Simons.
I think our issue right now is less a change of system or style, and more a chronic lack of confidence.
Must admit I'm always slightly concerned at managers / coaches talking about seeking "control", as it usually means they favour tedious keep ball over the quick, attacking risk taking football surely every fan (apart from Pep fans) prefers?
I would agree that Sonny needs to be on the starting 11. It is not just that he always puts in a solid performance but he is very vocal which seemed to have a positive impact. Plus if you are an experienced league 1 forward then you know when you turn up that you are in for a tough one.
This is completely true. It at least once happens EVERY match. But even more importantly, his long kicks forward are wildly inaccurate and very often skewed or sliced. By contrast, Rav's long kicking is the most precise I've seen from a Wycombe keeper (maybe joint with Stockdale).
Comparing Dodds in his first couple of months with Bloomfield and Ainsworth at their respective peaks is unfair on MD.
That isn't to say the football we were luxuriating in earlier in the season hasn't become less pleasing on the eye, though our two previous managers have had worse starts to their respective times as manager (GA's admittedly in very different circumstances).
The point I guess is it's far too early to make any judgements whether he will prove to be up to the job. What we will find out is whether Lomtadze and Rice are predisposed to give their appointee time to grow into the role, or whether we'll have a Watford style revolving door of itinerant coaches creaming off severance payments every 6-12 months from the next mugs who'll give them a 3 year contract.
Far too early to be judging Dodds in my opinion. He’s come into a tricky situation and is having to juggle players around in a squad that’s probably 8 players too deep.
We have also had to contend with a lot of misfortune over the past couple of months. Bradley’s red at Cambridge, Kone’s injury, Simmons red card at Birmingham and subsequent ban, Harvie injury, Kone illness. Added to that are that wonder goal that Crawley scored against us, flukey last minute equaliser that Blackpool scored, Wrexham’s late deflected goal.
Now is not the time to be doing anything other than getting behind the club until the end of the season.
This sums it up for me. Dodds stepped into a tricky-ish situation which has only been made tougher. He's made misteps, but that's too be expected from a new head-coach. I think, given a stretch of time over the summer, we'll really see improvement.
It's pointless getting worked up if you think it's a terrible decision and we need to get shot of him immediately, as surely no-one can foresee Rice and the crew not giving their own pick enough time to make it work. He isn't going anywhere, so let's get behind him.
My view is that whatever MD is telling them or how he is organising them (good or bad) he puts enough experienced professional footballers out to make decisions on the pitch to get a win. It's not all about what the coach says or what he wants. Missing Kone aside, having seen us in our pomp this season, I cannot say I have disagreed with the teams he has put out in the circumstances...but the circumstances haven't always been kind. Other teams want to win as well.
I know the keeper isn't going to get dropped but he's perfectly capable of playing good short balls out, if instructed to do so.
His short balls out are appalling, some of the worst I've ever seen from a Wycombe keeper. They're regularly too slow / short and they're always telegraphed so that oppo players have all the time in the world to press where it's going, and quite often run on to it before it even reaches one of our players.
I think Dodds will come good eventually, but it will probably be at the expense of going up this season.
Parallels can be drawn with the first few months of Bloomfield's tenure.
Just hope we don't get stuck in a loop of hiring a new 'head coach', doing well up until Christmas, losing them in the new year, hiring a fresh faced youth coach, form dropping off, rinse, repeat.
I agree I think he’ll come good but will need time and a trimmed down squad. He’s clearly a good coach that players enjoy working with. For me regardless of what happens this season he should be kept on, it’s not the Wycombe way to hire and fire without giving time and support.
If we are bottom and Blooms and Gaz are both available next Christmas with a baying Gasroom 3 demanding change and a distant leadership torn between ignoring the peasants or making a kneejerk appointment to shut them up... 😆😆
I am not sure the old Wycombe way exists any more in truth. Like it or not, especially in Gareth's reign, we had a clear identity. We were a collection of hard working thoroughly good sorts scrapping to outperform all reasonable expectations and defy obstacles put in our way while consistently over-achieving. It was relatively easy to "buy into " and feel part of what the club was.
That has changed now. If we wish to be a Lg1 team and possibly even a Lg2 team that change was probably necessary but the change is not easy. We are now a much more corporate club owned by a foreign based and currently faceless billionaire with his and therefore the clubs true aims a little hard to ascertain and the supporters perhaps less important than they once were. We appear to now be one of the monied clubs rather than a poor club outperforming and putting one over those monied clubs. On the pitch we don't really have an identity either at present, although that may well come, and with a largely newish team, some of the old characters and the sense of attachment they engendered have been lost
Its a huge change and while many will be excited at the potential, many others, and perhaps many of the same people, will mourn a little the feeling of belonging to the old club they have now lost. I can't say I particularly share the feelings in respect of Matt Bloomfield the manager - while I wish him well in the future , but wonder if partly at least those who do feel that way are to an extent using him as a conduit to personalising the feelings of loss for the old club itself.
Realistically the club could only out-perform for so long and it now seems a very difficult path back to that old club even if that was desired. So it seems the choice now is either to get behind the new entity with all its possibilities but also all its relative weaknesses or sadly accept that Wycombe Wanderers can no longer be a positive part of your lives and find something else to fill that need.
I will watch with interest to see what the future brings while perhaps never quite feeling as much part of the new club that I once did even from afar.
It's a shame having money means being a tight knit club with a bit of integrity is old hat and backward and sad old people who know nothing of business should stop whinging about it.
I felt Matt Bloomfield was doing a great job playing the best football we had seen for years and seemed to get pushed out...and it was some of the sneering about him and against those with similar fears that got on my conduits...not a yearning for when this was all fields and horse drawn carriages and a manager stayed for 30 years.
The idea of buying young players to mold is laudable...the idea of buying players who barely make the squad (for next season?) less so.
Perhaps I just don't understand the new ways and thus am starting to feel a distance from the club.
I can't say I particularly share the feelings in respect of Matt Bloomfield the manager - while I wish him well in the future , but wonder if partly at least those who do feel that way are to an extent using him as a conduit to personalising the feelings of loss for the old club itself.
Close @DevC - for me it's the disgraceful treatment of the one person who least deserved such treatment, and the contrast between that and all the things that have ever made me proud to say I'm a Wycombe fan. We've a pretty long history of being a "decent" club, treating people with respect, even Derek Adams. That's obviously not going to be the case in future.
Seriously this is getting boring keep repeating it again and again and again. I know in the past you have ‘ blasted’ individual posters for repeating facts. Perhaps it’s time to listen to your own advice.
Comments
I think there are parallels between MB and MD in that Gaz left us in a good position just outside the playoffs (which is why I was surprised he went) and despite having the same team and not changing much MB who also knew all of the players oversaw a bit of a terrible run that saw us drop away. Second season was dire for the first half, then Wembley saved him to an extent. Another surprising departure left us in second with MD picking up from Sam Grace not knowing the first team or any of the bloated squad. I think he has the harder job in a way, not wanting to scupper the success. Thing is if we end this season with a whimper he may not get the whole of next season the way Blooms did. It's a business yer know...
There are definitely similarities between Ainsworth and Bloomfield leaving. I think deep down, possibly both managers at the time knew we didn’t quite have enough to make promotion and left when their stock was highest.
Let’s be honest, the lull started with the two draws at beginning of December. Back-up team losing to Swindon highlighted lack of squad depth. Warning signs with Bolton and a not particularly great Charlton away game.
Then on to New Year, hardly started with a bang. By now, teams have figured us out and the busy schedule is taking its toll. Grace did a great job in difficult circumstances and Dodds would have been close to matching his average points return with a win against Wrexham.
Im certainly just as bemused as all other fans with the Norris long ball hoof approach, but we’ll just have to stick with it as way too early to fully judge this situation. There have been glimpses of good performances sandwiched inbetween the strange.
Sonny Bradley has to start every game if he is fit. Why this man isn’t playing every week is beyond me, Low (error for pboro penalty) and Taylor (error for smith hitting post) have given good reason to be dropped in recent games. It’s simple, play Bradley and get a better performance.
If he can’t figure out who to drop then go with the 3 at the back like against Birmingham. I think we all got excited seeing the ballsy managerial approach to that 2nd half at Brum with 10 men. Only for Dodds to then get all rigid and scared on us the following games.
Hopefully now the pressure of the situation has been lifted with the Wrexham loss and it will allow Dodds to make necessary changes and adjustments. In regard to all the new recruits, I personally think they are all fantastic signings that are simply not match fit or ready.
What a luxury to have, signing players to make us better next season regardless of the division we’re in, either to dominate league 1 or survive the Championship. We’re used to loan players, freebies and last minute deals picking up scraps of the transfer window. This is all a new concept to us fans, but we have to trust that the process is actually a positive one, as the evidence is there already that we’ll be having an amazing time over the next few years.
People regularly mention how Ainsworth went to a bad setup at a bad time for everyone and suggest Blooms should have been more careful, they don't generally acknowledge that clubs weren't exactly fighting over Gaz despite the fact he'd done a great job for a decade keeping us in the league then taking us to the championship. Blooms is a very different case, while a collapse might have seen him drop off some radars he was in demand and left us for a club about 4 places higher that he had no links with suggesting all the sort of things that have been alleged.
"they are all fantastic signings" will take some time to prove. Certainly some do look it and time is needed but you can't really overlook that we aren't in good form and some players are nowhere near despite having been here the equivalent of a full pre season. Maybe it has taken too long to assess them where a dedicated period of training and friendlies was needed. He needs to start throwing his weight around a bit more and demanding more from his players, and if they aren't up to it he has plenty of others waiting to come in. Tonight will be a good test against a nasty side with the option of rotating a tired team. Important choices to be made.
If I had to hone it down to the biggest problem that I have with Dodds, it's that he talks about his mantra being control - but the major change he's made to the team is to convert us to a long ball team with a keeper whose kicks rarely find any of our players, and a strikeforce without the skillset to receive them.
The real control came during the Bloomfield era when we were playing tight balls from Ravizzoli quickly through the thirds, keeping possession and threading through to our strikeforce with peachy balls on the ground. I don't think it's any coincidence that our penalties have dropped off a cliff since he came in - a long ball to Udoh is easy to head away. A through ball to the front four puts defenders under pressure and that's when the mistimed tackles come in.
I'll balance that up by accepting that Xavier Simons playing is pretty essential to making Bloomball work for us and he's been unavailable for most of Dodds' time here. But he's back tonight - so no excuse not to play sexy football again. The problem will remain though if Dodds sticks to a double pivot (waste of Scowen) and long ball from Norris. I know the keeper isn't going to get dropped but he's perfectly capable of playing good short balls out, if instructed to do so. Those instructions need to come from Dodds, starting tonight.
Absolutely spot on. Completely agree.
I hear a lot of the concerns here, and do think Dodds is being too cautious, but I think some people are willfully forgetting the performances against Bristol Rovers and Burton. Granted, these are teams we should be beating, but we played some superb football (to feet) in those games, one of which was without Simons.
I think our issue right now is less a change of system or style, and more a chronic lack of confidence.
Totally agree with that last paragraph. Spot on.
Must admit I'm always slightly concerned at managers / coaches talking about seeking "control", as it usually means they favour tedious keep ball over the quick, attacking risk taking football surely every fan (apart from Pep fans) prefers?
I would agree that Sonny needs to be on the starting 11. It is not just that he always puts in a solid performance but he is very vocal which seemed to have a positive impact. Plus if you are an experienced league 1 forward then you know when you turn up that you are in for a tough one.
Lot of work going on behind the scenes for a Mike Dodds song to Daddy Cool but still a long way to go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3PTPNpfVnw
# He likes massive squads
Mikey, Mikey Dodds
And loads of data bods
Mikey, Mikey Dodds
He's stretching out his quads
Mikey, Mikey Dodds
Performance analysis podcast on his AirPods
Mikey, Mikey Dodds
Der der der der der nah nah nah, etc, etc der #
This is completely true. It at least once happens EVERY match. But even more importantly, his long kicks forward are wildly inaccurate and very often skewed or sliced. By contrast, Rav's long kicking is the most precise I've seen from a Wycombe keeper (maybe joint with Stockdale).
Comparing Dodds in his first couple of months with Bloomfield and Ainsworth at their respective peaks is unfair on MD.
That isn't to say the football we were luxuriating in earlier in the season hasn't become less pleasing on the eye, though our two previous managers have had worse starts to their respective times as manager (GA's admittedly in very different circumstances).
The point I guess is it's far too early to make any judgements whether he will prove to be up to the job. What we will find out is whether Lomtadze and Rice are predisposed to give their appointee time to grow into the role, or whether we'll have a Watford style revolving door of itinerant coaches creaming off severance payments every 6-12 months from the next mugs who'll give them a 3 year contract.
Far too early to be judging Dodds in my opinion. He’s come into a tricky situation and is having to juggle players around in a squad that’s probably 8 players too deep.
We have also had to contend with a lot of misfortune over the past couple of months. Bradley’s red at Cambridge, Kone’s injury, Simmons red card at Birmingham and subsequent ban, Harvie injury, Kone illness. Added to that are that wonder goal that Crawley scored against us, flukey last minute equaliser that Blackpool scored, Wrexham’s late deflected goal.
Now is not the time to be doing anything other than getting behind the club until the end of the season.
This sums it up for me. Dodds stepped into a tricky-ish situation which has only been made tougher. He's made misteps, but that's too be expected from a new head-coach. I think, given a stretch of time over the summer, we'll really see improvement.
It's pointless getting worked up if you think it's a terrible decision and we need to get shot of him immediately, as surely no-one can foresee Rice and the crew not giving their own pick enough time to make it work. He isn't going anywhere, so let's get behind him.
The world is going mad. I also absolutely agree with an @aloysius post
Matt Bloomfield 100% believed Wycombe’s squad would win promotion at the time of his departure.
My view is that whatever MD is telling them or how he is organising them (good or bad) he puts enough experienced professional footballers out to make decisions on the pitch to get a win. It's not all about what the coach says or what he wants. Missing Kone aside, having seen us in our pomp this season, I cannot say I have disagreed with the teams he has put out in the circumstances...but the circumstances haven't always been kind. Other teams want to win as well.
Same. Apart from this bit...
I know the keeper isn't going to get dropped but he's perfectly capable of playing good short balls out, if instructed to do so.
His short balls out are appalling, some of the worst I've ever seen from a Wycombe keeper. They're regularly too slow / short and they're always telegraphed so that oppo players have all the time in the world to press where it's going, and quite often run on to it before it even reaches one of our players.
Surely you'd simply go with Doddy, Doddy cool for the main line?
I’m sure he will be good next season though after a full pre season
I think Dodds will come good eventually, but it will probably be at the expense of going up this season.
Parallels can be drawn with the first few months of Bloomfield's tenure.
Just hope we don't get stuck in a loop of hiring a new 'head coach', doing well up until Christmas, losing them in the new year, hiring a fresh faced youth coach, form dropping off, rinse, repeat.
I agree I think he’ll come good but will need time and a trimmed down squad. He’s clearly a good coach that players enjoy working with. For me regardless of what happens this season he should be kept on, it’s not the Wycombe way to hire and fire without giving time and support.
Very Wendoverian last paragraph.
If we are bottom and Blooms and Gaz are both available next Christmas with a baying Gasroom 3 demanding change and a distant leadership torn between ignoring the peasants or making a kneejerk appointment to shut them up... 😆😆
I am not sure the old Wycombe way exists any more in truth. Like it or not, especially in Gareth's reign, we had a clear identity. We were a collection of hard working thoroughly good sorts scrapping to outperform all reasonable expectations and defy obstacles put in our way while consistently over-achieving. It was relatively easy to "buy into " and feel part of what the club was.
That has changed now. If we wish to be a Lg1 team and possibly even a Lg2 team that change was probably necessary but the change is not easy. We are now a much more corporate club owned by a foreign based and currently faceless billionaire with his and therefore the clubs true aims a little hard to ascertain and the supporters perhaps less important than they once were. We appear to now be one of the monied clubs rather than a poor club outperforming and putting one over those monied clubs. On the pitch we don't really have an identity either at present, although that may well come, and with a largely newish team, some of the old characters and the sense of attachment they engendered have been lost
Its a huge change and while many will be excited at the potential, many others, and perhaps many of the same people, will mourn a little the feeling of belonging to the old club they have now lost. I can't say I particularly share the feelings in respect of Matt Bloomfield the manager - while I wish him well in the future , but wonder if partly at least those who do feel that way are to an extent using him as a conduit to personalising the feelings of loss for the old club itself.
Realistically the club could only out-perform for so long and it now seems a very difficult path back to that old club even if that was desired. So it seems the choice now is either to get behind the new entity with all its possibilities but also all its relative weaknesses or sadly accept that Wycombe Wanderers can no longer be a positive part of your lives and find something else to fill that need.
I will watch with interest to see what the future brings while perhaps never quite feeling as much part of the new club that I once did even from afar.
It's a shame having money means being a tight knit club with a bit of integrity is old hat and backward and sad old people who know nothing of business should stop whinging about it.
I felt Matt Bloomfield was doing a great job playing the best football we had seen for years and seemed to get pushed out...and it was some of the sneering about him and against those with similar fears that got on my conduits...not a yearning for when this was all fields and horse drawn carriages and a manager stayed for 30 years.
The idea of buying young players to mold is laudable...the idea of buying players who barely make the squad (for next season?) less so.
Perhaps I just don't understand the new ways and thus am starting to feel a distance from the club.
sadly accept that Wycombe Wanderers can no longer be a positive part of your lives and find something else to fill that need.
Are we talking dogging?
I can't say I particularly share the feelings in respect of Matt Bloomfield the manager - while I wish him well in the future , but wonder if partly at least those who do feel that way are to an extent using him as a conduit to personalising the feelings of loss for the old club itself.
Close @DevC - for me it's the disgraceful treatment of the one person who least deserved such treatment, and the contrast between that and all the things that have ever made me proud to say I'm a Wycombe fan. We've a pretty long history of being a "decent" club, treating people with respect, even Derek Adams. That's obviously not going to be the case in future.
Fair enough @drcongo . Not sure I see it that way but equally not sure any benefit in going over again.
Seriously this is getting boring keep repeating it again and again and again. I know in the past you have ‘ blasted’ individual posters for repeating facts. Perhaps it’s time to listen to your own advice.