Can’t keep blaming the Manager

[Berryhillstagno1]

IMO players loaned or signed in January tend to be peripheral players in the squad, may be fit but not match fit due to lack of gametime so are rusty and not sharp enough.

[Vice President]

Thany goodness 90% of the players are out of contract this summer .

BIG CLEAROUT REQUIRED !!!

Just hope that they are committed enough to avoid relegation this season.

[yorkshire stag]

some absolute shocking performances today from the players

[MTFCMusings]

Thany goodness 90% of the players are out of contract this summer .

BIG CLEAROUT REQUIRED !!!

Just hope that they are committed enough to avoid relegation this season.

That is a big problem, the amount we have coming to the end of contracts. Again, this is a board issue. If we had a director of football in place such situations would not be allowed to happen.

I know I'm part of an ever dwindling number, but I'm still not worried about relegation. I also think some that say they are are just using the word for the shock factor.

[arsene wengers coat]

We're 20th Musings.

[MTFCMusings]

We're 20th Musings.

Fully aware.

We've not won in 8 games yet we're only one point closer to the drop than we were then. The division is full of terrible teams and we are not the worst.

[Tippy Tappy Football]

I thought the Stags dominated the game although neither keeper had a save to make all game apart from O'Donnell making a save from a Macca shot early in the 1st half. The game should have ended as a 0-0 draw but the Stags were punished for two bad defensive challenges. We certainly conceded fewer chances than against Newport, Crawley, Exeter City, Forest Green Rovers, Walsall, Swindon, Crewe etc.

We need to strengthen the spine of the team. We need 1/2 strong centre halfs who are also good on the ball and also a complete revamp of the midfield. There was no quality at all from the midfield which has been a problem for the last year.

I think it is time to move on:
Otis Khan
Alex MacDonald
Neal Bishop
Jacob Mellis (quality on his day but seems to be carrying a lot of baggage)

I'll excuse Willem Tomlinson as he is a young inexperienced lad who could improve.

We need midfield players with legs/good engine and who also can create or score goals.

[Cleveland_Stag]

Coughlan said after the match that he’s only going to bring one or two new faces in.

[Sedgwick]

Coughlan said after the match that he’s only going to bring one or two new faces in.

Could be a huge boost though having two, imagine adding a stealy midfield leader and a massive center back that clears everything. Get white and Gordon back and you could be miles better off than now.

[oldweststander]

No need to bring in a flock of new signings in January, two or three should see us through to the end of the season and that's when the cull should be started with most of the squad out of contract.

Pity Sweeney looks to be out for a few weeks, I was looking to him and Pearce to form a firm partnership. Preston is in very poor form and doesn't deserve to start, looks unfit, slow and he is too rash with his tackles because he gets wrong side too often.

[Tippy Tappy Football]

I thought Matt Preston had a decent game apart from his challenge for the second penalty. He was my pick of the centre halfs today.

[Cleveland_Stag]

Coughlan said after the match that he’s only going to bring one or two new faces in.

Could be a huge boost though having two, imagine adding a stealy midfield leader and a massive center back that clears everything. Get white and Gordon back and you could be miles better off than now.

Agreed. Having White back at RB and Gordon on the right wing would definitely improve things. They will provide some much needed quality and pace, the latter of which is only currently being provided by CJ. Even getting Shaugnessy back fit and giving him a run of games in centre midfield should help a bit in my opinion.

I also think we desperately need a striker with some pace to play with Cook too. Cook and Rose do not compliment each other as a partnership at all.

[Spiritater]

January is not a great window for mass imports, expensive, not match fit, and need time to gel. A real headache

That is correct. Like it or not, this manager is mainly going to have to get the best out of this squad for the rest of this season. This will be his big challenge of the next 4 months.

One or two quality loans, players who want to play, couple of free transfers and you can be away.

We need to find a new Ben Whiteman.

You make it sound so easy. Decent footballers will not come to a team knee deep in shyt

[Sneag]

January is not a great window for mass imports, expensive, not match fit, and need time to gel. A real headache

That is correct. Like it or not, this manager is mainly going to have to get the best out of this squad for the rest of this season. This will be his big challenge of the next 4 months.

One or two quality loans, players who want to play, couple of free transfers and you can be away.

We need to find a new Ben Whiteman.

You make it sound so easy. Decent footballers will not come to a team knee deep in shyt

Yes they do. £££££

[stag861]

To the two young boys sat behind me who had obviously got some new swear words from Santa, having a go at CJ for 90 minutes isn't that positive and screaming for him to be subbed, along with Macca, Benning & several others is no good when we had used our three subs. You may be good at Football Manager but let the big boy run the team.

[Bradders]

Judging from some of the comments in the crowd, people need to keep it in perspective. OK the result was poor, but we dominated a very good side who are doing well in the league, and were at home in front of a big attendance. Despite that, and losing the team captain, they prevented Bradford from getting a single shot on target from open play. Defensively, a good performance.

The focus should be on what's wrong up front. The ball is getting to the opposition box, but there's no sign of any "clinical strikes" and you don't see bodies being desperately thrown towards incoming crosses. More relevant is that nobody in midfield seems capable of having a shot. On the odd occasion that Tomlinson, MacDonald or whoever gets a clear sight of goal it's a half-hearted attempt over the crossbar. Almost like "it's not my job to score, so you should be grateful that I attempted a shot at all".

As for Rose and Cook, they seem to think that they've done their job if they make contact with the ball at all and don't put any real focus into getting shots or headers away that the goalkeeper need worry about. Rose particularly seems to take no responsibility, and as soon as the ball goes towards him he's looking where to offload it - or failing that, how he can fall over and draw a foul.

[WVStag]

Judging from some of the comments in the crowd, people need to keep it in perspective. OK the result was poor, but we dominated a very good side who are doing well in the league, and were at home in front of a big attendance. Despite that, and losing the team captain, they prevented Bradford from getting a single shot on target from open play. Defensively, a good performance.

The focus should be on what's wrong up front. The ball is getting to the opposition box, but there's no sign of any "clinical strikes" and you don't see bodies being desperately thrown towards incoming crosses. More relevant is that nobody in midfield seems capable of having a shot. On the odd occasion that Tomlinson, MacDonald or whoever gets a clear sight of goal it's a half-hearted attempt over the crossbar. Almost like "it's not my job to score, so you should be grateful that I attempted a shot at all".

As for Rose and Cook, they seem to think that they've done their job if they make contact with the ball at all and don't put any real focus into getting shots or headers away that the goalkeeper need worry about. Rose particularly seems to take no responsibility, and as soon as the ball goes towards him he's looking where to offload it - or failing that, how he can fall over and draw a foul.

It would help to know what you class as 'domination'. If you mean we had the upper hand on territory in oppositions half, then yeah I guess... but I saw a team who, for the 4% more possession, more territory and amount of balls played forward, failed to manufacture a single clear cut opportunity all game. That to me is far from domination.

To your second point, there was no sign of any 'clinical strikes' as you say because we barely created a single quality chance for our strikers; the only one that springs to mind was when CJ pulled it back at the byline for Cook, when it got trapped under his feet.
I've said this elsewhere, but the approach of Coughlan's build up play and chance creation we've seen over the last 3 games is by playing percentages- playing the ball in the direction of a front man to win the first ball, and for bodies around that man to pick up the seconds. It banks on your winning the first balls, and more importantly, the seconds. Cook to his credit won plenty of the firsts, but we have zero quality in picking up the seconds.

Structurally, we are a million miles off where GC will want us to be, because he's inherited a team who doesn't have the personnel or the structure to carry out his more direct brand of football. After coaching, and key additions in January and in the Summer, we hopefully will see a change.

[MOTG]

Or prefer to play a different way?

49 points from 46 games, under three differnt managers.

They all think their better than they are.... all need to go

Full clear out

Bishop
Benning
Preston
Macdonald
Rose
Tomlinson
Mellis

Also don't think bobby will be back to his best.. Need a proper new keeper.

Agree with most of the above except Tomlinson. He is still young but at least he has a bit of bite and determination about him and has potential.

[Bradders]

Judging from some of the comments in the crowd, people need to keep it in perspective. OK the result was poor, but we dominated a very good side who are doing well in the league, and were at home in front of a big attendance. Despite that, and losing the team captain, they prevented Bradford from getting a single shot on target from open play. Defensively, a good performance.

The focus should be on what's wrong up front. The ball is getting to the opposition box, but there's no sign of any "clinical strikes" and you don't see bodies being desperately thrown towards incoming crosses. More relevant is that nobody in midfield seems capable of having a shot. On the odd occasion that Tomlinson, MacDonald or whoever gets a clear sight of goal it's a half-hearted attempt over the crossbar. Almost like "it's not my job to score, so you should be grateful that I attempted a shot at all".

As for Rose and Cook, they seem to think that they've done their job if they make contact with the ball at all and don't put any real focus into getting shots or headers away that the goalkeeper need worry about. Rose particularly seems to take no responsibility, and as soon as the ball goes towards him he's looking where to offload it - or failing that, how he can fall over and draw a foul.

It would help to know what you class as 'domination'. If you mean we had the upper hand on territory in oppositions half, then yeah I guess... but I saw a team who, for the 4% more possession, more territory and amount of balls played forward, failed to manufacture a single clear cut opportunity all game. That to me is far from domination.

To your second point, there was no sign of any 'clinical strikes' as you say because we barely created a single quality chance for our strikers; the only one that springs to mind was when CJ pulled it back at the byline for Cook, when it got trapped under his feet.
I've said this elsewhere, but the approach of Coughlan's build up play and chance creation we've seen over the last 3 games is by playing percentages- playing the ball in the direction of a front man to win the first ball, and for bodies around that man to pick up the seconds. It banks on your winning the first balls, and more importantly, the seconds. Cook to his credit won plenty of the firsts, but we have zero quality in picking up the seconds.

Structurally, we are a million miles off where GC will want us to be, because he's inherited a team who doesn't have the personnel or the structure to carry out his more direct brand of football. After coaching, and key additions in January and in the Summer, we hopefully will see a change.

Dominance isn't just possession. You can have 70% of possession by playing the ball around in your own half, but that's just pointless. We took the game to Bradford and they could barely cope for long spells, whereas the ball rarely got anywhere near our keeper.
Although we didn't create great chances, there were opportunities throughout and our players never looked like making anything of them. Mostly through a lack of anticipation and determination. In the previous match we also saw golden chances created and spurned.
My main point is that it's the goalscoring that requires urgent attention, but a lot of fans are wanting a big clear out, including defenders.
We could do with a goalscoring midfielder, but mostly it's about a change of attitude up front.

[WVStag]

Judging from some of the comments in the crowd, people need to keep it in perspective. OK the result was poor, but we dominated a very good side who are doing well in the league, and were at home in front of a big attendance. Despite that, and losing the team captain, they prevented Bradford from getting a single shot on target from open play. Defensively, a good performance.

The focus should be on what's wrong up front. The ball is getting to the opposition box, but there's no sign of any "clinical strikes" and you don't see bodies being desperately thrown towards incoming crosses. More relevant is that nobody in midfield seems capable of having a shot. On the odd occasion that Tomlinson, MacDonald or whoever gets a clear sight of goal it's a half-hearted attempt over the crossbar. Almost like "it's not my job to score, so you should be grateful that I attempted a shot at all".

As for Rose and Cook, they seem to think that they've done their job if they make contact with the ball at all and don't put any real focus into getting shots or headers away that the goalkeeper need worry about. Rose particularly seems to take no responsibility, and as soon as the ball goes towards him he's looking where to offload it - or failing that, how he can fall over and draw a foul.

It would help to know what you class as 'domination'. If you mean we had the upper hand on territory in oppositions half, then yeah I guess... but I saw a team who, for the 4% more possession, more territory and amount of balls played forward, failed to manufacture a single clear cut opportunity all game. That to me is far from domination.

To your second point, there was no sign of any 'clinical strikes' as you say because we barely created a single quality chance for our strikers; the only one that springs to mind was when CJ pulled it back at the byline for Cook, when it got trapped under his feet.
I've said this elsewhere, but the approach of Coughlan's build up play and chance creation we've seen over the last 3 games is by playing percentages- playing the ball in the direction of a front man to win the first ball, and for bodies around that man to pick up the seconds. It banks on your winning the first balls, and more importantly, the seconds. Cook to his credit won plenty of the firsts, but we have zero quality in picking up the seconds.

Structurally, we are a million miles off where GC will want us to be, because he's inherited a team who doesn't have the personnel or the structure to carry out his more direct brand of football. After coaching, and key additions in January and in the Summer, we hopefully will see a change.

Dominance isn't just possession. You can have 70% of possession by playing the ball around in your own half, but that's just pointless. We took the game to Bradford and they could barely cope for long spells, whereas the ball rarely got anywhere near our keeper.
Although we didn't create great chances, there were opportunities throughout and our players never looked like making anything of them. Mostly through a lack of anticipation and determination. In the previous match we also saw golden chances created and spurned.
My main point is that it's the goalscoring that requires urgent attention, but a lot of fans are wanting a big clear out, including defenders.
We could do with a goalscoring midfielder, but mostly it's about a change of attitude up front.

That's what I've already said though, no? I had said for all the territory we had and how many long balls we sent forward, we created nothing. That's not domination. We never looked like scoring. To say we dominated would suggest we played well. We did not.

You must've been watching a different game to me. There weren't opportunities throughout. We created next to no clear-cut chances apart from the one that Hamilton pulled back to Cook. There were endless long passes to the head of Cook, the majority won and nearly every second ball was not won picked up by a Stags shirt. It was nothing to do with anticipation or determination. When you play a percentage game as we did and are doing, you have to win the first balls, or hope the second falls to you, and win that. We didn't pick up the seconds. Because of that, we created nothing of note for the forwards.

A 'change of attitude' as you say doesn't make sense to me. What would make sense is to create quality chances for two top strikers at this level. That seems far more logical in my mind.

[gazza1988]

A Bradford fan summed it up nicely but I can't find the post. It went something like this:

"weird game. They dominated us and had way more shots on goal but couldn't get them on target. We barely held on and they gifted us 3 points. Bar the penos we could play for 180 minutes and they might have won 1-0, might."

Which is fair enough.

[Bradders]

A 'change of attitude' as you say doesn't make sense to me. What would make sense is to create quality chances for two top strikers at this level. That seems far more logical in my mind.

In the Bradford game we had 14 shots, as opposed to Bradford's 7. In the previous game Port Vale had only 5 shots all game but scored twice via clinical finishes. As you'll recall, we created golden chances in the Port Vale game but it was a couple of isolated moments that actually got us the goals. There was no shortage of chances against Northampton either: 18 shots, 1 goal. A striker doesn't need a chance on a plate either - quality chances are great, but more often a half chance is all you'll get in 90 minutes and you have to be ready to see it bulge the net. There were plenty of those yesterday, and there were opportunities for midfielders to shoot from range and defenders to head in. I still say that it's up front where the main problem is. Clinical finishing is not our forte.
As for domination, I spoke to a few Bradford fans after the match; they said that we dominated and that they were happy to get away with it. So I'm not imagining it.

[WVStag]

A 'change of attitude' as you say doesn't make sense to me. What would make sense is to create quality chances for two top strikers at this level. That seems far more logical in my mind.

In the Bradford game we had 14 shots, as opposed to Bradford's 7. In the previous game Port Vale had only 5 shots all game but scored twice via clinical finishes. As you'll recall, we created golden chances in the Port Vale game but it was a couple of isolated moments that actually got us the goals. There was no shortage of chances against Northampton either: 18 shots, 1 goal. A striker doesn't need a chance on a plate either - quality chances are great, but more often a half chance is all you'll get in 90 minutes and you have to be ready to see it bulge the net. There were plenty of those yesterday, and there were opportunities for midfielders to shoot from range and defenders to head in. I still say that it's up front where the main problem is. Clinical finishing is not our forte.
As for domination, I spoke to a few Bradford fans after the match; they said that we dominated and that they were happy to get away with it. So I'm not imagining it.

You’re missing the point again. We are talking about quality of chances, not quantity. How many of those 14 shots yesterday came off of quality goal scoring chances we created? Barely any. Surely you aren’t saying we created enough chances of quality.

Strikers may not always get clear-cut chances, you’re right. But creating them helps us massively. I’m sure you’ll agree with that.

Our expectations clearly differ.

[arsene wengers coat]

Throw out the bad apples, and hard bloody work. Thats what we need.