Dman

In answer to the thread title.. I actually think its six of one, half a dozen of the other. I think the biggest issue is that we failed to capitalise on a 'golden period', by arrogance, negligence and lack of ambition by the board room. I don't think anyone is naive enough to expect the club to get it right every time - but Ralph aside, we've got it wrong every time. The strategy from the top has been completely wrong - we've tried to be smart and run everything on a budget and its come back to bite us on the arse. As a fan base, in the main, we've had to endure some real shit over the past 4/5 (maybe even longer) years. The reality is, we over achieved and were spoilt in years under Adkins, Poch, Koeman, Puel (to a degree) and in parts of Ralph's time. In reality, we're a bottom half PL club who more often than not will lose more than we win. Because of the above, things have became ridiculously toxic - The fans don't trust the players and board, the players probably hate playing in front of the fans, and I think the fans themselves are probably split. Booing, groaning and general negative atmosphere clearly doesn't help and creates anxiety in the squad. In that sense, they're (the fans) kinda to blame. A lot of our fan base are a bunch of complete morons who are "get it forward" merchants and cannot see the bigger picture. That being said, I don't fully blame them - At the very least you expect 100% effort and commitment and I'm not sure we've seen that for at least the past 2 years. Player power has been allowed to ruin the club due to weak / absent management (Sacking Puel because of this was a dangerous precedent in hindsight). Much like Puel, they gave up under Ralph - probably because he wouldn't put up with their half arsed efforts. So, in short, I think the fans have to take a proportion of the blame - We hounded Puel out - as do the players, but the main blame needs to live with the past 2-3 sets of board members. Lack of any clear strategy (high press of Ralph, to Defensive long ball of Jones, to Possession of Martin), Stupid recruitment and failure to fill obvious voids in the squad. At this point, it really feels like we need a nonsense old school type to come in and basically say to the players - Go out there, do the basics, fight, give your all and when you're successful stick 2 fingers up to those idiots who've boo'd you etc.

If we had a degree of sensibility about us (which we don't), we'd bring in a coach or free agent or anyone who can speak Spanish and help Alcaraz settle. He literally could be the difference between us going up or not, we need to do whatever we can to get the best out of him - and that includes giving him a free role to roam.

Could be our biggest spanking of the season yet. Look like the best team in the leauge at the minute. Piroe to show why he's absolutely nothing like Adam Armstrong. Same team as today I guess - not sure it really matters at this point. 0-4 and St Marys to turn really, really toxic.

When I saw the line up (smallbone aside) I really wanted to be positive about today, but I'm really struggling to find any. At least we've seemingly fucked off that inverted full back bollox and KWP looked a better player as a result. The goal we scored was nice, that's what Adams is great at - that's litterally about it. I've absolutely no idea what game Martin was watching if he thinks we were the better team. Asides maybe 10 mins in each half, they were all over us and it could have easily been 4/5 again if they were more clinical. Same old shit, way too slow in possession, passes with no purpose, limited movement from the midfield. We're getting worse game by game - I could trust the process if I could see what the process is. Leeds will give us an absolute spanking and St Marys will turn really really toxic.

Mowbray is a really good shout. In the summer it might have been a touch underwhelming (but then again so was martin), but now expectations have somewhat reduced, he's been there and done it and as shown a few weeks back, tactically is miles ahead of Martin. He gets his sides playing decent football as well - It'd be a big yes for me. We need someone who's been there and done it to turn this ship around, not another gamble on a young up and coming manager who cannot handle these situations.

I can't help but feel our strongest formation is 4231 Charles and Downs in a double pivot, Charley in the traditional no 10. Manning and KWP playing as genuine wingbacks. gives us a stable base, with attacking flare and quality up top. No reason why we couldn't dominate the ball with that as well.

He's still going.. although since being caught out for being Always, he now is responding to every post with a like...

i think I'd rather that then the dross Rassmus keeps picking. But on a serious note, there is enough data in football now for AI to select a team based on another teams strengths and weakness' and predict patterns of play almost instantly. Obviously you could never have a algorithm being an actual manager, but you could have it making all of the decisions with a few coaching staff and a motivational speaker as a front for it. I'm giving it 5-10 years before its tried.

with the rise of AI - I wonder how long it'll be before a club appoint a computer as manager....

I think he was highlighting what Martin will do (i.e the opposite of what makes sense)

He's been dealt a rough hand - how many times has he been paired with another proper CM? I don't think once he's played along side Charles, has he? Smallbone, Alcaraz, A Armstrong offer no stability in midfield at all.

This but Fraser and Edozie instead of Sully (better as an impact sub imo) and AA (just shite)

Agreed. Charles and Downes in midfield instantly makes us stronger.

This makes me laugh, none of his sides have been brilliant - He's a mid table manager, that's not brilliant.

any update from what this clown has said from the press conference this morning? Or is it just the same old bollox? Hopefully Downes is back for this one. Downes and Charles in CM should at least give us a platform of stability to build on.

In all seriousness and I don't know if this is me overreacting, I don't actually think we could have done any worse than we have this season to date. I'm fairly sure you could pick someone out of the crowd with a relative sense of sensibility and understanding of football (slim pickings at St Marys it has to be said) and we'd be on the same amount of points as we currently are, based on the fact we simply have better players than everyone else. Maybe naive but I firmly believe If you stripped back all of the complicated tactics, played a simple 433 or 4231 with your best players on the pitch, we'd still have beaten Sheff Weds, QPR and Plymouth.

Because relying on the algorithm (algorithm being a hipster word for spreadsheet), is fundamentally flawed - as shown by the appointments of Jones - Because he had decent stats for defending balls into the box, which was highlighted as an issue (this was confirmed at the time of his appointment or sacking. I can't remember which) And the appointment of Martin - Because he had good stats for possession. I'm not a Wilcox apologiser, I think proof will be in the pudding and I will judge him after a year. I like what he's done in the window to date, but I fully believe that Martin was appointed off the back of 'stats' rather than because Wilcox wanted him - Wilcox man was Enzo, i've no doubt about that. Once Enzo rejected us, we obviously needed to look at alternative targets. Wilcox isn't solely void of responsibility, much like you've said, he probably could have highlighted his flaws and opted against it - you'd hope anyway. FWIW - I think its Wilcox decision that we've gone down the possession based approach transitioning away from the red bull style.

This is the issue for me. It makes us way to obvious to read and easy to press and counter against. That's excluding the main thing that KWP, one of our best players, is a very very good attacking full back, but absolutely cannot play in the middle of the park - not technical enough. Move back to a more traditional back 4, with Charles in a holding role allowing full backs to push on, we'll improve over night. Also - Work on your fucking passing patterns.

Good shout

Because we've been really poor for the first 7 games and absolutely nothing suggests Russel Martin is capable to making a team promotion worthy.

I'm not sure but thinking about it, Martins demeanour has changed since Piroe went to Leeds.. I wonder if he was promised him and we didn't get him - or he wanted him and was told no. There has been a few odd comments from him since the close of the window. Definitely not all rosey I suspect.

I'm not so sure Martin is Wilcox man, if i'm honest. I suspect Wilcox has set the direction of the club (i.e possession based), but Wilcox man was Enzo. He rejected us, so I think we went back to Rassmus trendy algorithm. Obviously Martin would score high if we were looking at possession stats. I'm fairly sure I saw somewhere that Martin was high up the list when we appointed Jones... before Wilcox was here. I will judge him on results, but I think Wilcox done a decent job in the transfer market, if i'm honest.

Expecting this one to ramp up a bit in the next few weeks, especially when Leeds give us a pasting. So, not like the club will listen, who'd you have on your list? Its clear we want to play a possession based approach, so pointless wasting a post saying someone like Big Sam, Ralph etc. and clearly Potter isn't coming, so keep it realistic please... For me, the one I wanted all summer was Vieira but he's now managing in France so we've missed that boat. SR clearly like a risk, so on that Basis - Carrick or Henry please.

Its an interesting point... I can't believe that any of those clubs who've conceded sub 40 goals had 9 of those conceded in 2 games, so theoretically, we could conceded more than 40 and it not be that much of a determine. On the assumption we over achieved for the rest of the season in front of goal - isn't going to happen. But I agree, we've fucked up any chance of automatic promotion already and it was clear as day we wouldn't go up under Mr 10th Martin when we first appointed him.

Especially when Piroe was there ready and waiting.