.We have posters on here constantly complaining about Morais tactics, setup, and team selections and at the same time highlighting the individual errors that have caused us to concede goals and at the other end miss good chances and 'sitters'. If the tactics are such that we have created chances that we should have put away, and, lets face it, most games have been lost by a single goal, how can you blame anyone other than the players on the field. Since Morais came they HAVE actually scored in open play, something that was a dim and distant memory towards the end of Hecky's tenure. To reiterate, all you armchair 'experts' are blaming Morais tactics when , by your own argument, 'missed chances', 'goalkeeping errors' etc. clearly point to players being at fault NOT management.
But many posters also can only deal with binary choices when there at least three things ALL at play:- 1) Yes some of the players are sh!te, not good enough, call them what you will, and make baby errors; AND 2) Morais' team selections, tactics, formations, rotations, permutations, substitutions are illogical, baffling and downright mental at times, meaning that the best is not obtained even from this very limited group; AND 3) Morais picks some of those afore-mentioned sh!te players even when he doesn't have to, Mills over Pinnock for example yesterday. Therefore on two out three counts ALL of which are contributing to our downfall, Morais is culpable. He isn't culpable for the wholesale downgrading of the playing strength from last January onwards.
Fair enough as I can only comment on what I read and match reports so I defer to those who see 90 minutes of each match. However, I still find it strange that even watching the highlights and following the reports, (putting aside bizarre refereeing decisions that usually go against us), enough good chances seemed to go begging in a lot of games to see off the opposition which, if they had been put away we would now be in a comfortable postion and half the fickle posters on here would be singing Morais' praises.
Possibly, though I wouldn’t be one of them. The players as a whole aren’t good enough. Not his fault. Individual errors cost us - also not his fault. However the fact we back off and retreat when anyone runs at us is consistent across the board. Has he raised it, coached it out? It seems to me the defensive plan appears to be lose the ball and run backwards without making a challenge. He could and should have improved that. He should also have realised that Matt Mills is not a better centre back than Ethan Pinnock or even Matty Pearson; he should have realised that Ezekiel Fryers is not good enough and played Cavare, maybe even McCarthy to be fair over fryers, and moved Yiadom across. He should have realised that despite the limitations of all the rest of the squad that he has a very good centre forward and playing him on the left wing isn’t helping him; I can stomach the 4-3-3 and him being isolated a little as at least he’ll drift in on occasion and get a chance at some point. I can’t accept what he was given to do at Leeds, mind numbingly stupid IMO. Relegation will be the net result of selling all our better players, replacing them with poor quality lower league kids, poor management and coaching, a period of (for sad reasons) a lack of a rudder at the head of the club. All of those things. Not all of them would have needed to be improved for us to survive - I mean Christ on a bike we still might, we ought to have been sunk weeks ago. But the division this year is exceptionally bad. Well from mid table down anyway. As bad as it is, the squad is clearly much better for morais than it was for Heckingbottom. It’s short of a goalkeeper and midfield options but compared to the August to January period it is better. The results have not reflected this. Heckingbottom I think is no more than an average manager. Morais though has evidenced he is less than that. If and when relegation occurs he is just as culpable for it as anyone else. His lack of ability is just as much to blame as the lack of the players ability. With anyone half decent and a little experience in charge we’d have got one or two more results in my view.
