Minority Report 2019-20 v Preston North End

Can I recommend you watching us defend?

Whether he cost 5 million or 5 grand, it doesn't excuse whatever Anderson did for the second goal last night. Or Diabys scissor kick against Huddersfield.

Edit: Diaby auto corrected to Disney when I wrote that, which is rather apt. Whether Anderson auto corrects to liability remains to be seen.

 

If i am being critical. It now appears, numbers were brought in for one reason only.....to make profit. Not to make a team succesful on the pitch.
Of course the league table does not lie....this could have been done so much better and its nothing to do with hindsight...its all to do with knowledge and learning from history....that it why i am not overly enthusiastic about the decision making at the highest level of OUR club.

 

In my opinion, Andersen is out of his comfort zone. He is a young man who is new to the game in England. He is being coached to play out of defense, to pass the ball. That coaching is at the forefront of his mind because it is something that is being emphasised over and over again by his coach. In his pre-match interview, Struber said that Preston would be a hard game because they would press us and make it hard for us to play out of defense. Struber would have told the players about the Preston plan before the game, and he would have emphasised how important it was not to get knocked out of our game plan because of their press. It was always going to be a test for some of our defenders, and it was a test that unfortunately produced errors.

I am only too aware that our players are young and that they are learning on the job and in the full glare of public scrutiny. I was always aware that the season was going to be a very difficult one for those young players. That they were being throw a challenge that would be too much for many of them. I am, however, a fan of over 50 years. I am not likely to be knocked off course by one bad season. For me, it was always more important to support the young players, and to make allowances for their youth. Frankly, I have seen nothing this season that I did not expect. Anything else would have been a miracle. I am not going to stop supporting the team, and for me, that means through positivity, encouragement and trying to see the good in players rather than always looking for someone to blame. On the other hand, our coaches are not new to the job. They are experienced, and they can stand my criticism, especially as I am an amateur, and am bound to be totally wrong in my assessment of tactics from time to time.

So, expect no change of direction from me this season. I will try to see the good in the players, even if others cannot.

 

Great Peter Kay 'ave it' into the East stand!

 

It will not surprise me at all, if the 3 teams that are relegated are the same 3 teams that were promoted 12 months previously. That should tell you something about the step up from League 1, a step that has been made even harder because of the different financial control systems in the two leagues (SCMP v FFP). In spite of that huge jump, many clubs are cheating on FFP in order to gain further advantage, and also many clubs are in receipt of Premier League parachute payments, which helps clubs keep better players for longer. It is all well an good for fans to say that the owners should spend money on players (both in transfer fee and in wages), but the fans do not have to face the consequences of those decisions, and throwing around a limited amount of extra cash, in a league that is already awash with it is unlikely to make a significant difference, except that players would have to be sold off on the cheap at the end of the season when we were relegated in spite of our profligacy.

I support the owners in their attempt to improve the team over the long term, because I think that it the only way, but I realise that the consequence of my support is that I must be patient, that I must expect setbacks along the road. Frankly, I see little alternative.

 

I think we’re all licking our wounds after last night, on reflection the boos were unfortunate and would have done nothing to help the confidence of our players. RR’s assessment seems to indicate that we’re basically fecked if we think we can compete in this league, we’ll be a Yo yo team at best for some time to come. It’s a bit heart wrenching really.

 

I don’t always agree with you Red Rain but I always read your posts with interest. They are well thought out even if in my view not reflective of what I see. I’m often mostly in agreement, sometimes not, but rarely is there anything I’m strongly opposed to.

However I can’t take this particular statement. It would not have been a miracle to have won more than five league fixtures before February.

It would also not have been a miracle to have at least one defender who doesn’t make fundamental errors every ten minutes. They could have spent nothing at all and sorted that. They’ve brought in 4 centre backs if you include Sibbick. None of them are remotely good enough. They could and should have signed two or three better ones. Or at least one who could guide the rest. We are crying out for a leader. The fact our captains this season have been Mike Bahre and Alex Mowatt speak volumes. One of them disappears in games and flatters to deceive (and has been rightly dropped), the other is a good player and a local lad but has no credentials to be captain aside those - as he is petulant and arrogant, not necessarily terrible attributes for a footballer but not ones that a captain guiding a young inexperienced side should have.

It is all well and good having a policy of signing young players but they at least need to have basic ability. I honestly don’t think some of them have, but until we see them with a bit of a guiding hand alongside them we don’t fully know and let’s face it, it won’t happen so we might never.

It was not expecting miracles to have been given better this season. A less insane and less rigid recruitment policy, without spending a copper coin more, would have given us a fighting chance.

 

So basically our long term aim seems to be to keep turning a profit and hope that 23 other clubs in the Championship eventually go bust.

Sign me up for that.

 

I said that the season is, nothing different to what I expected. That statement was made from the position in August, and knowing full well what all our signings were. If you go back and look at my report for the Fulham game, you will see the surprise that I expressed in that report. I would not have expected to beat Fulham knowing what our signings policy had been. You say that if your views had been followed, then there would have been a better outcome. I doubt it, but we will never know, will we. All we do know for certain is what we have now, and that is a young team that is in need of support. Everything else is pure speculation. As for their ability. I believe that many have ability, but the challenge of the Championship is too great for some of them at this stage in their careers. That is not to say that they will not develop. We will see.

 

What is your alternative strategy, and where are you going to get the money from?

 

- Well for starters instead of signing around 10 players each summer who are high risk high (financial) reward, sign 3 or 4 who are of a better quality.

- Instead of crapping ourselves when a bid comes in and immediately selling, grow a spine and sell players at a price that is beneficial to us - rather than strengthening our rivals in a George Moncur stylee. (N.b. I don't rate Moncur but to strengthen our biggest rival at the time was madness).

- Deviate from the spreadsheet. Instead of bringing in people willy nilly because they're under 23 and we may make a 50k profit, look to supplement what we have with experienced loan players (not too many like) to guide our current promising players. In a Kevin Long stylee. Also, don't be shy of signing people over the age of 25 permanently. Imagine the Hammill of 4 years ago working with the Brown of today every day in training. He couldn't not improve.

Try those for starters. I'm well aware that we shouldn't jeopardise the long term future of the club by spending wildly and randomly - but we seem to do that anyway, just at a cheaper shop. But to basically gamble that Brum or the Massive are going to lose 21 points each year which may help us, is insane.

 

It's actually not a bad strategy given the health of some of our competitors. What is unfortunate is that we probably won't be in the same division as them when they finally do get docked points/go into administration.

We should have built this year to be "good enough" - 20th place would have been a solid foundation. Unfortunately, we've recruited to be 6th in League One.

 

I've read countless threads on it and the only conclusion I can draw is that after years and years of swallowing the fact that club is what it is and things won't get better. People have finally twigged that this is our lot and they might as well play croquet on the Oakwell turf.

 

There were options. One would have been to fully back Stendel all the way back in April and look to source some championship experience. Another would have been to keep hold of key players like Moore and Pinnock until January and got more points on the board and maybe bedded in the youngsters more successfully in that time. Another would be to choose a coach that plays more to the game that these youngsters are familiar with. But the board made their decision and that's that, Frankly our only hope is that 3 other teams get results worse than ours which isn't looking likely right now.

 

Good management: assessing the ability of the personnel for whom you take responsibility and tasking them with duties within their skill set, forming a functional team by playing to their strengths.

Bad management: having preconceived ideas of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it and insisting your staff take on roles beyond their capabilities without any adaptation to the personnel available to you.

Last night we saw the latter. In spades. Maybe we wouldn't have won with different tactics and or a different formation. But had we played to our strengths with players in roles where they feel comfortable and can play competently then we wouldn't have lost in the manner we did.

If a player consistently loses the ball in his own half, don't insist that player begins all our attacks from the back. It will result in defeat.

 

I don't think that is a fair question for Fonzie. It was Mr Conway, was it not, who said that the short term aim was for the club to achieve stability in the Championship with the longer term aim being a possible pitch for the Premier League? I think we've all given up on the second fanciful bit, but it is for Mr Conway to explain how he gets to Championship stability. To my eyes we look as far off it as when the consortium took over.

 

How can they make profit if the players aren't good enough?

 

It is abundantly clear the scatter gun approach of signing anyone who fits the spreadsheet but most of all were under 23...... was at best arrogant to think it would work. At worst it is un professional and unintelligent. Many have claimed, by just getting maybe 3 experienced loans in, to help the young uns, with not as many inexperienced kids coming in we would have been miles better off and it would have cost the earth

 

Match report in the Daily Mirror describes the second goal as " Keystone Cops defending" with regards to Anderson.
Can't do much for confidence when he seems to make a mistake every single game.