They’ve had eleven. Fair to judge now, we are nearly a quarter of the way into the season. It is fair to say that we are way short of being competitive at the level. Aside from a shock to the system for a complacent Fulham on day one, we’ve not won, nor looked likely to other than home to Charlton where we imploded. The rot started setting in the moment that game went 2-2 in my view. We’ve played well. And got beat. We’ve played ok and drawn a couple. We’ve played ok again and got beaten again. And a few times we’ve played poorly - and got absolutely smashed. Conclusion? We can’t even win when we play well. To get a result currently we need the opposition to have a shocker - as we throw at least two in a game against all and sundry. That isn’t likely to happen as players confidence will lift knowing they are playing Barnsley currently. We are rolling over and having our belly tickled, with the odd bit of fight shown every three games or so to snatch a point despite being defensively inept and out of our depth. Preston are a good side, well organised, and sit deservedly in the top three. I expected to lose today. But the manner of the defeat and the second half capitulation - and with a team, including the subs, where the only one who comes out of the game with any amount of credit at all is the goalkeeper - who conceded five - leads me to be very worried. There was nothing today. Zilch. At least the Luton game they rolled their sleeves up and won the second half - lost but competed. Today? Not interested. Gave up. Non league standard defending, an embarrassment. I love Daniel Stendel, and the absolute state that the squad is in is not his doing. He is a good coach and did a great job last season. So what I’m going to say probably isn’t fair. But he needs to go. For his own good and the good of the players and club. These lads aren’t good enough. The way Daniel wants (and apparently needs) to set up and play will lead only to getting mullered weekly. That is killing them, ruining our chances of survival, and eroding all the high rating he earned as a manager last season. We need a pragmatist to get us to January and scrape some points, unless we are writing off the whole season already and retaining him for next season in league one. Pointless - he won’t stay anyway. He’s off regardless. To get results at the moment I reckon we need to play three at the back as none of the centre backs are good enough in a two, and the full backs aren’t good enough in a four either. Abandon the high press as we are picked off by teams wise to it (so everyone), and make them all try and play through. Solid structure at the back and in midfield. Only the best will be able to - most will struggle to break it down. Frustrate them. Woodrow will be the loneliest man in football, you’ll get deja vu of the turgid stuff served up by Heckingbottom in the first half of 17/18, but it’s the only way we’ve any way of getting results at this point. Roll up the sleeves, graft, out run and out work them. Or, like with the manager situation, you write off the chances now, stick to the guns, and be rock bottom and at least ten points adrift at Christmas - but play well here and there and have the oppo tell us we play some really nice stuff, having beaten us 3-1. To be honest even if we go solid and turgid there’s only a moderate chance of results picking up so there might be no point. But I don’t see where this team wins a game at the moment. The fans are turning, a lot are staying away. Results aren’t coming. The players are arguing with fans. (Yes he’s taken some uncalled for abuse but he’s got to be bigger than that). Long miserable winter to follow. Best window in the club’s history... I’d hate to see how bad we’d get if we had a poor one!
Agree with a lot of your points. If we keep playing the current system, we haven't a chance of staying up. If we change it, we have only a small chance, but that's better than no chance at all. If Stendel isn't staying beyond the summer, come what may, he should go now. There's little point in him playing a system beyond the players at his disposal and leading us to certain relegation if he's going to leave at the end of it. We need some tactics that at least give us a chance. If he's staying then whatever he sees fit. But don't relegate us and then leave.
