Did I miss something in the build up to Saturday? Never saw any mention of him being ill, injured or whatever?
Clarke termed it as a knock not sure when he's back,we do seem to keep our card close to our chest re injurys not sure why.
'Cozzy' is stocky enough (not quite a brick sh*thouse though lol), so whenever he misses games, it makes me think it's more than just a bruise or two.
So what happens when everyone is fit ,I can only speak for myself but all the cloak and dagger stuff just irritates me and the advantages are minimal.
Completely sensible in my opinion. Explained in one of his first interviews that he wouldn’t give too much away and help other managers prepare. Says he listens to other manager press conferences before every game and expects that they do the same to him, no point helping other gaffers out. Makes sense
I think it's worth scrutinising this notion of giving the opposition information that undermines your own tactics. We tend to do our press conferences on a Thursday, mid morning. Most training tends to happen on a morning, so by the time the media is out, an opponent has to interpret the info, consider tactics to counter that info, create a plan, communicate that plan with fellow coaches and players and to make it work well, train and drill that plan. That gives just one training session to do that. We're in league 1. As we've seen so far, In a handful of games we've played this season, our coach has made tinkerman Ranieri look passive and set in his ways. Even if we shared info that someone is out for a few weeks rather than a few months, I don't see how that gives the opposition any confidence to overhaul their entire preparation in one training session to counter us.
It just adds to the variables doesn’t it? The opposition has no idea if Darrell is going to start Cosgrove with Watters. Or Cosgrove with DKD. Could be DKD and Humphrys. Maybe Watters and Marsh? Might use Lofthouse up there again. Who knows? But as soon as Darrell tells Andy Giddings “Max is going to miss Saturday” that’s one less variable. No? Never understood the reasoning behind giving anyone updates on injuries. When it’s something obviously bad that means a player is out for a long time, fair enough. But if one of your players has limped off in the previous game or a player has picked up a knock during training, where’s the benefit in giving timescales in a pre-match interview? Afterwards, no problem. “He picked up a knock.” Again, no need to elaborate. For the record, I’ve no idea what Clarke’s MO is. We’ve had a month of football. Just offering up a potential explanation.
Lets say Clarke did say a player was unlikely to play. What are the opponents going to do? Change their whole formation? Play a whole new style from one training session? Lets face it, teams in league 1, certainly bottom half teams, have less adaptability. They are likely going to play the way they play with their best 11. And if we look at the teams at the top, who probably think they have a better team than us anyway, are they going to shuffle the pack for one increased or reduced variable? I personally think too much is made of this and the first priority should be giving the fans some information that is at least accurate to a significant degree. At the end of the day, a shroud of secrecy won't be the thing that is the difference between us playing in this league next season or not.
Depends who the player is. If Pines is injured it probably changes the opposition plans for corners and free kicks. If Watters is injured and we're missing his pace then maybe you play a higher defensive line to trap Cosgrove offside again. But the easiest thing to do is say nothing about anybody and let them guess.
I get what you're saying, but you could give that sort of guidance an hour before kick off. And players will use some ad lib given how a game is going. I don't think anyone expects exact announcements of who is playing days before, though frankly, if you're good enough it shouldn't make that big a deal, but you could give indications of injury length. Given fans pay their money, I think they do deserve a little bit of insight.
There’s a reason clubs at all levels employ performance analysts. Higher up the food chain, more analysts you get. Their job is to provide ongoing analysis of the squad, to inform the coaching staff and assist with their team selection, tactics and so on. But most clubs at this level and above have an analyst who will assess the club’s opponents. Modern scouting basically, using tonnes of data. To help the coaching staff best prepare for whichever team they’re playing. If Clarke does or doesn’t give a timescale, if he says player X is available or not, during a press conference two days before a match, would it affect the upcoming fixture? Up for debate I guess. And he could always say that player is available, when actually he isn’t. Remember Woodrow being two weeks away, about four weeks on the spin? Some managers keep their cards close to their chest when speaking publicly. Others are more forthcoming. There might be no motive at all, either way. As far as giving fans info as a first priority, on this topic I’d have to disagree with you. I used to rock up to games in the late 80s and early 90s with zero knowledge other than we were playing X club at whatever o’clock. I appreciate times change and indeed, there’s an insatiable desire these days to know about every single facet of a football club. And I would certainly agree that transparency is paramount when it comes to certain aspects of the club you support. Regardless, I’m only guessing myself aren’t I? Just answering the thread’s question. I could be completely wrong. Just giving my own best guess. And on Thursday, maybe DC will give a clearer picture regards the fitness of Sam and Max?
There's certainly a lot more data used than there ever was. Thinking back to the days you speak of when it was a black hole of information til nigh on kick off, we also had nominal info on opponents aside from a bit of scouting and sometimes a manager watching a mid week game. So times gave most certainly changed. I guess the question, more philosophical than a desire to know, is how much does all this data truly impact on outcome, and particularly at lower levels? And where does the most valuable insight come? Pre match, from stats, from a subjective but trusted scout, from video reels, from a team sheet, from the real time live match of your team versus your actual opponent? In reality it will be all of them to varying degrees against each new opponent. Not sure how it could be measured, but evaluating data and its impact (if not done already to a good standard) could perhaps provide greater value in the long run.
Why on earth is this an issue? Coach doesn't want to divulge the exact nature of what is, presumably a shortish term injury. His call. Why do we need to know the fine detail? Is it going to alter someone's life if they know whether or not Cosgrove is playing Saturday or not?
I will never get me head around the level of entitlement some folk have as regards to wanting knowledge on everything. The needs of the team and the will of the manager to not divulge such bits of info - for clear competitive reason - eclipses fans wanting to be in the know ten-fold. He’s injured. He might play the next game. He might not. It’s a lot better than Woodrow’s two week hamstring injury that lasted months
