Darrell Clarke Post Wycombe

Can’t believe we’re in this position, where folk are already calling for the managers head, & I can’t blame them. I really hoped we would get some continuity moving forward, & a proper plan that starts from the top all the way down to the academy. But Clarkes limitations are laid bare for all to witness, hindered by a poor recruitment strategy YET AGAIN from these useless owners who have put us into a rapid decline over the last few years. Nothing will change with them in charge.

 

The club wants a certain style of play and a system, it's no secret and as such we've recruited that way over the past few seasons.
Darrell Clarke then wants the ability to change things as he sees fit either before a game with the line up or during the game, the problem is the squad is so inbalanced it's just not working and we're now in a situation where the head coach doesn't know his best system or his best 11.
There's a lack of consistency and clarity on how we should be playing due to the constant chopping and changing, the players can't gel and we can't find any rhythm.
The recruitment has been poor if we are supposed to be a 352 then we massively didn't address the wingback positions, if we are a 442,441 or 4231 then we've sold the head coach short with our lack of options out wide
The whole things needs scrapping and starting again but it will have to be at the cost of results and still backing the manager.
The recruitment team need to have a long hard look in the mirror, limited funds ot not

Smith
Kelechi
DKD
Gent
Hourihane

There's been little to no impact from these, they may come good in time, then add to that carrying Watters and Cosgrove who aren't good enough and you can see why we've got problems.

 

My thoughts exactly

 

We've got to give him time and even if we're mid table, allow several transfer windows to try and get a balanced squad. I'm not sure he's the right person long term (which for us seems to be 18 months!), but we've been down the same road too many times.

I really don't know how our recruitment is set up to create these types of squads over and over where we have huge amounts of options in one or two areas yet in others virtually none, but its not helping the current situation.

For what its worth, we were better than the Stockport game. Ineffectual for the majority, disjointed, completely unorganised... But at least we passed it a bit and got in attacking positions. A draw was fair I thought.

But the coaching needs to be better and selection needs to be sensible. He's got to settle on what he thinks is his best team and stick with it to give it time to gel.

Play players in their natural positions. 4 centre halves and 2 right backs in one team that then gets the formation changed 3 times isn't clever.

I do think we've got some decent players, but its down to the coach to get a tune out of them.

 

I've watched a re-run of the Stockport game without my beer goggles on and don't think we were that bad if I'm honest. Had a few chances to put the game to bed. I also think it wasn't attack v defence and we were unfortunate a bit at the end with the deflection.

 

I thought we were awful. Defensively, we were more solid apart from someone hitting 'run with ball' on De Gevigny's remote controller at random times, but we had so little of the ball by just hoofing it after we'd gone into our shells and lacked bravery to play.

 

Ag

Agree with this wholeheartedly needs a settled side and quick, the rumblings are already around the place

 

It’s getting OTT with the Clarke stuff now, personal stuff and all that.
We have had managers who have just plodded on with the same old even when it’s not working he at least tries to be adaptive . Yes he makes wrong and puzzling changes at times but at least he’s trying.
It’s a collective problem for me, yes the coaching needs to sort it out, but he should at least be able to expect his players to be able to find another red shirt with a pass more often than not! Same with the defence, whoever is in it it’s basic stuff to talk to each other and sort the marking out and we appear to have a keeper who is terrified on crosses.
At the moment he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

 

Well said. I’m of the same opinion as you. The long and short of it is that the squad is still weak in my opinion. Clarke was crying out for a left back at the beginning of the season and we bring in an inexperienced youth player who’s not ready yet. We’ve no natural wide players who again, he said he needed so he can only work with what’s in front of him. Nows not the time for knee jerk reactions. I get that it’s really frustrating but I bet no one’s more frustrated than him. I’m positive we will come good. Just need patience

 

He needs to start Benson and Humphrys next game. I think we will get done big time by Huddersfield.

 

Daryl you need to step your game up ,you are the motivator of these players and so far it looks lacklustre.

 

Id agree with that and cling to the hope that key players improve and we find a style of play that works for us.

 

I think that's a first for me in seeing a "teams like Barnsley" reference made, but from someone actually working for us!

This feel very much like a repeat of last season under Collins at this stage, where the manager still doesn't seem to know his best team/formation and there's no identifiable game plan. Weirdly, we're continuing the trend of being more competitive away from home than at home. The one positive from last night is that his substitutions had a positive effect on the game, but that could also be argued as him fixing the errors with the starting line up.

Defensively we are an absolute shambles at times, and I see no sign that it's improving, which is my biggest concern.

Clarke needs time to put his identity on things, but I'm no closer now to understanding what this is than was at the start of the season, which is worrying to say the least. Two points from those two home games is simply not good enough for a team with ambitions to at least make the play-offs again.

 

The club don't help the managers by making too many random signings, we had a real opportunity to replace 6 first team players that we lost in the summer with good quality proven players along the lines of Humphrys yet we are always looking for something better that we never actually get and generally at the expense of developing our own young players, Yoganathon not even on the bench for example.

 

What we’re seeing is a continuation of the poor make up of the squad from last season.

When people were moaning about Collins last season I would ask them what he should do to change it & I would get answers like ‘play a different system’ but when I asked who plays where no one could come up with credible alternatives because we didn’t have full backs (bar Williams) or any wingers. The whole squads built to play 3-5-2 but it’s even worse now for Clarke because the only left wing back he’s got is Gent who he doesn’t see as ready to start league games.

He’s trying to play different systems but we don’t have the personnel to play them as he’s in the same boat as Collins was with the lack of full backs & wingers.

Others may think I’m being harsh here but I think it’s complete incompetence from the people in charge when you look at the make up of the squad. You can make a bad signing, anyone can do that but to not sign enough players for certain positions & too many for others? It’s incompetence.

The left wing back situation is an embarrassment for a professional football club at our level. We started two seasons ago with Cadden & Larkeche & then started last season with both Cadden & Dodgson.

To start this season with just a young kid in Gent & no other natural left wing is a disgrace as far as I’m concerned.

And then you look at the amount of central midfielders we have & how little football half of them are going to see & it’s scary that we’re throwing money away like this when we’re crying out for players in other positions.

 

Top post, spot on

 

Darrell seems very likeable to me. Even seems positive when not everything is going our way. I hope it clicks for him - a number of promotions on the CV already suggests he’s probably not the problem.

 

It matters not what formation you play. If you don’t look after the ball and keep giving it away you will fail.

 

441 that'd scare the opposition, thinking, "Bloody hell they think they can beat us wi 10 men."

 

He's certainly got to be given time and the opportunity to wheel and deal in January.