Nixon says..

Which coaches (and when) were they told to play possession based football?

 

All this talk of wanting to play a high press rather than a patient possession game. Might it be the coaching courses, under the F.A.'s remit, that encourage a patient possession game because that was the way the England team used to play? If we want gegenpress then we need to look abroad to a nation where that style of play is more prevalent.

 

Have you not watched us for the last 2 seasons? Even the fans take the p**s singing sideways, backwards everywhere we go.
Last time we played high press, high energy football under Valerian Ismael it was deemed a failure as we didn't sell any players.
On Saturday we had 57% possession and 284 passes vs Mansfield 172.
56% possession vs Blackpool and 362 passes vs Blackpool 283 passes
53% possession Vs Charlton and 290 passes vs Charlton's 242 passes

1 goal 0 points and 936 passes in the last 3 games.

Let me know if you want the Collins data it's even higher.

 

Lets be right, we havent got the players for high press, o keefe, Russell, nwakali, humphreys, even two of the better players dkd and Phillips i dont see them as high work rate pressing players. So for me its a load of crap unless we recruit nearly a whole new squad.

 

100%,

 

The the return of Daniel Stendel might be a solution as the gengenpress was his preferred style. Whether he would return to Barnsleyfc..... I very much doubt.

 

When Mladen wants a cake baking he provides parsnips, tortillas and peanut butter.

 

Every single premier league team and all but 6 championship teams have a director of football. Maybe we just need a better one?

 

Wasn't he the third or fourth to turn us down in the summer?

 

You should be a politician. You didnt answer the question.

 

All the coaches since the championship play off season under VI, which was deemed a failure by the board at the time because "nobody bid for any of the players" that summer. Which isn't actually true because they sold one and they also got a payment for the coach leaving. It all started to go tits up after that season, because those in charge decided that we'd only sell players if we tried to be Barca or peps Man city, but with players recruited on the cheap to maximise profit. And surprise surprise a few years down the line we are well and truly ****** with a bloated unbalanced substandard squad heading slowly down the leagues.

 

Without me doing “teams like Mansfield” I suppose we’d expect to have more possession against teams towards the bottom of the league. 53% against Charlton isn’t really a “possession game” I wouldn’t say. It would be Interesting to know our average possession over the course of the season.

Under Collins we were certainly possession based. So much so that some home games last season nearly bored me to tears with our centre backs passing between themselves. I’ve mentioned it before on here but Blackpool at home last season was a particularly “lowlight”. Like this season I guess. Being totally honest, I’m not sure what our style was under Clarke. I wouldn’t say possession based and I wouldn’t say direct.

 

Whatever formation and style we play ,we shall see how many season tickets are bought.
I'm estimating 6000 tops.
The ones who are dictating to the coaches how we play ,will see what the fans think.
Because to be quite honest it's been pretty grim for 2 seasons.
Fans I know like myself die hards been going years ,I saw out in town the last home game at 4 pm ,these are season ticket holders not going.
So to sell them next season ,is going to need something more special than bring CH back to the club.
BFC conned the fans this season .
Betrayed their loyalty.
I wait in anticipation.

 

They'll not own up to the fact that they're running the club badly. They'll try and spin it, politely blame the last coach, tell us they're putting lots of money in (which they are) and emphasise that all money is invested in the first team. The fact that the first team is crap, recruitment is crap and the money they're putting in is being wasted on a bloated crap squad will be brushed over. Everybody will be focused, working hard and doing the groundwork for a successful promotion push next year. Mladen will be exonerated.

 

Thanks for that. I thought the Val / El Ahmad era comment would be given as a reason because that is the only time I have seen it in writing and it refers to his successor. The club may want to play a certain way for purposes of continuity and recruit head coaches accordingly, so I dont think our coaches have to be TOLD the style as they have been recruited for a particular style. Its not the style for me thats the problem, its the recruitment of the complimentary parts. I personally appreciated the styles of Stendel, Struber and Duff. Val was an outlier with his up and under style but I think that is because he also had an unbalanced/substandard squad for that league. I will refrain from finger pointing because I do not sit at the table and therefore do not know who are the weak links.

 

Surely Clarke wasn’t told to play possession football though given we sacked Collins because we wanted that and when Clarke was appointed Somaz said Clarke played fast attacking football?

 

Rewind to Bristol Rovers home this season .
That first 15 minutes when Rovers couldn't get out of their own 18 yard box was amazing to watch .
Pity it ended there and we were huffing and puffing to win 2 1 .
The fitness levels this season is the worst I have seen in years .
We have been so poor in the last 45 and this as shown
Surely this is down to the fitness coach not the director of football.

 

You would have thought so. Fitness should be a basic requirement for all footballers

 

The question answers itself, the last 2 head coaches have been possesion based, we've just announce we are now moving to high press, high energy.
You only have to watch us, its plainly obvious, how would describe our style?

 

You'll never know how close he was to coming back.