A view from the east

In the midst of the anti-Hill hysteria that has followed yet another home defeat, let me try to bring some calm.

There can be little doubt that Barnsley is an easy touch for the tall, physical teams in this division. Coincidentally, these are the same teams as we find at the bottom end of the table, because the teams with quality find their one dimensional tactics easy to deal with. However, in this case, I cannot see who else he could have picked at centre back other than McNulty and Hassell. Bobby is never going to be 6ft 4in, and he is never going to be a centre back as a result. With McNulty marking Zigic at set pieces and Stones marking the other centre back, Bobby had to do his bit on Davies. Sadly, through no fault of his, his best was never going to be enough. Hassell and McNulty handled the Birmingham forwards easily, apart from set pieces, but sadly we always looked like conceding from these. It is not just height that is the problem. Our other difficulty is the quality of the delivery, a stake contrast to most of our delivery at the other end.

For me, Perkins never looked right. He was definitely very tired when he was taken off. Five minutes previously I had suggested he be substituted for this very reason. As Keith pointed out in his comments afterwards, what point would have been served by him staying on the park and possibly pulling his hamstring again.

My comments on the substitutions are not about Perkins. I disagreed with taking Dagnall off. Dagnall was acting as the bridge between midfield and attack. He was the first defender when the opposition had the ball. He is the foil for both Davies and Tudgay, who I do not think can play together. After the removal of Perkins and Dagnall, O'Brien and Done gave the team more width, but because we played with fewer players in central midfield, we found it more difficult to win back possession, and our domination of possession relaxed. It proves that width is not the sum total of the problem. When we play 4-4-2 with wingers, there is width, but we struggle to compete in the centre, which reduces the amount of possession we get, and opens up our defense down the centre.

Has Davies' penalty come down yet? The lad needs some coaching. He tries to hit the ball too hard rather than concentrating more on the quality of the strike, particularly in the timing of the strike on the ball and the accuracy of the connection in the centre of the ball. He has power, but it is dissipated by lack of timing. The net result was a horrible slice, but a pull is just as common.

The problem for Hill is that he is like the one arms paper hanger. As soon as he papers over one crack, another appears. His team lacks quality, a problem that is hard to fix with limited funds and a wage structure that encourages mediocrity. Hill has not lost the players, which is obvious to me at least in their work rate and willingness to continue in playing the Hill way, in spite of the losses. But the players are just not good enough. Without a huge investment, I think that we are doomed. We are doomed not because of our defense, which is what most posters would identify as the problem. We are doomed because we cannot score sufficient goals to ensure our survival. And we are doomed because we have under invested.

 

Tudgay was marking Davies from set pieces initially I think.

It does not need huge investment. Just more organisation and being harder to beat.

 

Hassell wasn't marking Davies. Tudgay was. IMO. And Hassell's centre half display today was as good as I've seen from any of our proper centre halves. Not bad for someone who can't play in defence. Eh Keith?

Love your OP though, Red Rain. Not the content so much, but your ability with words is quality. And your defence of Hill is admirable, if not questionable.

 

Re: A view from the North

we must be the easiest team in the division to plan against.
Same plan for every team in the division, concede territory until they **** it up launch high balls into their box until you get a free header.Never varies you cant go wrong!

 

Bobby was very good today at CB. I am not sure he was marking Davies on the 1st goal. The rest of his game was very good. CB is his best position, has been for years, he reads the game so well. Hassell, Tudgay and Perkins were our best performers today.

 

I must admit that I could not tell who lost Davies for the first goal. I did look who was marking who at the set pieces that followed during the first half, and Hassell was definitely marking Davies for those.

As I have said, the defense coped admirably for everything except set pieces. Then we fell to pieces, but in my opinion, the problem is that we lack sufficient players with height. It is the fact that we are small that has been transmitted from club to club in our league, and which accounts for our susceptibility to the high ball.

 

So, the players are not good enough?

 

metrodome and tarn center?

 

Thing is, most of the fanbase have known we have needed a big, commanding centre half, for a few years now. And at times, Keith has hinted as much himself. Yet he brings in another midfielder, or forward.

 

We would have defended set pieces better against the high ball with either Cranie or Foster or both. If we had managed to get the players we went for earlier in the season, we would probably defended those set pieces even better, but we could not afford the fee in one case and wage demands in another.

You see posters make out that Hill is totally ignoring our obvious deficiencies when it is absolutely clear that he has been denied adequate reinforcements by the restrictions placed upon him by the budget and pay structure.

 

******.

He was given the funds for 4 loans. He recruited 2 midfielders - Greening and Buzsaky are no improvement on Mellis, Cywka, Perkins, Dawson, Hassell etc. He also recruited 2 strikers - Tudgay is a quality striker, Sinclair can't get a game ahead of Dagnall or Harewood who have 1 league goal between them.

Plenty of dominant centre halves out there.

He only tried for Greer as he's on the books of the same 'signature' agency. And they rightly laughed off our pathetic offer. He had 400k turned down for Norwood. Perhaps if he'd offered that for Greer..........?

 

I honestly think if he is getting some sort of cut from transfers, mainly from the same agency(it does happen ask Holloway) it needs revealing, scandalous

 

At the time he brought in Greening, Perkins had just gone down with his second hamstring. Greening was a logical step as cover and would have been cheap as Forest are looking to offload. Mellis' form had deteriorated in the role behind the front two, the passer who finds a hole in the defense. He thought that pressure from Buzsaki (who was also cheap) would sharpen Mellis up. In both cases the move has failed, and you are right that Keith looks like he fell into the Spackman midfield trap. However, these two will be gone in January and they have not cost a lot of money.

As I have said before in this thread, scoring goals is our biggest problem. Sinclair would also have been cheap. He was not wanted at Peterborough after incurring the wrath of the manager and he was worth an extended trial. Tudgay was recovering from injury and we are getting him fit for Forest, another cheap option.

You see I just do not believe the hype of the anti Hill mob when they argue that Hill has spent a fortune on players that we do not need, and I argued the point when they came to the club, midst the general euphoria at the signings. You are right that we needed a stopper, and we both know that he did not arrive. Unlike yourself, I think that the lack of a stopper was down to lack of adequate replacements at a price we could afford rather than the manager closing his eyes to the problem. I suppose it is simply down to the belief that I have in the manager which fewer and fewer share.

The game these days is dishonest. The board does not want to bring down the wrath of the fans on it by admitting that the manager is unable to compete because of inadequate funds. They are quite happy to let the manager take all the blame, and when they sack him, his compensation will include a confidentiality clause, which will prevent him revealing the extent of the under funding to fans or the players he wanted to sign but was denied the opportunity because of inadequate finance. You might argue that the manager accepted the deal, he accepted the circumstances and he must accept the outcome. But the manager is not the victim here. He will walk away from Barnsley with a fat cheque and into a job at Rochdale, who will welcome him back with open arms. No the fans are the victims because they will never learn the truth, whilst the board unveils the next victim to the sound of trumpets and renewed hope from success starved fans.

 

If I were you, I would remove this.

 

Hill since he took over has used 60 players....

Quantity over quality.

 

How do you know those two players were "cheap" Greening is apparently on £35k a week at Forest and even if we are only paying 25% that is over £10k a week

 

Agree

 

It's just under 10k.... Still twice as much as most the squad is on.

 

And £4k more than Harewood was costing first time round. O`Connor cost us £7500 on loan, same as he did when we signed him permanent.

But apparently Robins nearly bankrupted the club !! Like ballox !

 

You make a cogent argument in many senses, although the reason we don't score enough goals is for me a passing/movement issue as I dont think we move the ball quickly enough when in the final third. I must also say that you probably play golf. If Davies sliced it or pulled it then he should have had a driver methinks