Be honest now…

Same really. I wasn’t a big fan of Cole’s ball control, and he never seemed to enjoy playing, but even when he wasn’t scoring he was perceived as a goal threat by the opponents. We don’t currently have a striker that worries the opposition from reputation alone.

 

Collins’ style of football or “Collinsball” as some people like to call it these days was awful. The amount of home games last season that I was nearly bored to tears was probably somewhere between 5 and 10. Not good.

However he did manage to get results. I know mostly away from home but he picked up the points necessary for a place in the playoffs. Clarke needs to turn it around big style if he wants to repeat that.

 

Collins was very uninspiring in his interviews and I’m guessing that fed through to the players. I’ve heard stories of him falling out with players ie Kane last season so I’m not sad to see the back of him. We limped into the playoffs with arguably a better attacking line than this season

I unlike a lot on here want Clarke to succeed and I have no qualms with him having digs at certain players. If you listen carefully he also praises the players and doesn’t try to single individuals out publicly. I think the psychological reasoning behind this is to see which players have the resilience and character to take on board the criticism. He will no doubt have told such players to their face and will quickly workout who’s on board going forward and who will be dropped. The problem is in todays society, we are too easily offended and are not thick skinned enough to take a bit of criticism. Especially the modern day footballer.

He is obviously trying this approach to spark a reaction from the team and is trying different tactical approaches to this.

All I see at this moment in time is massive flaws throughout our starting 11 which looks imbalanced and very weak in certain areas. I just hope the board have addressed this and are already planning to recruit when the window re opens because god knows we need it

 

But at the end of the day he is paid to manage modern day footballers. If they're all thin skinned then he needs to cater his approach accordingly. If his approach to man management is completely inflexible and based on outdated societal attitudes then it's very much his fault if he fails.

 

Lovely word is "if".

 

People wanted British coaches (for some reason), to the point of mentioning it every 2 minutes, constantly. This is the type of British head coach we can afford.

 

The person I was replying to was making a generalisation and I was just responding on the same basis. I wasn't the one making the assumption.

 

Not a Collins fan but timing of sacking was criminal. Thought Clarke was a good signing but obviously not. where from here..God knows and he's not telling.

 

The same can be said for footballers because the game is all about opinions whether good or bad and they will be subject to criticism at certain points in their career. Being a bit thick skinned will help them to the abuse they receive from social media, the media and fans. So some constructive criticism from our head coach should be like water off a ducks back. I guess I’m stuck in my ways with the old fashioned approach ala Alex Ferguson and don’t see anything wrong with that. He knew who to put the arm round or give the hair dryer treatment to.

 

I think his approach is very much old school but presumably a product of his very tough upbringing and more recent horrendous personal tragedy. Can't be easy to change that and presume his playing days were in the "hairdryer treatment " heyday. For me, there's a place for an old school half time dressing down but needs to be tempered. Here's hoping he gets the balance right post international break.....

 

Good poem anorl