Clarke and his 147 coaches

OK, but look at the evidence of your eyes. Its statistically better than the Duff season, for example, but can you see any patterns of play, other than all out defending? Can you see an identity to this team? Plus, despite our poor transfer window in terms of the quality of incomings, its the firat season in God knows how long that we havent lost most of our best players so he has benefitted from that.

 

2 weeks ago someone on here said were nailed on for promotion. Now they're saying get shut off the manager... what happened to giving managers time? Weve looked excellent some game, poor others, and mediocre the rest. Surely he deserves more than 1 window and 8 league games??? And id suggest he lost his best right back, best left back, best striker and a good midfielder for the most part.

 

I would suggest we are going nowhere under this manager it is early days but I have made my mind up already I,m afraid.

 

Like every season with a new manager, Clarke deserves to be given more time before being fully judged. That being said last night was very poor tactically and I don't really know where to start with it.

I suppose the positive was that out of possession we looked much more compact and stronger defensively than we have in a long time. The ball to find Louie Barry was the one bit of real quality in the game and was our undoing. People have been crying out for us to be better at the back.

I believe the trade off for this was how poor we were in possession. We couldn't keep the ball as when it was passed back to our defence Stockport pressed very well and we ended up going all the way back to Slonina or a centre back would hoof it. The standard and consistency of hoofs were shocking and there was clearly no tactic to it, ie Humphrys should run the right channel and if we have to hoof, hit that general direction. Our centre backs, keeper and Craig didn't have the ability to find a ball to beat the press all night.

The above was exacerbated by taking really poor options when we had the ball further forward. Players didn't want to turn around and recycle the ball for fear of the press so instead lost composure and tried passes that just weren't on, this was a theme across the full 90. a big issue was our wing backs weren't connected to the rest of the team. They sat too deep to offer an out ball. Maybe this was to solidify the defence, but it really inhibited our attack. Also Cotter received the ball a number of times with no midfielder within 20 metres of him, so options were to try a ball forward which was never on, or pass backward to Mael who'd be forced to hoof it, or because it's Mael, take a daft risk.

Whatever the work on ball retention was during the week, it did not take into account Stockport's press and if there was coaching done on how to beat it, it failed miserably, leading to this disjointed performance.

 

Thing that dissapointed me is that the odd couple of times we pressured their defence they where just as bad at playing out from the back as us yet we never capitalised on this and actually used it to our tactical advantage. For such an experienced head coach in surprised we didn’t focus on doing it more rather than just letting them have the ball and us chase shadows all nd half.

 

I just cant get my head around the inconsistency in our performances. We're like a completely different team from one week to the next.

Yesterday we looked like we'd forgotten what a football is

 

Good post mate you saw the same game I did..
I would add that Stockport weren't a bad side, strong at the back zipped it about in midfield and with Barry and Jack Diamond have goals in em.. Look a decent maybe top six'ish side.
Us on the other hand, If we'd have held on we would have been third and what a false position that would have been.
Nowhere near that level of performances..

 

The players need to learn to pass the ball to a player wearing the same colour shirt.

Pretty basic really.

 

Best start to the season for 6 years…. Yeah let’s hope this carries on eh

 

We were advised by supporters of other teams that Clarke has coached that he doesn't have a rigid approach with regards to tactics. He tends to be flexible depending on the opposition. That might work if he has a squad with enough flexibility built in. Apart from Gent and Earl where are the players who can play left back or left wing back and be natural there because they are left footed? Clarke clearly doesn't rate Gent so that limits his options. Go with four at the back and none of our wing backs amount to much defensively which leaves us weak on the right. Most were highly critical of our failure to shore up the strikers but we needed to build from the back and failed to do so.

 

OK I'll admit I thought this was post about Snooker.