Useless manager

When is Poya going to realise that you get nothing by scoring early then sitting back and try to hold on. It's not as if we've got a Premiership back four to rely on when all said and done!

 

You could well be right although Callum Brittains post match interview was interesting he said he felt the goal was coming and pretty much that we were sat too deep without any outlet.

 

Sadly if / when he goes he'll be replaced by another cloned yes man who'll tow the board line without question.

 

This.

We just don’t have the quality off the bench.

Our first 11 is good enough, but any change weakens us.

We dropped back deep as we were tired and no real options to change it.

I’m still undecided about Poya, but he’s hampered by the lack of options, and that’s clear. I think Halme would have come on today if he was fit.

 

The worst thing about today was the predictability of it. We are never up for the games that really matter. I suppose we ought to be thankful for small mercies though. We've lost the three other times we've returned from the international break this season.

 

Second half was poor for sure. But I’m not sure what he has on the bench was going to change anything anyway.

let’s be right in midfield he’d only have been able to bring on palmer who he been poor all season and roundly decreed as a waste of space on here or someone who a few weeks ago you suggested should F off out of the club and never play again. So I’m not too sure what else he could’ve done.

If we had the quality of players they have and the same manager I think we would have won. Unfortunately injuries/poor recruitment/lack of form have left us in a situation where we are light in the bench.

for me not a lot the manager could do to turn the tide today. It’s disappointing but at least we didn’t lose which we could easily have done with the way the game was going towards the end.

 

I am with Old Gimmer on this one. They were better. Even from kick off they were on the front foot and I would dare to suggest we scored against the run of play.

 

Well the usual thing happened today.

It didn't happen after 20 minutes (as some like to think).

It happened round about the usual time. Backs to the wall.

Poya isn't telling them to retreat. They are being overwhelmed by then because enthusiasm only goes so far. Then talent takes over.

There's a certain mindset that kicks in too when BFC are defending a lead at home. but i've seen that for 50 years. Poya did not invent that.

 

It is very rare that I agree with anything that you write. However, I find myself in full agreement here. The main reason that I have not published Minority Report recently it that every report would have been the same. The tactics appear to be score early and try to hold on. I do not find much entertainment in watching an opposition in full control of the ball, and in full control of territory. We are better than this, and in my view, the negative tactics of the coach are the main reason.

 

He is hampered by lack of options on the bench, but then maybe he should try some alternative options, and give Marsh and Hondermarck a go off the bench. Today he could’ve tried various things. He could’ve moved Quina to the right, or central, to get him out of Yiadom’s pocket. He could’ve brought Vic or Iseka on rather than Odour. He could’ve pushed Gomes further forward to add some energy to that attacking 3.

He did nothing though. And he should know by now that the mistake will come if we don’t at least try and get on the front foot. This time, it was Andersen letting the ball through his legs, after we’d initially failed to close down the wide player.

Today wasn’t a case of just needing to see out the game, we needed to address the fact that we were being outplayed throughout.

 

Much of football is played in the head. I thought his post match interview said much about what he thinks about the players, and what he thinks about the team. He was basically asked why he did not change the players, why he did not bring on other attacking players to try to score a second. He seemed not to understand the question. It seemed that he has such a negative mindset that he did not know how to respond to a question about positivity from the interviewer. It seemed that he thought 4-2-3-1 is the only way to play the game.

There is nothing wrong with 4-2-3-1 provided you have the right players to play that way. If you are leading and playing on the break, you need players who can break quickly, pass accurately and take their chances. You do not hit long balls in the air to an isolated centre forward. I thought that Morris did as well as could be expected yesterday, but no-one could have done anything with that sort of pass forward when his supporting players were so far away.

Last season, we played 3-4-3. That is a totally different system, and has a totally different methodology. The players did well because they were suited to that way of playing the game. You cannot take players from one system and way of playing and put them in a different system and expect there not to be players who are less well matched to their new responsibilities. But putting that to one side, the system that we are playing has a built in negative aspect. If the 3 support players get close to the forward, it can be a positive system, but the coach has drilled his players to protect their lead. Those 3 players drop deeper in order to protect their defense. The big gap to the centre forward is built into that strategy and the figures the we saw yesterday are part of the consequence of that. I go along to Oakwell to be entertained by my team, and if my team has just 37% possession and spends just 25% of time in the opposition final third, I can guarantee that the other figures for shots, shots on target, corners and fouls are not going to entertain me either. I have no idea if we would have won yesterday if we had played in a different way, but I do know that I would have been more entertained if we had spent more time in possession.

As a few will remember, I have spent the season collecting data in order to find a way of putting into numbers entertainment and performance. Yesterday, we scored just 10 for entertainment against Reading's 99, and we scored -67 for performance compared to Reading's 67. The match scored 109 for entertainment in total, and just to put that in context, the Blackpool v Nottingham Forest game scored 270. At the end of March, I compared the season scores for every team. We were 23rd for entertainment and 21st for performance. Our league position was 22nd. Back in October, after Schopp left, we were 20th for entertainment and 20th for performance. Our league position was 23rd. Marcus Schopp was ridiculed when he was sacked, but the team has not improved under Poya Asbaghi. Asbaghi has had the worst of COVID, but Schopp had to do without Andersen and Morris. If Schopp was bad enough to sack, then so is Asbaghi.

 

Sorry tried to post something which is doug o kane ...quoting Brittain. It basically says we didn't know what to do second half!
I find that astounding if true...sorry if already posted.

 

It isn’t about the lack of options from the bench though.

They were sitting back and getting deeper and deeper even in the first half, and for all of the second.

It wasn’t substitutions that weakened us that cost us the equaliser. It was the negative approach, refusal to try and play any football or to try and get forward. Trying to defend a one nil lead, like an early nineties Arsenal - only without the players, the balls or the blue to even look likely to carry it off.

We got ahead early in the game and did absolutely nothing afterwards. They came out in the second half, when he’d had fifteen minutes to get in their ears and instruct them what he wanted, and might as well have come out with tent pegs to hammer in on the eighteen yard line.

It is not coincidence that we are seeing the same thing happen game after game and dropping points for the same reason. We could and should have at least six more points, and Reading one fewer.

Even with the worst squad we’ve had for a good while, that would still have had us two points clear of them. As it is we are five points behind with seven games to play.

 

Doug O'Kane (@dougokane88) Tweeted:
Brittain:"Conceding late equalisers is a running theme. If something is consistently happening, there is a reason. We didn’t know what do do after going 1-0 up. We dropped intensity in our pressing and we were loose in the second half. We need to realise what situation we are in"

It all stems from the head coach/coaching team in my opinion.

 

I think even ignoring the obvious need for another forward to aim the long balls to, and freshen up the press on their defence, he had a number of ‘negative’ options available to him. Could’ve assigned somebody to man mark Swift, or dropped Styles deeper into a 4-3-2-1. Instead he made a change that served no purpose other than “fresh legs”, when we needed more.

The coach and the vast majority of the players were poor yesterday.

On the positive side, Kitching did a lot better than I expected. And if you’d have offered me a point, knowing that we’d play so poorly, I’d have taken it.

 

I’m sorry, but they didn’t know what to do after doing 1-0 up after 5 minutes? That’s nonsense. They knew what to do against Bristol City, they didn’t even sit back that much against Fulham.

 

The other thing people seem to be forgetting when saying he had no options on the bench to bring on is HE chooses the bench. Marsh could have been on it instead of Iseka who he clearly had no intention of bringing on. Bremang could have been on it. Hondermarck could have been on instead of Palmer or Benson who Poya knows are bone idle.

 

I can see this point of view but I disagree.

I think it’s likely about the quality of the squad. The inexperience and the lack of quality means that we struggle to retain the ball which means we end up getting pushed back rather than it necessarily being a conscious decision. And perhaps yesterday it wasn’t the subs which cost us the points but it certainly has been in several of the recent late points dropped.

Take Stoke and Fulham. If the subs (Cole and Benson/Palmer) do the minimum we win both those games and then it’s 1 point behind reading.

I think it’s easy to say the manager is the problem but sometimes it’s the players inability to retain the ball meaning we get pushed back. Yesterday no one in a Red shirt was able to put their foot on the ball and take control so we ended up getting pushed back and the ball didn’t stick because Morris was playing on one leg. I think the assertion that as soon as we score Poya decides to defend it regardless of game situation just isn’t right.