Would you stop going if Flitcroft got the job?

Re: The harder you work

Do you think so? I've always said we're the hardest working team I've ever seen. Difference now is we're playing with a more direct approach with the ball.

Don't think Dagnall/Perkins/O'Brien for example are doing much different now than before.

 

We've got exactly the same amount of attacking players on the pitch now that we have most of the season (2 strikers, full backs and 2 attacking midfielders) Key difference - strikers scoring regularly. A striker has score in every game Flitcrofts been gaffer for. Before we relied on Dawson or Mellis to chip in because we needed Dagnall playing but couldn't rely on him scoring.

Marion's form has been the big thing for me, though. Gives us the chance to go direct and have it stay there. We often went direct to Davies but it didn't feel like it when he miscontrolled it.

 

Flicker's way of playing, is nothing like Keith's way of playing.

Nothing like.

 

Like

 

We'll have to agree to disagree mate. Flicker has had a cracking response from players like Marlon, Kennedy, Dagnall & Scotland. He has gone more direct and upped the tempo with the ball but I still think we often went relatively direct up to Davies but it just didn't stick. With Marlon it does.

 

It also helps that we are being able to play a settled side from an injuries point of view and self inflicted changes....

 

Agree 100%. Cranie and Kennedy have played out of their skin and Steele being back up to form after injury is key.

Perkins being available for each game has really helped too.

 

I honestly think that having a largely settled side is also making a big difference. Yes, Flicker has lost Dawson but he is not exacerbating the situation by making 4 and 5 changes every week. Like you said elsewhere, lets see what happens after a couple of defeats, I hope he does not do a Keef and panic....

 

The best thing for me is that we're not chopping and changing seemingly to stop the other side. He's gone more direct, a little more attacking and added more width. Fair play to him.

But I imagine sides are pretty aware that we're playing 3-5-2 now, let's see what happens when he has to switch shape.

 

I really like that element, we are playing to our strengths and are making sides think about us instead of shitting ourselves at the opposition every week. It must be refreshing to no longer hear the crap about Aldi. I know know it is to me...

According to Flicker, we chnaged systems three times on Sat. I wasn't there but if he is saying that there must be some truth in it!

 

I think the main difference is that Hill was a clueless berk whose main concern was trying to hide his shortcomings. Flicker is the opposite.

 

Like yourself, I do not think the system is much different. For example, assuming the previous system was a midfield diamond with the width provided by the full backs, all that has happened it that the player at the base of the diamond is now part of the back three and the wing backs are playing slightly further forward. The wing backs have someone watching the back door, meaning they do not need to worry as much about their defensive responsibilities. As you say, all systems eventually get found out, but this system seems to suit the players we have.

As for passing the ball forward more quickly. It is better to pass to a player in space. Hitting the ball long, and inaccurately in the general direction of a target man will always lead to gradually increasing pressure as the target man has nothing he can work with. If the Keith Hill system is to work, it needs movement ahead of the passer and it needs someone able to control the ball and hold off their marker. In this respect, the combination of Harewood and Dagnall is far better than any combination which included Davies, as you have also pointed out. Tippy tappy became the ultimate insult at the end of Keith Hill's reign, as though it was part of Hill's instruction to his back four, whereas it was caused by lack of movement ahead of the passer. Which of the posters on here would have been able to identify Davies as the problem before his departure for Bolton. Not many, I guess.

Keith Hill has not had the credit for continuing to play John Stones at full back when so many were calling for Hassell to be restored to that position. Instead, it became a Hassell versus Wiseman argument, when in fact, John Stones was the one keeping Hassell out of the team. If Hill had deliberately taken the pressure of competition away from a young and promising defender, then it was a brilliant move, one that has enabled the club to harvest a £3 million pound bonus, a harvest that may well have been delayed for a year or even two if Hill had yielded to pressure to reinstate Hassell at full back. I do not know if the team will stay up this season, but if it does, Keith Hill will deserve some of the credit because it will have been achieved on a budget that will be below any other in the division, and it will have been achieved in circumstances that at least two other potential managers thought impossible.

 

Clutching....

Keith Hill will deserve none of the credit as he left us almost dead and buried! Flitcroft, Melon and Scott are seemingly dragging us free.

We are getting more bodies forward now and are not goinbg out one nil down as I think we did under Hill.

The performances of Harewood and Dagnall have come about due to them being played week after week. Hill would have dropped one of them by now...

 

But let's be fair, he brought the players here. He didn't get the best out of them by any stretch but he bought all the ingredients, he just didn't finish the cake.

Or summat.

He didn't get the results. He put the foundations in place for this run, though. Genuinely believe that.

 

Re: The harder you work

Yes I do, allied as Redstar says with getting the ball away from danger areas quickly and we're creating our own luck.

Harewood's a different player, Etuhu has surprised everyone. There just seems to be a general 'lift' in tempo and individual performances.

As you say, real test is if we get a cow tailing somewhere - see how we recover and how the crowd reacts.

 

Re: The harder you work

Kelvin's not surprised me.

 

Re: The harder you work

#insight

 

I think that there may be only two of us, but then again I am used to being in the minority.

There is no doubt that Hill made mistakes, lots of them. However, his basic strategy of buying cheap from the lower divisions and developing young players from the academy was the only one available to him with the restrictions placed upon him financially. The fact that the board was aware of this, and yet they left him to face the lynch mob alone at the end has left me with a bitter taste. I hope that they have learned a few lessons from their inability to recruit a replacement, but I doubt it. Stronger together should apply to the board and team management just as much as it should to the team and its fans. Suddenly, the team is having a bit more success and fans see that it is counter-productive to attack their own players. When will fans also realise that when the problem is lack of finance, it is pointless to protest by withdrawing their support and their finance.

 

Agree entirely.

Me and my Dad were talking about it on the way to Hull. When we're **** we feel a duty to go to games. To support 'em. Maybe that's why I'm f.cked up in the head because I look at my Dad and he's taught me everything.

The strategy & the plan wasn't only the right one, it was the only one. It would've been much easier for Keith to sign a load of hard working lumpers and play percentage football. But if he had we wouldn't have seen Butterfield become the player most people thought he could be, we wouldn't have seen Vaz Te, Mellis or payers like Drinkwater. He made loadsa mistakes like you said but he did that out of nothing but his own footballing morals for me.

You've got to admire a man that does things the right way, regardless of how hard it is.

 

Absolutely 100% agree.