Manager or Players?

Players are not stupid (some likely are) and they can see the same as us. Alexander is extremely boring as a man and a manager. His interviews are pointless as he speaks without saying anything. How many players have been “a week away” yet have been missing for months?

Also, playing players out of position, keeping and forcing Oliver back into the fold etc. I think they've stopped playing for him and its only a matter of time until he is gone.

He typically doesn't last more than 1.5 years at a club

 

Surely then it's up to the manager to bring in and then develop the mentality? That involves giving the players the chance to play to their strengths and not just to your system

 

He's not soft on rookie players, he seems like a bit of a wimpy character who punishes and drops young lads, but backs down when someone like Cook is giving him backchat on the pitch.

While I also wouldn't want to fall out with Cook given how vital he is, he's not undroppable. Hughes showed that. He came back just fine. I don't think GA is as stern as Hughes when it comes to 'big' players but is pointlessly hard on Sanderson and Pointon.

It's not just a "these lads are young and need their feet on the ground", he messes these lads around. Pointon at LWB? Yeah, nah. Sanderson dropped forever despite having had a better season than Kav and Oliver? Makes no sense.

Like I say, seems wimpy to me.

 

I think GA typifies the “if it ain’t broke FIX it” mentality. We’ve seen the devastation he causes where a simple “one in one out” would suffice, ends up being “one in, and 4 changes” completely upsetting the balance of the team to get fringe players onto the pitch. We saw it last season where Oduor was unplayable for a few games, particularly against Wycombe, only for Alexander to move him into midfield with Smallwood where it totally nullified his ability to roam around the pitch. He was then dropped (from memory) and never seemed to recapture that form. I think GA tries to be too clever for his own good.

I know supporters think they know best, but most can see that Richards and Benn are the strongest wing backs we have, with Shepherd and Diabate either side of Byrne. Why does he persist with getting Wright and Halliday onto the pitch when neither offer anything in the final third? Stick to what works and we shouldn’t be too far away.

 

Spot on.

The way he mixed up almost half of the outfield players, playing out of position and selecting Oliver, to cover for the absence of Jack Shepherd, was absolute bonkers and definitely cost us the game in my and many others opinions.

The worst of it is he wouldn't own up and said the first half performance was nothing to do with his selection and formation and blamed it squarely on the players.

I'm really beginning to lose patience with GA now.

 

How can we leave it to one side though? You're looking at the situation too simplistically.

If the correct building blocks aren't in place behind the scenes and the correct support structure from the top doesn't allow a manager to create the squad or the environment he needs then everything at the club is already set up to fail before it starts, regardless of changing personnel on the pitch.

 

Spot on , however massive investment helps but only if it is channelled and managed correctly .

 

It's his pre and post match interviews that are really starting to irk me. I used to think he came across quite well and spoke a fair bit of sense but now everything he says is either a contradiction of something he said the week before or just complete waffle.

 

That's fine, I'll bow out of the discussion though because the question can't be answered properly with the caveat you've imposed.

 

Just to add to this, I see the lastest question GA is posing to the players is 'are they a loser and quit, or are they a winner and keep competing?'
After talk in the summer about recruiting players with a winning mentality and comments about the squad having a lot of strong characters and that he wouldn't swap any of his players for players at other league 2 clubs, you'd think this type of question wouldn't be necessary, yet here he is asking it.

 

I said it before, said it again in the summer, but Alexander is a manager with a ceiling. He'll steady a ship and will get points with his style, but he wont flash, he wont surprise, he will frustrate. He might get a promotion but in L1 he'd be so far out his depth he'd be sacked before November.

However, as said above I completely agree that this league is about mentality, confidence and effort, more than ability. Carlisle went and splurged money on players who should fully be able to get promoted and have had careers above L2, however they have a shocking attitude on mega money for the level, it seems. Something feels off with this City side, they don't ever look like a team, they don't ever look fluid.

Looking at the team we put out, the midfield and attack were all here last year and spent the majority of last season in the bottom half of the table until matchday 42 or 43. We struggled to score goals then, and its the same people on the pitch again, it's not surprising that we still struggle to look good going forward. The defence is constantly changing which doesn't help and neither does the injuries. But we signed people in the summer with injury issues, what did we expect to happen?

Seems to be just a cocktail of mediocrity that's delivering round abouts what it should.

 

I still think he will get us up this season. He is frustrating, and I am firmly in the GA in camp.

Wish he'd stick to the script though. When we play the 5-3-2 or 3-2-3-2 if you want to call it that we do well. But it only works if you play the correct players. The way he set up at Fleetwood was different. I can sort of see what he was trying to do and it hasn't worked. I'm not sure Fleetwood was the game to try something different.

But if Cook doesn't give that penalty away, we gain a point away from home at the very least. Fleetwood never looked like scoring again (albeit neither did we).

His main goal now is to figure out a way of getting someone else to score some goals other than Cook.

 

Which is what a few posters were saying in the summer only to be shouted down as negative by others who buy now are predictably quiet again.

No doubt they'll be back in June though for a rinse and repeat of the stellar signings and best squad in the division projections again.

 

The problem with that assessment though is that Fleetwood didn't need to score again so perhaps weren't prepared to take the gamble and decided to protect what they had. Something they did far too easily unfortunately.

 

His main goal now is to figure out a way of getting someone else to score some goals other than Cook.[/QUOTE]
That isn't too difficult any fan knows Sanderson is capable of scoring goals where Oliver isn't
So are Bobby and Kavanagh (on a good day)
But ego and either benching them or playing them out of position prevents them scoring
I do believe we have a squad capable of promotion but whether the manager or the squad could hack L1 is debatable