When do we start to question Hopkin?

Mr Hopkin said yesterday on the Pulse - Akpan was not fully fit and to play him could have resulted in him missing a further 3 or 4 games. This obviously limited us in midfield and had a influence him how he set up the team. It also shows the mess we are in squad wise with him naming him on the bench.

 

Didn’t we offer him a deal till the end of season but he has been offered longer elsewhere?

 

We did. Notts County offered him a longer deal. He messaged yesterday that he was gutted to have left us, but was a bit hurt that we didn't offer him a longer deal to stay beyond the season

 

Not fully fit? I don’t think he ever will be. We need 90 minute players to fit HopkinS style. We’ve let a better player in Jim O’Brien go because we wouldn’t offer a long term deal and because our budget is tied up with the likes of Riley and Wright. I get the impression we are trying to limp through to the end of the season and take stock from there. The legacy of Rahic will still be a millstone round our necks for some time yet.

 

As i’ve just mentioned i think we would have offered him a deal but we have no available funds unless someone leaves. Hopkin has tried to persuade Wright and Riley to leave, probably to free up funds to bring others in, but they ain’t just gonna rio up their own contracts when they are on good money. Unless someone comes along and takes them off our hands we are stuck with them unless we pay them to leave, which we can’t afford to do.

 

We could quite easily limp into league 2 if we have no further funds to invest in January. . . . then there's Payne.

 

Yep. Notts county offered 18 months. We only offered 6.

 

Or, scenario two - we offer a longer deal and his recent hamstring injuries continue.

Tough call either way for me.

 

I love Jim O’Brian, and a fit Jim is worth an 18 month contract of anybody’s money, but unfortunately due to his age he is prone to injuries and we need fit players, if we were in a different position I would keep him, no problem, because he is just the type of player we need. Nevertheless thanks to the spectacular *@?$ up in the summer we are now saddled with players who are not fit to lace up his boots We have the likes of Reeves who has been unfit for the best part of a year, plus Wright who cannot function at this level etc etc.,

 

It took me a while for Hopkin to convince me he may well do a good job here. However, he lost some credit with me for the strange decision to completely disrupt a defence that had conceded just one goal in the last 5 outings. There was no justification for it at all. We may well still have lost of course. I wonder whether we have an obligation to select Paudie O'Connor as part of his loan deal?

 

I was thinking the same @Idlebantam . Seems strange to bring him straight into a defence playing ok

 

I think it’s harsh to be overly critical of Hopkin for the result yesterday. Barnsley are a very good team and were at home. We barely have enough fit players to fill the match day squad and Hopkin was forced into chopping and changing (e.g. putting Caddis in CM).

I’m sure he would have left Caddis at RB and played a CM in midfield if he could but our squad is threadbare. He’s done an incredible job to then the ship around and the fact people seem disappointed with yesterday shows how far we’ve come in the last couple of months.

 

Think Hopkin wants reinforcements but think we’re skint, not his fault look at the bench we’ve had this season as others have said Rahic is a stain which will take a while yet to get fully rid of.

 

It's the unjust reason for tampering with the defence that Hopkin should be criticised for yesterday. Just didn't make sense, and the players played like they were as bemused as the fans

 

Still got my back. Achieve 20th or above and that's good enough for me.

 

But we needed to tamper. We didn’t have a CM so had to play a defender there. Plus they have dangerous players out wide so made sense not to play the narrow 4 man midfield and try 5 at the back.

 

So why not play O'Connor in the midfield like he has previously?

 

Yeah that is what I expected him to do. That’s the bit I don’t understand to be honest. I wondered at first if it was because he wanted McGowen at RB to cover a diagonal ball in the air (assuming that was something they did) but they never played that ball so not sure what the thinking was.

 

Should have played Antony O'Connor in midfield then, like he has done previously. Caddis had very little impact in the middle and was chasing shadows, he's a far better RB.

 

He’s got it completely wrong for the past 2 weeks. Why change a winning formula?