Away vs Cambridge United - Sat 15 Feb 2020

Oh better still Rhodes and Rupp

 

We are still suffering from the very poor recruitment by Rahic coupled with some further bizarre ones from Bowyer especially in the midfield area. No thought appears to have been given to experience and leadership qualities so one in the club need a to explain the post Rahic recruitment strategy.This appears to need reviewing and an overhaul to give Stuart McCall and Kenny Black a good chance of turning the fortunes of this club around.

 

He was right when he said they should have done better with the wind advantage first half. Then they would have had something to hold onto. They should have done exactly what Cambridge did second half had Novak and Donaldson on and put balls into the box

 

He was knackered in the second or lacked effort. One or the other. Certainly flagging by the 60/70 minute.

Thought we played quite well in the first half. Certainly, we've been critical of first half performances all season but this was decent.

I reckon the fitness levels generally are not great.

 

We are just a mid table 4 division team with a expensive stadium!!

 

And the ability to attract better players than any League Two side in the Summer (Bolton excepted).

 

Thank god someone had the balls to say it. He’s not the messiah and the tactics were wrong today

 

Perhaps.

But let's not forget, in previous away games we weren't even competing against sides in poor form. We aren't suddenly going to win all our away games.

 

One has got talent and a good engine; the other is too big and heavy to get about, lacks ability and bottles it.

 

I do feel for Stuart imagine coming in at a moment’s notice precisely after the window has closed and being tasked with galvanising this bloated squad. It coincides with the worst weather of the year which greatly restricts what you can do on the training pitch. You make a reasonable start to the first couple of games and then find yourself heavily criticised in your first defeat for a substitution. Most managers would have sent on an extra centre half in the circumstances, in the teeth of a gale and with the opposition sticking an extra big lad up front. It didn’t work but we started leaking late goals long before Stuart arrived and our last away win was October. It wasn’t the substitutions that cost us yesterday. It was a combination of many things but not least the wind. A couple of our goal kicks didn’t make it to the half way line. Let’s get some perspective.

 

Actually a very good answer.

 

Bang on Bronco. That is exactly as it was. They were always going to score whether or not we brought on Paudie. In the last ten minutes teams under the cosh don’t have systems. They defend for their lives. It’s every man to the pump. It’s ridiculous to imagine if we had repositioned one man somewhere else suddenly the tide and the wind would have changed.

 

Most clubs now have a sporting director. I read @Dennis good post about Swansea and not needing one but I disagree. Swansea's chairman acted like a SD and was switched on. We currently have Rhodes and Rupp that only care about season ticket sales and have no long term vision for the club.

We appointed a Dictator of Communications for what? Because then two don't want to face the public?acting cowardly?

Yeas, Rachic signed a load of players but the main problem was he didn't think about how he wanted the club to play and the managers to suit that system.

Again we have gone fron Bowyer to McCalland both play totally different football. We need to think about how the club wants to play and the players to suit it then stick to it. Get Jewell from Swindon if you want to keep the Bradford City love in.

Yesterday, was on McCall though. Switching to 5 at the back ruined us. It was a stupid move. I watched Norwich v Liverpool and I didn't see neither team switch to 5 at the back due to conditions. You have to get use to the conditions but not give the other team confidence. It was poor from McCall and Black.

 

I think you're missing the point. Paudie should have come on for the last ten minutes, not the last 25. We surrendered to playing attack v defence far too early and killed off our chances of getting the second goal to win the game.

 

They were always going to be more of a threat in the second half after a rolicking at half time and like you say, the wind to their advantage. However, I said at the time Paudie was brought on that it would just invite even more pressure on us and we'd end up losing and that's exactly what happened. We will never know if the outcome of the game would have been different if we'd stuck to a back 4, but I firmly believe we would have had a better chance of coming away with at least a point had we done so.

 

And Man City

 

I would have brought on Paudie, but I would have pushed up O’Connor into midfield. We needed to firm up the midfield. So that we were not defending on the edge of our box. I do think the weather paid an enormous role yesterday, if you listen to their manager they deliberately used it, and they won the toss so they could use it as part of their tactics. I think the criticism towards Stuart needs to be dialled down and it is inappropriate.

 

Yes I do see that quite clearly but Stuart brought Paudie on as an attempt to shore things up in response to them throwing on an extra man up top. At that point Cambridge were already coming on strong and we were riding our luck. It isn’t as though we ourselves were making chances. He had to do something. He made a judgement call based on forty years in the game and being the man on the spot. I believe most managers would have done the same. By the end our defenders were out on their feet and predictably made errors. In my opinion it’s ridiculous to assert categorically it’s all down to McCall. We will never know how different the game would have been had he not brought on Paudie but I suspect the result would have been the same - and the McCall detractors would have blamed him for another kind of tactical mistake. No one can definitively conclude that if this player had been in this position this would have ensued. It’s not Chess. I will say this if we’d had a proper defensive midfielder Stuart probably wouldn’t have felt he needed extra cover at the back. I think yesterday Stuart slipped on the muck left behind by the last guy, to put it politely.

 

Just for balance, there are plenty of posters on here who are anti everybody except McCall. If he fails again there’ll be a reason why it’s not his fault. Pitch, weather, not his squad, the deficit......

Regarding team selection, I wonder if we have additional payments to make if Devitt plays because it doesn’t make sense not to play a lad who had a good season last year. This side is crying out for goals and assists and he had both. McCall doesn’t have time to find his best 11, he’s got to go with his instincts and stick with it.