Pressing, Stamina, Spirit, Belief, Leadership

I brought this point up during the game - it's the small things, like when we have three players chasing after the ball, the RIGHT player makes the challenge - when we have three players breaking, we're making the RIGHT pass - we're working really well as a team.

 

I agree with this but I'm of hope that when things don't go as well, that as fans we can be level headed.

 

As you mentioned the way we hound the opposition sometimes it works in our favour if their cb wins the header from a longer ball as we win the knock downs.

Sunderland are surely gonna have more of the ball on Boxing Day. Will this suit our plan more of pressing the back line and midfield?

 

I'm not sure what they struggled with exactly when they narrowly beat us at VP, so it kind of bodes well...

 

I don't think you can underestimate the influence of McElhone in the change of mindset. Even a couple of sessions can make a difference to players lacking confidence.

 

We are starting to do what we should have been doing at the beginning of the season, but that was impossible due to the idiocy of one egomaniac. This football lark ain't rocket surgery or brain science, its alright bringing in some quality like Payne and Doyle but thats no use if the philosophy of the bloke running the club is all wrong. You need a quality backroom staff to complement a strong onfield set up and you also need everyone to be singing off the same hymn sheet. Its like having a boxer with the quality of Anthony Joshua then having him trained by the lads from the local amateur boxing club.

What we are now seeing is a system that at least has a chance of working, a manager with a strategy who is allowed to manage, who has already brought in a couple of the jigsaw pieces that were badly lacking through the previous set up. And the sad thing in all this? It could have all been avoided. We could all see where the glaring weaknesses were as could Hopkin in his short tenure so far. Hopefully those dark days are now long gone.

 

Heard straight away he brought a professionalism to the set up, some which i alluded to in my last post which has been disgracefully lacking because of utter incompetence at the top of this club. Little things straight away like stopping takeaways after games and changing the mind set of the players. They may be professional athletes but they will get away with whatever you let them. Players need to be led, from training and sports science to nutrition and media. The more professional the set up, the more chance you have of succeeding.

 

Sat behind the dug outs today for the first time in a while.

It was noticeable how much Drury was on the players cases to press and pressure high up the pitch. You can't do that until you're a fit team.

 

considering i’m ‘banned’ from another thread, i’m going to put this here - scunthorpe are by far the worst team to rock up at valley parade this season, truly awful.

whoever managed to get mcardle a 3 year deal on £5k/week deserves a medal, he’ll be earning that for another 18 months! thank god we never gave in to his demands and paid him that amount of money. scunthorpe’s loss is 100% our gain.

without over-exaggerating too much it could and should have been double figures today (sorry ricc). mccall looked disillusioned and no wonder because they were shockingly poor; arms folded with no idea how to change things - we’ve seen that before.

anyone know whose fault it is at scunthorpe that they’ve fallen so far from being a play-off team last season under a ‘rookie’ coach / manager in nick daws (from march onwards)?

 

At present on my screen this thread is appearing directly above the Josh Wright thread - the irony.

 

Did you not go against Walsall?

It’s ok saying these teams are bad but we made them look average with our play

 

Yeah agree and to note that @Fordy117 said he wouldn't make a good number 2.
The positive difference in the team since he came is astonishing really

 

Anyone else there early enough yesterday to see the warm up before the game. The intense pass and move game they did I have never seen before and a good few minutes after scunny went back inside the players were still doing sprints and other drills. Whatever Hopkin McElhone and co are are trying to implement is working. The lads are full of running 3 games in row now I have seen the likes of Doyle tracking back it's great to see long may it continue.

 

And yet #bcafc on Twitter and most of C&B were up in arms when he left. To be fair I don’t think old bollock chops Edin would have had that in mind when he didn’t offer three years, but for once it’s worked out well.

 

Well I believe he's an expert on number twos

 

i did. scunthorpe were worse than walsall.

 

hopefully that’s the last we see on these boards of ‘we need a centre half like mcardle’.