Most liked posts in thread: 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 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.

 

Did you not go against Walsall?

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

In my opinion academies are overrated. Look at the robots churned out by the academies in the premiership. The better ones are good for fitness and nutrition because of their top class facilities but how many of these top academies actually produce anything special? Players develop when they hit the first team, look at the difference between Lewis O’Brien and Joe Riley. One coming through at Huddersfield, the other coming with a big reputation from Man Utd yet O’Brien looks streets ahead of Riley in terms of ability. A good talent is a good talent regardless of what academy they train at and again in my opinion in some cases they stifle development rather than encourage it.

 

I'd argue that the sentiment remains valid, but perhaps it should be expressed slightly differently: we need a McArdle type of CH. In the same way we could use a Bobby-type scorer, or a Beagrie-type winger, and so on. It's what they brought to the team that we could use. Sometimes, we can get that with the return of the specific player, e.g. Stuart second-time around, but that won't always work.

Following on from the point made above by @Damo, I wonder how McArdle would perform if, say, he were here (or anywhere, really) as part of a defensively-strong Parkinson-led side? The whole being greater than the sum of its parts, and all that...

RCB

 

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.

 

Parkinson made McArdle into that player as he was part of a defence which all suited each other, and Parkinson is a very good defensive coach. He’s not individually great. Hence why he’s at league one

 

You can take the news about our academy with a pinch of salt. Until it starts reproducing players for the first team and for resale its meaningless.

 

Accolades mean little to me, as i said real results are after academies, we have the captain of the Man Utd under 23s and he cnat get on the bench. Lets wait until we see real results eg. Players going to represent the first team or having careers at similar or better clubs than ourselves after being in our academy.

 

Oh and check my posts, where have i said i expect 15 and 16 year olds to be first team ready?

Simple answer to rhat one. When they are good enough they are ready regardless of age.

 

Well I believe he's an expert on number twos

 

Wasn't he playing for some university team when he came to us. So not exactly or even remotely a product of our youth team, just a young lad we got lucky with then lost due to administration.

 

Simon Francis hasn’t faired too badly.