Richard O'Donnell

Oh... very good NM.

 

Three things that annoy me about him.

1. His kicking is often poor. Surely if he practiced it he could improve?

2. He stays glued on his line. He needs to come out and catch more. He'd rather not take a risk and stay safe and not make a mistake though. So I'm not sure if that's something that will ever change.

3. The whole shrugging shoulders, head shaking, grumbling, finger pointing blame game between him and Anthony O'Connor. It annoys me. Man up and take responsibility if you make an error and help each other out when the other makes a mistake. It's a team game not a blame game.

 

ROD came across very well indeed on the fans forum tonight, talking about how approachable he likes to be for fans on social media and talking about his role as the PFA rep for the club during the pandemic and discussing mental health issues. Top bloke

 

My criticism of ROD is his possession based play rather than comparable saving ability, having one modus operandi and an apparent inability to quickly read and call the back line and pass out from the back. Not the only issue, but his constant long ball appears to be one of the factors contributing to the lack of cohesiveness in us playing football and increasing bouts of head tennis, which we rarely win.

ROD certainly more suited to Bowyerball than Hornby, and I only noted one pass out from the back to a defender on Tuesday.

So just let me check this out, every time I watched Hornby with possession in his area and played it quickly out to the back line, I was actually misinterpreting reality? And Hornby was actually booting it long.

I obviously need a rest now folks, and when the alarm goes off on Saturday I will clean my glasses and scrub the PC screen for I-follow and watch ROD playing the same game as Hornby, at least to to keep the WOAP stats consistent.

 

Agree. Hornby is always looking for a roll out or pass out. O'Donnell is a kicker.

Be interested to see the stats though if someone has a link but even then, it will be biased one way or the other because they've played under different managers and styles.

 

Here you go. O'Donnell with more accurate short passes, slightly lower long pass accuracy but much better pass success rate overall. But don't let facts get in the way of your agenda.

https://widthofapost.com/2021/03/17/the-width-of-a-post-podcast-36-is-it-a-blip-a-slowdown-or-a-slump/

 

No real agenda I just can't understand why I am seeing something differently. Don't like to sit on the fence usually, but as I have said on here before little between them overall. I only prefer Hornby because of his style of play and I think it gives players who want to play on the floor more confidence.

And just for the record. I am not in favour of a goallie being Captain, regardless of who that may be.

The stats are fairly meaningless presented as they are, with the only comparable data being number of games. For example, to be of any use we would need to know how many passes in total had been made by each to determine whether the respective "pass success" data may indicate one was better than the other. And that also assumes that whoever in WhoScored is doing the counting knows what a successful pass looks like, or if more than one person is doing the counting, they agree on the criteria.

 

Couldn't agree more. It's ridiculous that O'Donnell is captain. His 'captaincy' has added nothing to what we do on the pitch. Canavan is the natural leader and if we had Paudie as his vice-captain, not only would we be giving the best candidate the job but he'll be able to tutor POC further on not just in his play but as a role model for what a captain should 'do'.

 

Since he lost the captaincy Paudie's game has gone to pieces and since O'Donnell's return the defence as a whole has looked shaky.

 

Not much between them but dropping Hornby was a little unfair on him

 

But does that make him a better goalkeeper?.Would we be better with a nasty ba---rd who kept clean sheets every week?.

 

Give over

 

People keep banging on about ROD being a good shot stopper.. but have you guys noticed he only seems to pull of these so called “worldies” when we are losing.

When Hornby was in goal our defence looked impregnable, tackles flying in, blocks, players diving for blocks as if their life depended on it. ROD returns and our defence has gone back into McCall era defence, Ie just let them run at you and hope they dont shoot mentality.

2 important factors occurred this season which saved this club from relegation McCall getting sacked and ROD getting injured.

 

Its like picking between having your balls cut off with a rusty scalpel or blunt pair of scissors.

terrible from subbuteo goalie ROD for Nouble’s header. Has to be punching clear in six yard box there.

 

O'Donnell's another who's still getting blamed for the relegation season

 

I don’t blame OD for any of our past seasons outcomes. The way I see it is until this season, he has 100% deserved the keeper shirt based on those we had. This season Hornby has developed and IMO is considerably stronger in the areas of OD’s weaknesses. Add to that IMO, his form is better than OD, Hornby should be our no.1 right now.

Im certainly not scapegoating OD, I’m just saying it as I see it. There have been too many examples where I think OD makes clear mistakes and today’s goal we conceded is one of them.

As a personality, he comes across as everything you’d want within a football club. I follow him on social media and he comes across as nothing other than a really really good guy. I’m just sorry that at the moment this isn’t transitioning into performances on the pitch.

 

Anyone want to go back and pull a few photos of Hornby commanding his box and the defence in front of him winning their aerial duels?

Because all three goals we conceded against Carlisle were headers, two from corners, one from a cross, and he was on his line for all of them.

Against Bolton, Doyle had a gilt-edged free header, and Hornby was on his line. He put it wide.

Against Walsall, their goal was a corner headed home, Hornby was on his line.

Against Newport, the handball that gifted them the winner was obviously an out-of-character shocker, but that was a long throw that our defence failed to deal with. Hornby, quite rightly this time, was on his line.

In every single example from ALL of Hornby's games, he's on his line for every attack and every cross.

Now I know the obvious defence is that Hornby collecting a cross isn't going to make a highlight reel, but are people actually sure he was that good at it?

Are people sure his distribution was better, even though it's a fact that it isn't?

Or are we all a little bit hysterical because we had a good run, it ended, they brought ROD back, and the results haven't gone back to being good again?

 

Not commanding.
Defence doesn’t know where it stands with him.
Good agility and shot stopping.
Teams know they can load it into the box even 6 yard box and he won’t deal with it.