The Players

Except Mellor and Woods are due back - Hopkin must know that he can put them back in. I’m surprised he threw the towel in so readily.

 

Look no further than the Doyle interview to find out what's wrong with this team. I'd be embarrassed that yet another manager has been unable to anything with them yet he bleats on about Hopkin doing the right thing as if it's all down to one man that we're in this mess.

He should have offered a grovelling apology to the fans for being part of a team that no one can manage and kept his head down until they come out on Saturday and give us some sort of reason to believe they are genuinely professional footballers.

 

Perhaps he realised that the players had already thrown theirs in ?
If so ............Hopkin possibly had (like a few of us in our own jobs) one of those moments that screamed - "Why in the Hell am I doing this ? All this wasted time and effort ............................. Feck it - I'm gone ..... " ?
(I've been there and done it myself.)

 

Agree RowZ - staggeringly blase and naive comments from Doyle and no real acknowledgement of the players part in the disarray we find ourselves in. Unbelievable Jeff!

 

I've not seen this. Where is it please?

 

T&A

 

Thanks

 

I think was one of Hopkins problems - he continued to play poor players or combinations of poor players time after time. He did have options. Wood for Chicksen, P O'Connor for either of the 2 centre backs. They do need replacing but that can't/isn't going to happen now. Why he didn't change it is one of the most bizarre things, especially after pointing out how bad we defended against Fleetwood and saying that P O'Connor may now get his chance. And he didn't!!

 

I think he became ‘frozen’ worried how poorly our defence was playing but then worried about replacing them with untried or barely better players. My main concern was his lack of bravery. When we were 7 points adrift, he went for it, nothing to loose type attitude, and it worked. Then For some reason put the brakes on for the Barnsley game. It then became a vicious circle.

 

I think the issue with Paudie is that he is yet another loan player so including him in the match day squad is always going to be problematic when you are only allowed to have 5 in total, including who is on the bench. Payne, Ball and O'Brien are never going to be left out if fit and not suspended, and it's very possible Barnsley have stipulated we have to include Miller in the squad, given that they have agreed to let us keep him until the end of the season. That only leaves one place which is currently occupied by Butterfield. If we played Paudie in place of either A O'Connor or NKP, which of the other loan players do we leave out?

 

How does Anderson get in then? Leave him out. Or Miller.

 

Anderson isn't on loan

 

Blaming the players is nonsense, They play to orders as professionals and the systems that Hopkin continued to use with a narrow formation with no wingers or hoof ball to a CF we do not have did not suit them at all, He played round pegs in square holes and played players that were just not good enough to keep been selected and ignored others, His tactics were woeful and he was unable to react to other teams changes, Our players were hung out to dry by him but nether the less kept trying, Blaming them is well wide of the mark.

 

Genuinely professional Footballers you say
Don't hold your breath Mr Rowz ( Apologies for assuming one's Gender)

 

Read Jamie Lawrences comments, slightly different take on things (remember he WAS a player)

jamie lawrence‏ @1jamielawrence7
Don’t like to see managers lose jobs and the players have to look at themselves as I don’t care about tactics as a player you got to have desire and pride . It’s your job and great job at that people pay good money what they ain’t got to watch you . Come on boys step up

 

His recruitment in January was to blame we almost have a team of midfielders.

 

Quite true @Park bantam We had one chance to get out of this mess in the January window and whether it was the owner through lack of money and support or Hopkin signing the wrong players we have blown the one chance we had to give ourselves the best chance of avoiding relegation

 

He wouldn’t be the worst short term appointment ever. Anybody lucky enough to see him play will know what I’m talking about.

 

We've all worked in places where a bad atmosphere descends and no one wants to be there. You could probably talk forever about what has led us to this situation but the buck should only ever stop at Rahic. He brought players to the club who, for whatever reason, have decided they can't even be bothered to play for personal pride. They need to go, the club needs to move on and the fans are going to need patience to see us get out of this mess, inevitably now, from League Two. It's bigger than one man and one man alone will never be able to fix it.