• Nigel Adkins has been given the Tranmere job on a permanent basis signing until the end of the 25/26 season. Continue the discussion here.

Rovers v Donny

Ian

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You mean the same poor tactics that took us top and increased your expectations in the first place ?

I think this is part of the problem. Expectations were raised and I think some people believed it was impossible for us to fail, which makes the last few months very difficult to come to terms with.

Even if we made the playoffs, we would get slaughtered on current form. I think we have to reflect and build for next season.


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bigmart

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Ian, agree we have to build for next season which is going to be difficult again as i expect a few players to turn down contracts and also several to be released and maybe we might have to sell a player.

I would like us to rely less on loan signings next season as apart from the 3 we got to start the season with the rest have been fairly poor or even worse. The gamble on having a small squad added to with loan signings during the season sadly hasnt worked.
 
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The gamble on having a small squad added to with loan signings during the season sadly hasnt worked.

If you look at our league position I think it has worked, but that is the last I will say on the matter.........
 

bigmart

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It clearly hasnt worked as we have blown a great chance of making the play offs in what is the weakest league in a number of years, there is no outstanding team this season a lot are much of a muchness
 
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Our target at the start of the season was to avoid relegation, not to win promotion. I think we have achieved it.
 

drwhoman

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DONNY

I was not at the game either but a lot of what RLC says makes sense. Yes - we are all disappointed with the way things have gone but, as he says, the odds were always going to be against us given our financial constraints. We have over achieved with some several excellent loan players around a core of four or five good players. At present the team are clearly trying hard (three 1-0 losses reflects this) but with quality players lacking in attacking positions and confidence low it is not easy. I think we should be grateful for the first half of the season. Remember the six months under Barnes and McAteer? Anyway, see what Ronnie can do in the close season. A new owner with a pot of money would be nice but with our big neighbours the reality is that no one will put serious money in who is not already a supporter or has a big ego and wants to own a football club. With the low gates and the limited ability to generate sponsorship income then any return on investment is not going to be attractive if viewed in purely financial terms.
 

Boz

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Isn't part of the problem that we haven't recently been playing the tactics that got us to the top? Two big men up front and lumping balls to them, along with a left-back in left midfield wasn't the way we progressed so ably in the first half of the season. I accept that on the forwards, we had limited options, when Cassidy went back to Wolves, but, for example, you could still have played O'Halloran/Bell-Baggie in the hole behind the target man, as Robbo was today.

My feeling is that we could have done better with the players we've had in 2013, maybe not well enough for automatics, but certainly a play-off slot. Ronnie's recent remarks don't seem to suggest he's learned very much about his own failings in all this. Before you can start trying to put things right, it's necessary to accept some responsibility in why they've gone wrong.
 
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Against Stevenage when Zoum at left midfield we actually played a similar style of football to the early months of the season, with pace and movement up front. He was less effective against Sheff Utd and I personally would not have played him in that position again, but I am not convinced that personnel changes on this level have been a major factor in our decline, which started months ago.

Sidibe was the last in a long list of experienced strikers we tried to bring in on loan. O'Grady, Madine etc. would have been better options, and the only alternative was another unproven kid. We did go too long ball with him in the side and you could argue we would have been better off without him, but the alternatives - playing Cole, Amoo, O'Halloran or a loan player of a similar standard - were probably even less attractive.

With hindsight Tom Eaves might have been the right option, but as I understand it Lennie Lawrence insisted that he went to Shrewsbury rather than ourselves, as he thought that move would be better for his development (for whatever reason).

If you look at our points per game ratio, our downturn in form actually began in November / December at the time of the onset of our major injury problems, and there was certainly no reversion to 'hoofball' in this period. As I remember it, when Sidibe made his debut at Colchester, we had just lost four games in a row and were already on a downward spiral.
 

bigmart

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Boz, you have got it spot on there totally agree.
 

SonkORLY?

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Isn't part of the problem that we haven't recently been playing the tactics that got us to the top? Two big men up front and lumping balls to them, along with a left-back in left midfield wasn't the way we progressed so ably in the first half of the season. I accept that on the forwards, we had limited options, when Cassidy went back to Wolves, but, for example, you could still have played O'Halloran/Bell-Baggie in the hole behind the target man, as Robbo was today.

No. Do you think RM tells the side to go out and play very directly? It's indicative of a lack of confidence (vs earlier in the season) and a lesser calibre of footballers (vs earlier in the season).

What's the difference between playing O'Halloran "in the hole" or simply playing him upfront in a 4-4-2? The way we play, pretty much nothing. And a fair amount of people on here argue the validity of Zoum as a left mid and I'm usually the only person complaining when RM occasionally uses him there towards the end of a game, so I think the reactionary tactical geniuses need to reel in their criticism a little.


Before you can start trying to put things right, it's necessary to accept some responsibility in why they've gone wrong.

Such as?

Our squad was crippled by injuries and loanees leaving. I actually agree that we have dropped points I'd expected us to win this year without recouping them elsewhere, but we picked up a **** load of points in 2012 that I didn't expect so it's swings and roundabouts.

I would like us to rely less on loan signings next season as apart from the 3 we got to start the season with the rest have been fairly poor or even worse. The gamble on having a small squad added to with loan signings during the season sadly hasnt worked.

It clearly hasnt worked as we have blown a great chance of making the play offs in what is the weakest league in a number of years, there is no outstanding team this season a lot are much of a muchness

Are you insane? The small squad/loanee approach is the only reason we were ever in contention. lol yeah, the loan system sucks right? Guess we should have stocked up on Danny Harrison's rather than loaning in Gibson, Palmer, Cassidy. Doing that was the only way we could afford players like JLAA and Wallace realistically.

We don't have the budget to compete with the 6 richest clubs in this division so we don't have any sort of god given right to be in the playoffs, regardless of how good we were early on. And just because Yeovil have managed to greatly exceed expectations doesn't mean everyone can. We've outperformed almost every club in this division in terms of success relative to money spent. You need to get a sense of perspective.
 

Brightonian

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Agree with RLC that there was no lack of effort and we had a good share of the match. It was the same against Portsmouth with the lads having a really good go but we are just not turning this into clear cut chances.

The point made about why didn't Stockton start would have been easily answered if you had seen the Portsmouth game. He had about 35 mins alongside Sidibie and hardly got a kick and looked completly ineffective. He will score first team goals in the future but this season seems too soon for him.

I would personally prefer to return Zoum to left back combining with Robbo playing wide left which brought us so much success early season. However understand the lack of creativity centrally makes it a valid option to have him the most involved possible. Not enough quality on the ball in what is a very young team who have lost confidence and run out of steam.

Lets be positive we can beat Hartlepool and all is not lost!
 

Boz

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No. Do you think RM tells the side to go out and play very directly? It's indicative of a lack of confidence (vs earlier in the season) and a lesser calibre of footballers (vs earlier in the season).

What's the difference between playing O'Halloran "in the hole" or simply playing him upfront in a 4-4-2? The way we play, pretty much nothing. And a fair amount of people on here argue the validity of Zoum as a left mid and I'm usually the only person complaining when RM occasionally uses him there towards the end of a game, so I think the reactionary tactical geniuses need to reel in their criticism a little.




Such as?

Our squad was crippled by injuries and loanees leaving. I actually agree that we have dropped points I'd expected us to win this year without recouping them elsewhere, but we picked up a **** load of points in 2012 that I didn't expect so it's swings and roundabouts.







We don't have the budget to compete with the 6 richest clubs in this division so we don't have any sort of god given right to be in the playoffs, regardless of how good we were early on. And just because Yeovil have managed to greatly exceed expectations doesn't mean everyone can. We've outperformed almost every club in this division in terms of success relative to money spent. You need to get a sense of perspective.

SonkORLY?, wind your neck in a bit, mate. Recently, Ronnie has set the side up with two big men up front but when the rest of the team have been hoofing it up, he hasn't changed it either by removing one of the two target-men or the players responsible for the aimless punt upfield. I agree that there's not a great deal of difference between playing two up front and 1 with the other in the hole behind. Particularly with Sidibe, there were ample knock-downs and holding the ball up, which the likes of O'Halloran/Bell-Baggie might exploit with their pace. I don't think this is reactionary and enough people have suggested it for it to amount to tactical common sense.

As an aside, what if Ben Burgess hadn't thrown in the towel and we'd not got Cassidy back for the first half of the season? It could have been worse...

Regardless of funding, this is a very weak L1. Sheffield United looked very ordinary and they are one of the money bags sides. Doncaster, Yeovil and Brentford haven't looked that much better than us. Walsall, with a smaller budget than ours are near level with us. I find it incredibly frustrating that we sem to have blown a chance of going up, which may not come again anytime soon.
 
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SonkORLY?, wind your neck in a bit, mate. Recently, Ronnie has set the side up with two big men up front but when the rest of the team have been hoofing it up, he hasn't changed it either by removing one of the two target-men or the players responsible for the aimless punt upfield.

As an aside, what if Ben Burgess hadn't thrown in the towel and we'd not got Cassidy back for the first half of the season? It could have been worse...

Regardless of funding, this is a very weak L1. Sheffield United looked very ordinary and they are one of the money bags sides. Doncaster, Yeovil and Brentford haven't looked that much better than us. Walsall, with a smaller budget than ours are near level with us. I find it incredibly frustrating that we sem to have blown a chance of going up, which may not come again anytime soon.

I am not sure who the second big man up front you refer to is, as Sidibe generally started with Akpro who is 5' 7''.

I agree completely with Sonkorly that the increased use of the long ball was indicative of a lack of confidence, with players going for the easy option rather than playing through midfield, rather than being something that was encouraged by the manager. I can remember numerous games, including Sheff Utd, where Ronnie berated the players for playing too long and 'giving the opposing centre halves a headache'. Sidibe was by far the most capable and experienced striker available to us, so we realy did not have the option of dropping him and playing Amoo / O'Halloran, as neither of those two had performed at the level we needed.

Your comment regarding Ben Burgess seems a little unfair. Rather than credit the manager for bringing in Cassidy and playing a style of football that had us top of the league for six months, you criticise him for signing a player who never started a game for us.

Whether Sheff Utd, Doncaster and Brentford looked spectacular when they played us is not the point; they have got massively bigger squads to cope with injuries and players losing form than we have.

There are three teams in the top 8 with low budgets. We are second of those three teams. Just because it is possible, in an exceptional season, for a low budget club to reach the play offs does not mean it should be expected, or that finishing 7th is not an achievement for those clubs.

Incidentally, Walsall had a dire run of form in mid-season of 15 games wihout a win, which just shows how difficult it is to achieve consistency when you don't have money. I don't see Dean Smith receiving too much criticism at the moment; the fact that their wins came at the end of the season and ours came at the start is irrelevant.
 

DIW

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I think it is clear that we have over achieved, and credit must go to Ronnie for putting together such a competitive squad at the start of the season.

What is worrying is not just the drop off in form, as I don't think any of us really thought we could sustain a top two place all season, but the sheer level of it. At one point I was 100% we would get a play off place. We have taken 10 points from the last possible 42 - that's very very poor form and Ronnie for whatever reason has been unable to stem the tide.

It's true that we have been so bloody unlucky with injuries etc this season, we really have been screwed. In particular the one player we couldn't afford to lose for any length of time was James Wallace - without a doubt our best player - and look what happened.

It's been a sickener, and the last few games will be depressing especially the Bournemouth game (they have sold out their allocation) where we will be subject to 90 minutes of 'top of the league and you ****ed it up' chants. Hopefully we can regroup in the summer, keep the best of the squad and get a couple of decent players and have another tilt at the playoffs.

I think it's important that we look at the season as a success and a huge improvement on the previous three as oppose to the numbing disappointment it feels like at the moment.
 

bigmart

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sonkorly, you laughed when i said we would end up with 72 points and now that looks very optimistic you also said it mattered we were top at new year yet it hasnt.

The 3 loan signings we had at the start of the season have been very good but the rest have been of poor quality. Daniels wasnt very good we should have stuck with Goodison, Corry made no contribution im sure Harrison could have been the same.

The decision to hoof the ball upfield to a target man is down to Ronnie and not the players losing confidence.
 
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sonkorly, you laughed when i said we would end up with 72 points and now that looks very optimistic you also said it mattered we were top at new year yet it hasnt.

The 3 loan signings we had at the start of the season have been very good but the rest have been of poor quality. Daniels wasnt very good we should have stuck with Goodison, Corry made no contribution im sure Harrison could have been the same.

The decision to hoof the ball upfield to a target man is down to Ronnie and not the players losing confidence.

I am not sure why you are so disappointed then, if you anticipated that the second half of the season was going to be much tougher than the first. It clearly mattered that we won lot of points early on: if we had not, we would be in the bottom half of the table now, whereas in reality we have been in contention for promotion until the last couple of weeks of the season.

It was always going to be easier to bring in good quality loans in the summer than during the season, when most of the good players have already been taken and clubs are reluctant to let anyone else go out as injuries and suspensions kick in.

As has been pointed out, if we had not relied on loans we would not have been able to afford the wages of Robinson and Wallace. What alternative approach are you suggesting ? We get rid of those two, send back the loanees and bring in four or five players of average ability at this level ? Do you seriously think we would be challenging for promotion if that was the scenario ? We have a £1.5 million budget, reportedly the second lowest in the division, so it is truly remarkable that we got anywhere near the promotion places.

Sidibe only played in seven games: we won two of those. Our downturn did not start in February, it started about 20 games ago, as you yourself have pointed out, so how can our problems have been principally caused by Sidibe's presence and a supposed reversion to hoofball ?
 

WildRover

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If we arent going to be challenging, then we really do need to improve in the cups, a JPT win for example would be good, but we dont seem arsed about it...
 
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